Chapter 23 Serena
Serena
The late morning sunlight streams through the tinted windows of the armored limo as we navigate through Boston’s traffic.
I might be heading to the mall for a mindless day of retail therapy, but my thoughts are still tangled in Brazil.
In the salty air and the turquoise water and the way Shelby looked at me when he asked me to marry him again.
For real this time.
Forty-eight hours ago, I was the happiest I’ve ever been. Swimming naked in the ocean with the man I love. Making plans for a future I never thought I’d have. Letting myself believe that maybe, just maybe, I could have it all.
Now I’m heading to Copley Place to pretend I’m a normal woman with normal problems, like whether to buy the red Louboutins or the black ones.
Marcus catches my eye in the rearview mirror. “Traffic's backed up near the Common, Mrs. Boyle. I'll take the side streets.”
The title still sends a thrill through me. Mrs. Boyle. Shelby’s wife. Not just on paper anymore, but in every sense that matters. His. Just like he’s mine.
“Thanks, Marcus.”
He nods and turns onto a quieter street.
This is my life now. Armored cars and professional drivers, and the constant awareness that danger lurks around every corner.
I should be used to it after twenty-five years as Giovanni DiLorenzo’s daughter, but somehow the stakes feel higher now.
Now that I’m poking around in very dangerous people’s businesses.
And now that I have something real to lose.
Now that I have Shelby.
The car slows as we approach an intersection.
The fine hair at the back of my neck stands on end.
Something’s off. I glance around. There is only one vehicle on the one-way street we’re on.
About sixty yards ahead of us, a black SUV is parked.
It makes a U-turn, burning its tires, and accelerates towards us.
Marcus’s shoulders stiffen. “No worries, Mrs. Boyle. I’m going to—”
The rest of his words are swallowed by the screech of tires behind us. I whip around to see another SUV blocking our retreat. We’re boxed in.
“I’ll get us out of here!” Marcus shouts, gripping the steering wheel to evade the attackers.
I brace myself, digging my nails into the soft leather of the headrests.
He manages to turn the town car to the left.
Seconds later, the SUV that was barreling towards us hits the right side of the limo.
The violent T-bone collision triggers the side and front airbags.
Marcus's head snaps sideways, then lolls forward, his forehead resting on the deflating white balloon.
“Marcus!” I scream, but the thunder of more gunfire drowns out the sound.
The armored plating holds, but the men outside aren’t aiming for me.
They’re aiming for the parts of the door already damaged by the SUV’s impact.
They fire at the locks, the seams, and every weak point in this fortress on wheels.
Think, Serena. Think.
I fumble for my phone, trying to dial Shelby, but the door beside me wrenches open before I can press send. Hands grab my arms, my hair, yanking me from the vehicle with brutal efficiency. I kick and claw and bite, connecting with something soft that earns me a satisfying grunt of pain.
But there are too many of them.
A black hood descends over my head, cutting off the world. I suck in a panicked breath, tasting wool and dust, and swallowing my fear. Someone wrenches my arms behind my back, and I feel the cold bite of zip ties tightening around my wrists.
“Stai ferma, principessa.” I recognize the voice in the Sicilian accent. One of my father’s bodyguards is telling me to stay still. He always uses the endearment in a cruel tone.
I stop fighting. Not because I’m giving up, but because I need to think. I need to conserve energy for whatever comes next.
Something sharp pricks my neck. A needle.
Fuck! No, no, no—
The world tilts sideways, and then there’s nothing at all.
Consciousness returns in fragments.
Cold first. A bone-deep chill that seeps through my clothes and into my skin. Then hardness beneath me, unyielding and damp. Stone, maybe. Or concrete.
I try to move my arms and meet resistance. Metal clinks against metal. My wrists are bound, shackled to something I can’t see. My ankles are similarly restrained.
Chains, I realize with growing horror. I’m chained to something.
I force my eyes open, but it makes no difference. The darkness is absolute, so thick it feels like a physical weight pressing against my face. No windows. No sliver of light under a door. Just endless, suffocating black.
Don’t panic. Panicking won’t help.
I run through what I know. I was ambushed. My father’s men took me. Marcus is hopefully just unconscious. They drugged me and brought me somewhere dark and cold, somewhere designed to break a person down before a single blow is struck.
A dungeon. My father keeps several throughout his properties. Hidden rooms beneath wine cellars and behind false walls, places where men go in and don’t come out. I never thought I’d end up in one.
Time loses meaning in the dark. Minutes or hours pass while I test my restraints, explore the limits of my movement.
I try to form a mental map of my prison cell.
The bed beneath me is narrow and hard, with a thin mattress that does nothing to cut the cold.
