28. Dario
DARIO
I dream about Liana, about her screaming at me, screaming that she hates me, and I wake with a start.
It’s only been three hours since I laid down. Rocco’s still passed out in one of my guest rooms, and Giovanni disappeared after he dropped me off.
My phone buzzes in my pocket and I pick it up.
“Hello?”
“Boss. Problem.”
“Spit it out, Giovanni.”
“Liana’s car hasn’t moved. Do you want me to go in?”
“What do you mean it hasn’t moved?”
I snap upright, standing up, not bothering to change my clothes.
“It... hasn’t moved,” Giovanni says quietly. “I’m going in to check.”
“Keep me on the phone.”
Over the line, Giovanni walks down the hotel hallway. I can hear his footsteps. He knocks softly on the door.
“Liana? Boss sent me. Just wants to know you’re okay.”
She doesn’t answer.
“Break open the door,” I order, and I hear the wood cracking as he does.
“Nothing,” he says through the phone, and my jaw goes tight.
“I’ll be there in ten.”
“Boss—”
“Stay there. Don’t move.”
I follow the app on my phone and make my way downtown to the hotel room. It’s not a nice one, but not one in the worst part of town, either.
I pull up next to her car, walking around it after I get out of the car. There’s nothing out of the ordinary. She still lives most of her life in that car, despite having a place to stay with me, and there are still bags of clothes in there.
But that’s not unusual. I make my way up the stairs, meeting Giovanni in the hallway.
“No sign of a struggle?”
“Not really. Looks like she just packed up and left. But her car is still here.”
I shake my head. “She wouldn’t leave without her car.”
My phone buzzes, finally coming off do not disturb. I'd had it on while I was sleeping. I always let calls come through anyway, but not texts and notifications.
I look down at it, half-annoyed, thinking it’s Rocco or something stupid.
Instead, it’s a text from Liana: help.
From three hours ago.
“Fuck!” I curse, and Giovanni’s eyes snap to mine.
I show him the phone.
“It’s Beth,” I say quickly. “It has to be. Check her place.”
“Let’s go.”
We hurry into his car and Giovanni takes off, making it to Beth’s place twenty minutes away in about ten minutes.
I only knock on the door three times before I curse and break it down with my foot, kicking the deadbolt open.
I burst into the house with my gun drawn, and look around, finding nothing. No one. Beth’s things are gone, the walls bare, the only thing left her furniture.
I stalk to her room, and all her clothes are gone. Everything.
“She took her,” I say through gritted teeth. “I fucking knew it.”
This is my fault. If I hadn’t gone out drinking last night like a fucking teenager who got his heart broken, if I hadn’t been sleeping it off when she texted me...
“Don,” Giovanni calls. “Keep it together, yeah? We’ll find her.”
But we don’t. We don’t find her at any of the three places I can think of to look for them: Beth’s father’s house, which is empty since he passed, looking more like a storage area than a home. Then Beth’s old apartment, one she shared with Liana. Nothing.
There’s only one more place that she might be, and it’s a long shot.
“What are you thinking, boss?”
“There’s one more place. This property Beth’s dad used to own. He built Beth and Liana a playhouse there, with electricity... maybe... maybe she’d go there?”
“Where is it?”
I groan. “An hour out of town. Near the bay.”
“Let’s go now. Hurry.”
We hurry back into the car, and Giovanni lets me drive since I know the way to Beth’s playhouse.
I take off, running every red light, just praying that we make it there in time.