Chapter Fifty-Nine
Gualtiero
I’m sitting in my hotel room in Lugano, curtains drawn tight, lights off. I want it dark. It fits my mood.
I press the whiskey glass I’m holding against my forehead, feeling the cold bite into my skin.
I stare into the darkness, jaw tight, tapping my finger against the rim of the glass. Once. Twice. A steady rhythm meant to keep me grounded.
It doesn’t work.
The city outside is deceptively peaceful. Lake water laps against stone. Tourists drink wine and pretend nothing ugly ever happens in places like this.
With no trace of Ella after she disappeared again two days ago, I’ve narrowed my focus to the one man who poses a real threat to her.
Mateo and I made a small adjustment to our original plan to draw Molinaro out of hiding. Nothing obvious. Nothing that would scream trap. Just enough to catch his attention.
A name surfaced in the right channels. Someone valuable in cyberspace. He’s the kind of asset men like us don’t ignore.
Uberto seeded the trail exactly as instructed with internal chatter, controlled leaks, and the suggestion that I was moving to secure the man for myself. Only Mateo, Santino, and Uberto know the truth.
Molinaro took the bait.
He believes I’m distracted, chasing Ella across Switzerland, and thinks it’s safe to leave his hideout and move in to claim the prize. Predictable.
Only Santino and I came to Lugano. Waiting. Watching.
And we almost had him this morning. Almost.
Molinaro, of course, wasn’t alone. He’s too soft these days to defend himself. His standard protocol was in place. Three vehicles in a tight formation. Molinaro in the middle, insulated.
We orchestrated his destination, a lone wooden cabin in the forest, and he followed all the clues.
Santino placed a directional charge on the quiet road leading up to it. He detonated it as the first car closed in, killing everyone inside and sending it veering across the road, blocking the route ahead.
At the same time, I took the rear vehicle out of play, a single shot from a shoulder-fired launcher taking out the rear axle and sending the car skidding sideways. As the doors flew open, Santino eliminated anyone inside before they could get a shot off.
The middle car was now trapped and exactly where we wanted it.
I could have ended it there. One clean hit with the launcher and it would have been over.
But Molinaro doesn’t deserve a quick death. Not after everything he’s taken from our family.
Then an unscheduled log truck came around the bend, the driver reacting to the wreck ahead a second too late. The impact shoved the wreckage aside just enough to open a gap, undoing our carefully laid trap.
Molinaro’s driver floored it. Santino and I unleashed all the firepower we had left, but it wasn’t enough to stop the car.
Molinaro got lucky. We would have needed the helicopter to follow him.
It’s here now. I had Mateo bring it, along with more men.
With Molinaro on the move, we need reinforcements for the hunt. Though it comes with risk. The mole will tip him off again.
It doesn’t matter. I’ll chase Molinaro to the ends of the earth and finish this.
I lift the glass I’m still holding and down the whiskey. It’s top-shelf, rare, but wasted on me. It might as well be water.
Frustration claws at me. Not just about Molinaro, but mostly Ella’s disappearance.
She was so close the other day. I could feel her.
That familiar pull, that hum under my skin that never lies, flared and then vanished. Like someone cut a wire mid-current.
How did she manage to evade us yet again?
I left Mauro and Sergio in Lucerne with their teams. They’re searching the city inch by inch for clues.
Mauro found the bed-and-breakfast she stayed at after getting off the train. The owners remembered her well. She told them her luggage was stolen, along with her passport and wallet. But she did have cash.
She checked out in the morning, and then… nothing.
That’s where her trail ends.
Even Uberto has come up empty. He’s not found any additional visuals past the train station.
Ella didn’t just slip through the cracks. She vanished.
How is one girl staying a step ahead of an entire army looking for her?
Is she getting help? From whom?
We’ve been keeping a closer eye than usual on Rhia Bannighan, but everything there seems normal.
Still, I ask Uberto to look closer into her boyfriend’s activities. With Alexander Dougal’s special forces training, he’d be the perfect person to help my angel get away from me.
For now, though, it appears Ella is simply getting lucky. Just like Molinaro.
But we will find a lead. We have to.
If I stop believing that, something inside me will snap.
Perhaps she ran to a remote alpine region, somewhere with small villages and no digital footprint. The kind of place where time moves slower and strangers aren’t questioned.
Finding her there would take weeks.
I don’t have weeks.
I push up from the chair abruptly and start pacing, the room suddenly too small, too quiet. My hand slides to the back of my neck, fingers digging into tense muscle as if I can physically pull the pressure out of my body.
I’ve waited years for Ella to come into my life.
A lifetime, really.
I built everything else around the certainty that once she was here, things would finally fall into place.
Yet, I lost her in the first month.
I know I fucked up.
But how did I fuck up this badly?
My hotel room door opens, and Mateo steps inside, his face drawn tight.
