23. Declan
DECLAN
I'm downtown in a meeting, going over shipment manifests when my phone buzzes, with Finn's name on the screen. I answer without looking up from the paperwork. "Yeah."
"She's not here." His voice is tight, the way it gets when something's wrong and he's trying not to panic. "Elena. She's gone."
My pen stops moving. "What do you mean, gone?"
"I mean she's not in the penthouse. I've checked every room. Twice."
I'm already standing, the chair scraping back hard enough to hit the wall. "When did you last see her?"
"This morning around nine. She was in the living room reading." A pause. "Declan, the front door was locked from the inside. All the windows are secure. But she's not here."
My mind races through possibilities. She couldn't have left through the front—my men are stationed in the lobby. The windows don't open on the upper floors. Which means—
"Service entrance," I say. "Check the logs. See if anyone came up today."
"On it."
I'm already grabbing my jacket and my gun. The elevator ride down feels like it takes hours instead of seconds. My heart pounds against my ribs, a sick feeling spreading through my chest. She ran.
Of course she ran. I locked her up like a prisoner, refused to listen to her explanations, treated her like the enemy. What the fuck did I expect, even if she did deserve it? But where would she go?
My teeth are clenched the entire ride home. The lobby is quiet when I get to my building. Two of my men straighten when they see me, reading the tension in my body. "Boss?"
"Elena left the building. I want to know how and when. Pull security footage. Now." They move immediately, one heading for the security office while the other pulls out his phone. I pace while I wait, my hands clenched into fists.
She could be anywhere. The city is massive, and she has money and connections, places she could hide. But she wouldn't just run without a plan. Elena doesn't do anything without thinking it through first. So where would she go?
My phone buzzes. It’s Finn. "Maintenance service came up at ten-thirty this morning," he says. "Building manager confirmed it was scheduled. HVAC inspection."
"Did they leave with anyone?"
"Working on it. I'm pulling street-camera footage now."
I close my eyes and think. If she used the maintenance visit to slip out, she would have gone down the service elevator. Out the back entrance. From there—
"Focus on the alley behind the building," I tell Finn. "She would have called a car. Rideshare, probably. Something that wouldn't be traced back to her family. And track her phone."
"Got it."
The line goes dead. I stand in the middle of my lobby, surrounded by marble and glass and all the trappings of power, and feel completely fucking helpless.
She's out there somewhere. Alone, and vulnerable. Or she's with her family, and this was the plan all along. The thought makes my stomach turn, but I can't ignore it. I can't pretend she didn't stand over me with a gun three nights ago.
My phone goes off a little while later.
Finn: Can't track the phone. Wherever she is, it must have been destroyed.
My phone buzzes again a second later. This time it's a text from Finn with a screenshot attached—security footage from a camera across the street. The timestamp reads 10:47 AM.
Elena climbing into the back of a silver sedan. The license plate is visible.
I forward the image to three of my best men with a single instruction: Find this car. Find the driver. Bring him to the warehouse. Then I get in my own car and drive.
—
The warehouse is one of several properties I inherited from Lachlan—places that exist off the books where business can be conducted without witnesses.
The driver is already there when I arrive, zip-tied to a chair in the middle of the concrete floor.
He's young, maybe twenty-five, and he looks like he's never been in real trouble before.
He's about to learn what trouble looks like.
"Mr. Murphy." One of my newer men steps forward. "Found him at a coffee shop in Wicker Park. Wasn't hard to convince him to come with us."
I look at the driver. He's sweating, his eyes wide and darting between me and the three armed men standing around him. "What's your name?" I ask.
"J-Jason. Jason Miller." His voice shakes. "Look, man, I don't know what this is about, but I'm just a driver. I pick people up, I drop them off. That's it."
"You picked up a woman this morning, around ten-forty-five. From an alley.”
His face goes pale. "I—yeah. Yeah, I did. But she was just a fare. I didn't—"
"Where did you take her?"
He swallows hard. "I can't… the app has privacy rules. I'm not supposed to—"
I pull my gun and press it against his kneecap. "Where. Did. You. Take. Her?"
"Jesus Christ!" He's shaking now, tears streaming down his face. "Okay! Okay! I took her to this big estate on the lake. She told me to drop her at the gate. He rattles off part of the address, his mouth shaking, but I already know where she went.
