24. Renzo
“ G iulia?” I called out as I searched the house. This place was large, designed for hosting large parties and accommodating big groups of guests at once.
I didn’t know why she’d wander or give herself a tour. I didn’t care if she did. This woman was already sneaking into my heart, so it seemed backward to give a shit if she felt nosy and wanted to snoop around.
The further I went through the house, my suspicions grew. No alarms had been set off. I’d made sure to keep the security system on because no guards were around to offer backup. I wouldn’t be so stupid with her safety.
Yet, it seemed like someone had gotten in. Not only that, but they’d done so with access to deactivating and resetting the alarm system.
“What the fuck?” I muttered to myself. Her earring remained in my pocket. As soon as I saw the bed empty and found her piece of jewelry, I got dressed and set out to find her. This little piece of shiny metal seemed to be all that was left of her. Like she’d vanished into thin air.
“Where the fuck are you?” I whispered to the empty and silent house.
If she hadn’t tried to leave on her own, intimidated by the depth of my feelings for her, or vice versa, then someone had to have come here and grabbed her.
Precisely to avoid my interference.
And with caution to avoid tripping the advanced security system this place was rigged with.
As I considered the infuriating idea that someone could have been watching us, spying on us to know that I’d taken that call outside with Dean, I let my anger build up. The need to destroy something filled me, so when the sounds of the alarm panel being engaged reached my ears, I stormed over there with my gun in hand.
I wrenched the door open, cutting off the guard who was inputting the numbers. On the stoop stood Giovanni. He raised his brows at me, expectant as ever, and finished his call. Always on the phone. Always in action somewhere and somehow as the remote leader of us all.
He stepped in, and I narrowed my eyes at his stern, almost annoyed expression.
“Yes. That will work. I’ll call you back shortly.” He lowered the device as he stepped inside the foyer, glancing around the space. I didn’t get the impression he was searching for something. More so, he seemed to stall in confronting me.
“What the hell are you doing here?” He had come here for a reason. The man was too busy to make a three-hour-long drive for the hell of it.
The timing of his arrival set me on edge. He’d arrived just after I discovered Giulia missing. While it helped that she wasn’t here, I didn’t want her gone from my side. Sooner or later, I’d need to begin taking the steps to make him aware that Giulia would be with me, but that wasn’t today.
“I came to speak with you.”
I shook my head. “How the fuck did you know where I was?” Once the words flew out of my mouth, I growled and held up my hand to stop him from replying. “Never mind.” It wouldn’t be hard to track me. All the vehicles could be traced. He hadn’t been happy with my explanation that I was leaving the city, and I bet as soon as I’d given him a proverbial fuck-you of leaving town against his wishes, he’d tracked my route.
“You are not to mix with that woman.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What woman?”
“Don’t play stupid with me,” he warned, lowering his voice and sounding more sinister. “You know who I’m fucking talking about.”
I set my gun down and crossed my arms. “Enlighten me.”
He stalked over, but I didn’t flinch at his hurried approach. It would take a lot more to intimidate me than my father scowling and rushing toward me with anger.
“I don’t have to enlighten you, you spoiled punk.”
“I thought I was supposed to be second in command now,” I retorted.
“Then act like it!”
I shook my head, biting my lip as I realized he had to have caused Giulia to be absent from here. You’ll pay for that, you motherfucker.
“How am I not acting like it? I don’t hover over the capos like Luka did. I’m not a control freak. And shit still gets done. Maybe the men and soldiers in the organization will appreciate the respect and have a higher morale.”
“Fuck morale. They’ll do what we say, and that’s the end of it.”
“What the hell is this? You drove all this way to bitch at me about my supervision methods?” With a fleeting, tempting thought, I borrowed a page from Giulia’s book. The lure of running away and forfeiting my role in this Mafia Family had never appealed more than it did at this moment.
“You want to act like a second in command, you should be focused on finding your brother’s killer. I told you to avenge him!”
“I am!” I roared it, not caring how much he’d perceive this as the ultimate sign of disrespect. “I fucking am.”
“Oh, you are, huh?” He sneered, looking away as he walked back a bit, like needing to shake off his frustration. “You’re looking for Luka’s killer while you’re shacking up here with Giulia Acardi. The stress of the job is already getting to you so much that you need to take a little vacation with the daughter of our enemies.”
I ground my teeth, fighting back the urge to punch his smug face. “Fuck you. I’m not.”
“You’re not fucking that woman?” He grunted. “Not what I heard. Not what the witnesses said. The Greeks burned down half the fucking road chasing you when you were so pussy whipped and distracted that you didn’t pay attention to whose territory you drove through. Imagine my goddamn surprise when reports came in that you were taking Giulia Acardi out of town with you.”
“It’s none of your business who I sleep with.”
“Yes, it fucking is!” Hands fisted, he came close again as though he struggled with the same desire to punch hard. “It is my fucking business when you choose her . Of all the easy pussy on the earth, you have to fall for her bullshit?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He smirked. It was such a wicked, maniacal expression that he looked unhinged. “I don’t?” Shaking his head, he looked away again and muttered under his breath. “I know more than you. I know, without a doubt, that you cannot mix with that woman. Giulia is off-limits.”
“Fuck you.”
“No. Fuck you, you dumbass. She’s bad news.”