“Why are you standing in the dark?” he asks, reaching for the lamp beside the sofa.
The light flicks on, and I have to resist the urge to smash it and plunge the room back into darkness.
“What’s new?” I say instead, ignoring his question.
Mateo exhales through his nose. “Man, when it rains, it pours.”
My jaw clenches. “What now?”
He reaches into his jacket and pulls out an envelope. He hands it to me without meeting my eyes.
I open it. Photographs slide into my palm.
The room narrows. The air thickens. My vision tunnels until there’s nothing left but glossy paper and the sickening certainty settling in my gut.
Before I realize I’m moving, I hurl the empty whiskey glass in my hand across the room.
It explodes against the wall, shards skittering across the floor like shrapnel.
Mateo doesn’t flinch.
My pulse thunders in my ears as I stare down at the photos again, fingers curling so hard the edges bite into my skin.
“That fucking cunt,” I snarl. “Where is he now?”
“Dead,” Mateo says evenly. “As are the three men with him.”
“What?” I snap, eyes still locked on the images.
They show Mauro, one of my most trusted capos, standing with Molinaro. The shot is grainy, taken in poor light, but there’s no mistaking either of them. The sight makes something hot and vicious coil through my chest.
“When and where was this taken?”
“A small village between here and Lucerne. Yesterday.”
“Who took the pictures?”
“Antonio. Mauro said something on the phone that didn’t sit right with him. He followed Mauro’s coordinates with a few men to see what he was up to. Found him meeting Molinaro. Antonio let it play out, wanted proof, and to see how deep it went. Then he went to confront Mauro at his hotel.”
“And?”
Mateo’s expression hardens. “Everybody was dead when they got there.”
My hands clench into fists. “Antonio didn’t follow protocol. He should have told us immediately that he was going after him.”
“He claims there was no time.”
“Bullshit.” My voice is low, dangerous. “The rules are clear. He’s not telling us everything. Bring him in for questioning and—”
“Go easy on him,” Mateo cuts in. “He found the mole. He wants credit. You know he’s angling for consigliere once Emiliano retires.”
I drag a hand through my hair, fury simmering just below the surface.
“The mole is eliminated,” Mateo continues. “That’s what matters. Mauro deserved worse for betraying us. We need to bring in his family. De Marco law needs to be carried out.”
I nod in agreement, and he pulls out his phone to make the necessary calls.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I left Mauro in Lucerne to find Ella.
If he were working for Molinaro, every scrap of information he gathered would have gone straight to him. No wonder he had nothing useful to report.
I want to kill him all over again.
Thank fuck Santino already vetted and cleared Sergio.
“Tell Sergio to keep digging in Lucerne,” I say tightly. “In the meantime, let’s get Molinaro. With Ella missing, I’m not taking any chances.”
Mateo nods.
“And Antonio’s breach of confidence isn’t forgotten,” I add. “He knows the consequences of disobedience better than anyone.”
“There’s more,” Mateo says.
“What?” I snap as I reach for a new glass and pour another whiskey.
Too many questions are firing at once.
Mauro was inner circle. Privy to sensitive information. How much did he pass on before he was eliminated?
And how do we know he was the only one? With him dead, there won’t be any answers.
Molinaro got what he wanted if Mauro outlived his usefulness.
Ella’s face surfaces in my mind.
Angel, where the hell are you?
As if hearing my thoughts, Mateo says, “There’s a credible lead on Ella.”
That cuts through everything.
I turn to Mateo. “Why the hell didn’t you start with that?”
“Because it might lead to another dead end.”
“Or it might not. Talk.”
“A waitress at a cafe remembers her. Ella seemed on edge. Asked where she could find a taxi.”
“Have we checked the taxi companies?”
“Already done. There’s no record matching her description.”
“Shit.” I drain half my glass. “Any video footage?”
“No. The cafe doesn’t have cameras.”
My phone buzzes in my hand. Uberto’s name flashes across the screen.
Good. My men sleep as little as I do.
“Yes,” I bark.
“Your hunch was right,” Uberto says. “Alexander Dougal’s new company is looking for Ella.
We hacked their system and found a string of messages.
Rhia believes the person she’s communicating with isn’t Ella.
Through Dougal, she’s hired Freemont Security to find her friend.
They know you took Ella, but they believe she fled.
They’re trying to locate her before you do. ”
Fuck.
Freemont complicates things. But it could also work in my favor. If they find a lead, I’ll be right behind them.
And even if they don’t, Ella will reach out to Rhia eventually. Those two are inseparable. The only reason she hasn’t already is because she knows I’m monitoring her friend.
“We know where Ella is,” Uberto says, cutting through my thoughts.
I still.
The relief in his voice is unmistakable. I’ve been riding him hard, and he knows what this means to me.
I close my eyes and draw in a slow breath.
“Where?”
“Austria.”