The Capetti estate.
I lower the gun but don't holster it. "Did she say anything? Make any calls?"
"No. Nothing. She just sat in the back and stared out the window. Looked like she'd been crying." He's babbling now, desperate to give me what I want. "When we got there, she thanked me and got out. That's it. I swear."
I believe him. He's too terrified to lie. "Let him go," I tell Cormac. "Give him five hundred dollars and tell him to forget this happened."
"Boss—"
"Do it."
I'm already walking back to my car, my mind racing. Elena went to her father. Either she's working with him, or she went to confront him. Either way, she's there now. And I have no fucking idea what to do about it.
—
Lachlan is waiting at my penthouse when I get back. He's sitting in my living room like he owns the place, a glass of my whiskey in his hand, looking completely at ease. "Declan." He stands when I walk in. "We need to talk."
"Not now." I head straight for my office, but he follows.
"Yes, now." His voice is firm. "Sit down."
"Lachlan—"
"Sit down, Declan."
I sit. Not because he told me to, but because my legs suddenly feel unsteady.
Lachlan closes the office door and leans against it, arms crossed. "Elena's gone," he says. It's not a question.
"How did you—"
"Finn called me. He's worried about you." Lachlan's eyes are steady on mine. "So am I."
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You're about to do something stupid." He moves to the chair across from my desk and sits. "So before you do, I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to answer honestly."
I don't respond.
"Do you love her?"
I feel like the air leaves my lungs. I open my mouth to deny it, to say something dismissive, but the words won't come. Because the answer is yes.
Yes, I love her.
I love the way she stood up to me from the beginning, refusing to be intimidated.
I love her sharp tongue and her sharper mind.
I love the vulnerability she showed me after the warehouse attack, the way she let me see her fear and let me show her mine.
I love the way she feels in my arms, the sounds she makes when I touch her, the way she looks at me like I'm something more than just an upstart trying to prove himself.
I love her.
And she betrayed me.
"Yeah," I say finally, my voice rough. "I love her."
Lachlan nods like he expected that answer.
"Then you need to listen to me very carefully." He leans forward, his elbows on his knees, his expression serious. “I understand love. You know I do. But I’ve done some stupid things because of it, and I want you to be sure you aren’t going to do the same. You need to think about how you’re going to do this before you go storming wherever she is.
She’s probably back at the Capettis, right? ”
I frown at him, and he shrugs. “I did this for ten years, Declan.”
“Do you have any idea why she’d leave? Or did they take her back?”
My shoulders sagging, I fill him in on the rest. To his credit, Lachlan doesn’t look shocked when I tell him what Elena did. In fact, he doesn’t even look upset.
“You look like you think I should have forgiven her.” I stare at him, and he sighs.
"Family can make you do terrible things, Declan. They can force you into corners where there are no good options. Where every choice is a betrayal of someone you love. I saw what Adriana’s family did to her, the way they twisted her head.
It wasn’t easy getting past all of that.
They can fuck you up. Elena lived her whole life with them, and she’s been with you for what…
a couple of months? Declan, that’s not enough time to undo everything they’ve done to her head over the years. "
I think about Elena standing over me with that gun. "She tried to kill me.”
"Did she?" Lachlan raises an eyebrow. "Or did she stand there with a gun in her hand, unable to pull the trigger, until you woke up?"
I don't answer. The truth is, I don’t know. But she got far enough to have it in her hand, pointed at me, and right up until this second, that was enough.
"You told me once that you wanted to do things differently," Lachlan says.
"That you wanted to build something based on respect and partnership, not fear and violence.
So here's your chance. Elena made a choice—maybe the wrong choice, maybe the only choice she thought she had. But she didn't go through with it."
He stands, moving toward the door. "If you love her, you give her a chance to explain. After you save her. But bring all your men with you, because you’re going to need them.
I can’t go with you, or I would. Adriana would have my head on a plate.
But you’re going to need all the firepower you have. And you don’t have much time.”
I look up sharply. "She went to her father. She's fine until I—"
"She's probably exactly where he wants her." Lachlan's expression hardens. "You think Enzo Capetti is going to let his daughter walk away after she failed to kill you? You think he's going to forgive her for falling in love with the man she was supposed to murder?"