CHAPTER 88 - RED
CHAPTER
Red
“ I T’S SOMEWHERE ALONG HERE,” Cal shouts from the back of the double-cab van.
I scour the road, my knuckles white. It’s a good job Oscar is driving as I don’t think I could keep my foot straight on the accelerator. My whole body throbs with adrenaline and rage.
I pull my hands through my hair, determined not to throw myself from the van and sprint along the path until I find Arianna. “Where’s the signal now?” I bark, grateful I followed my instinct to install a tracking app on the phone I handed to Arianna.
That it was initially installed on there to keep tabs on her in the event she took it upon herself to attempt another escape is irrelevant. After last night and this morning, I don’t believe it’s necessary, but it’s doing a far more important job now.
Little did I know then that Arianna would end up not wanting to escape, and me never wanting her to leave my side.
Life works in mysterious ways.
But now, with the wisp of a different facet to my life on the horizon, this happens.
My fingernails dig into my palms. Arianna disappearing the first time and being attacked by that Farrow bastard was bad enough, but for her to be snatched from under my nose is worse.
Even more hideous is that this second disappearance - one Arianna hasn’t chosen of her own volition - could be to finish what was started.
My theory that Joe Farrow was working for Bristoni slides back into my mind. Maybe he was working for Galvatore and Bristoni?
But would Emiliano Galvatore seriously order the rape of his own daughter?
The thought of anything close to that succeeding this time around congeals in my veins, but I’m no use to Arianna if I lose the plot. To keep my brain from melting, I glance over my shoulder at Del and frown, seeing him busy with his phone. “Who are you texting?”
Shoving his phone back in his pocket, Del’s eyes dart to mine. “I was checking the local news to see if anything’s been mentioned.”
Liam snorts. “They’re hardly likely to announce on the local radio that the new wife of a local gangster gets in the wrong car after a hoax bomb threat, are they!”
“It’s here! Right here !” Cal interrupts.
Oscar veers over to the side of the road and yanks on the handbrake.
Craning my neck to see up and down the road, I jump from the van.
Arianna won’t stand on the pavement on the off chance I turn up, but she’ll know I’m looking for her.
She knows I won’t let her down. And I won’t .
“Check the parked cars! Check everything!” I bark.
Hot on my tail, the others jump from the van as I sprint up the road, my eyes darting from left to right. Catching up with me, Del matches my frantic pace. “I’ll kill them. All of them,” I growl, sweat pouring down my brow. “Galvatores and Bristonis alike!”
“You won’t succeed in killing anyone in this state, mate!” Del says calmly. “Let’s just find the girl first.”
“I fully intend to,” I mutter, glancing inside another car at the side of the road.
If Arianna is concealed in a car boot, tied up or drugged, I won’t know because there won’t be anything to alert me to her presence.
“ARIANNA!” I bellow, garnering the curious stares of several passers-by. I’ll fucking kill them too if they impede me.
I scan the road. One side holds a towpath and the other, a line of terraced houses. Is she being held hostage in a house? Or...
My eyes move unwillingly in the direction of the canal behind the hedge.
“RED!” Cal yells. “There’s maximum signal here! But it’s stationary...”
Heart racing, I spin on my heels and double back to where Cal stands, his phone held up monitoring different angles. “Where exactly?”
I must calm down. I need to be methodical and do this logically. But there’s nothing in my mind right now that is methodical or logical. I just want the woman I love back, and don’t want to think too deeply about why the signal isn’t moving.
Oscar disappears into the thorny hedge lining the towpath. If Arianna is lying there, dead - thrown away like rubbish left to rot...
“IN HERE!”
Lurching forward, I barrel into the hedge after Oscar, ignoring the sharp thorns scratching my hands and face. Pushing my way out through the other side of the bushes, I brace myself for the worst, but there’s just Oscar.
And the phone: the screen is smashed, but it’s her phone. However, there is no sign of Arianna.
“Fuck!” I sink to my knees on the concrete path. Without her phone, there’s no way of locating her - she could be anywhere.
Except...
Aware my men are standing watching my very public meltdown, I take a deep breath and slowly raise my head. “We’ll go straight to the organ grinders,” I snarl, jumping to my feet. “The Bristonis first.”
I just hope I’m not too late.