I narrowed my eyes, getting angrier by the minute as he badmouthed the woman I wanted to make my wife. “You don’t know her. You know nothing about Giulia.”
“I know enough to assume.” He pointed at me, his face taut and lined with fury. “I know her mother. And I know that Isabella Acardi is bad news.”
“Giulia isn’t like her.”
He chuckled darkly. “She isn’t like her? How stupid can you be to ever think that Giulia isn’t just an extension of her?”
“Giulia is not Isabella’s pawn. She hates her.”
He snorted another angry laugh. “She actually led you to believe that? How goddamn stupid can you be? I expect you to act like my second in command, and you’re not going to do that when you’re so gullible to be conned by that bitch?—”
I punched him. Hard. Right in the side of his face.
In my peripheral vision, the guards stepped forward, tense and ready to act. But Giovanni halted them. As he staggered back, sliding his jaw from side to side and glaring at me with murderous intent, he lifted his hand to ward the guards back.
“You have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.” He fumed, glowering at me with such venomous hatred shining in his eyes. “You have no idea.”
“I don’t,” I agreed hotly. “So why don’t you tell me?” I was sick of wondering and guessing why a perfect woman like Giulia had to be so forbidden. Why she had to live with the label of being my enemy due to an old issue that set this rivalry in place.
“You don’t need to know everything. Not now. All you need to do is follow my orders. I told you to find your brother’s killer and seek justice. I told you to prepare for marrying Cecilia.”
I lost it. Chuckling turned into laughing, and I caught myself before it became hysterical. “Cecilia?”
He slitted his eyes, waiting out my laughter. He couldn’t be so stupid and dull as not to realize that I was laughing at him. Of all the things he could have said…
I shook my head, getting a grip on my knee-jerk reaction.
Marry Cecilia?
That wasn’t happening. It wouldn’t have been an option for me to follow through with even if she hadn’t been stabbed. My heart belonged to Giulia no matter what anyone said about it.
“You tracked me. You had to know exactly where I was,” I said as my dark amusement faded.
“What of it?” he demanded.
“You have to know I went to the Romanos’ villa.”
He tipped his chin up. “I did. The men saw the route you took. I wanted to assume those rumors about your having Giulia with you were false and that you were stopping in to check on your bride, since you’d found her.”
“She was never my bride,” I spat. “I never asked for her.”
“I asked on your behalf.”
This is stupid. It was pointless to argue about it now.
“Oh, yeah? Well, she’s dead.”
He froze, staring at me.
“Cecilia is dead. I found her stabbed at that place.”
“Dead?” He sobered quickly. His anger faded, seemingly replaced with something like concern.
Worry.
The news of Cecilia being dead alarmed him.
“You—” He glanced back at the guards, almost as if he were wishing for someone else to handle this situation for me. As though he didn’t know what to do with this news.
“You cannot. Don’t, Renzo. Stay away from that woman.” He turned to leave. “Stay away from the Acardis. You’ll never escape her wrath.”
“Giulia’s?” I followed after him, rushing after him as the guards hurried to the door to open it for him. Giulia had no wrath.
“Leave it alone,” he warned.
“Gio!” I grabbed for his arm, but he wrenched out of my reach. “What are you talking about?”
He strode outside, heading for the car he’d been driven here in.
“Gio!” I yelled it, furious with his riddles. “Where is she?”
No doubt remained in my mind. He had to know where she was. With the use of the security system here and the tracking on the car, he was likely the one who’d arranged for her to be kidnapped, right from under my nose. Other than attacking him again and tackling him to the ground to pound out answers with my fists, I had no options. I was clueless, suspended in the dark, with too many questions he wouldn’t answer.
The guards would outnumber me and side with their leader if I used violence against him. And that was a delay and obstacle I didn’t need to deal with when finding Giulia was my goal.
By the time I reached the last step of the path, running toward the drive, the doors were slammed shut and the car sped off.
I stared after them, breathing hard. I was livid, seething and growling with this live monster of anger burning up inside me.
I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about, but he had to know something about where she was.
Instead of fuming and doing nothing, I hurried toward my car and got in to speed back home.
I wouldn’t give up on Giulia. I would never.
If Giovanni wouldn’t tell me anything useful about where she might be, I’d need to look elsewhere.
I’d ask Dario. Isabella couldn’t be trusted. I didn’t need to hear that from Gio. I knew that she was shady.
Giulia had spoken highly of her uncle. I wasn’t sure I’d respect the man after knowing he’d sent his niece to spy at that club, but she seemed more open to listening to him than she was to hearing out anything her mother said.
I’d reach out to him. The spare Acardi brother. Once I grabbed my phone, I tasked Dean with tracking Giulia’s uncle. He had to be more trustworthy than Isabella.
As soon as I could meet with the man, I’d warn him of everything I’d learned. He deserved to know that the man Isabella arranged Giulia with might have done something no one would stand by. Nickolas could have slept with his own sister. And the Acardis wouldn’t want someone like that to be united to their Family. I’d tell Dario anything to get Giulia back.
“Fuck.” I rubbed my hand over my face and focused on speeding as much as I could.
This situation was turning worse by the minute.
I could only pray that Giulia was safe and doing all that she could to survive on her path back to me.