The chains give me about three feet of movement in any direction. Not enough to reach anything useful.
My throat is parched. My stomach cramps with emptiness. How long have I been here?
When the door finally opens, the light is blinding.
I squeeze my eyes shut against the assault. Tears prick the back of my eyeballs. Footsteps approach, measured and unhurried. Two sets. I force myself to look, squinting through the glare until the shapes resolve into figures.
My father.
And Cesare.
Giovanni DiLorenzo looks exactly as he always does. Silver hair perfectly styled, eyes cold as the marble in his foyer, Armani suit pressed to military precision.
Cesare stands slightly behind him, wearing that empty smile that makes my skin crawl.
His broken nose has healed crooked, a lasting souvenir from the night Shelby defended my honor at the Syndicate gala.
The imperfection only makes him look more dangerous, like a predator who’s learned to enjoy the pain.
“Figlia mia.” My father’s voice is soft, almost tender. Daughter of mine. “You’ve been very busy.”
I say nothing.
“We know about your investigations.” He moves closer, his expensive shoes clicking against the stone floor. “We know you’ve been gathering evidence. Hacking into systems you designed yourself, which I must admit shows a certain poetic irony.”
Still nothing.
“What we don’t know,” he continues, crouching beside the bed so that his face is level with mine, “is what you’ve shared with the Boyles. What your husband knows. Where the evidence is stored.”
I hold his stare. This man, who raised me and taught me to play chess and ride horses and navigate the treacherous waters of Syndicate politics. This man was willing to sell me to a monster for profit. This man traffics women and children while maintaining the facade of a legitimate businessman.
I don’t recognize him anymore. I’m not sure I ever really knew him at all.
“Serena.” His voice hardens. “I’m asking you a question.”
“And I’m choosing not to answer it.”
Something flickers in his eyes. Surprise, maybe, or disappointment. Then it’s gone, replaced by the cold calculation I’ve seen him turn on rivals and enemies, but never on me. Never on his own daughter.
“You’ve changed,” he observes. “That Irish dog has corrupted you.”
“He’s shown me what loyalty actually looks like. What caring looks like.” I let my contempt show. “You wouldn’t understand.”
Cesare steps forward, his hands balled into fists. “Let me have five minutes with her. I’ll make her talk.”
Giovanni holds up a staying hand. “No. We’re not going to hurt her.” He straightens and adjusts his cuffs, that casual gesture I’ve seen a thousand times at dinner tables and boardrooms. “Pain is such an unreliable motivator. People will say anything to make it stop, whether it’s true or not.”
Cesare’s expression twists with barely concealed disappointment. The sick bastard was looking forward to hurting me.
“A few days in the dark without food or water,” my father continues, “that tends to produce more reliable results. Solitude has a way of loosening tongues. When the mind begins to fray, when the body grows desperate, people find themselves remarkably talkative and more willing to cooperate.”
He moves toward the door, and Cesare follows reluctantly after shooting me one last look that promises this isn’t over. That when my father tires of waiting, he’ll get his turn.
I won’t give them that satisfaction. I won’t break.
Shelby will come for me, I tell myself. When I don’t come home, he’ll know something is wrong. He’ll find me.
The GPS in my phone. The cameras on the streets. There are a hundred ways for Shelby to find me, and he’s more intelligent and more resourceful than anyone I know.
He’ll come. He has to.
Giovanni pauses at the threshold. When he turns back, the smile on his face is pure evil. “By the way, principessa. Don’t hold your breath because I’m afraid your dear husband won’t be looking for you.”
“What are you talking about?”
He pulls my phone from his jacket pocket, the rose-gold case catching the light. My stomach drops.
“I sent him a message when you arrived here,” he says, casually, as if I’ve come to visit. “From you, of course. A lovely goodbye note explaining that you’ve left him. That you can’t do this anymore. That he shouldn’t try to find you.”
The words hit me like bullets. Each one tears through the hope I’ve been clinging to.
“He won’t believe it,” I whisper, but my voice wavers. “He’ll know something’s wrong.”
“Will he?” Giovanni tilts his head, considering. “You thought you fooled me with that lame story about seeing Boyle behind my back. Your marriage is a facade. A desperate gambit to escape my plans for you. What reason does he have to believe you’d stick around forever?”
I think of Brazil. Of the promises we made under the stars. Of the certainty in Shelby’s eyes when he said he was falling for me.
He’ll know. He has to know.
“He won’t just accept a text message. That’s not who he is.”
My father shrugs, unconcerned. “By the time he pieces together the truth, it’ll be too late. And then...” He exchanges a glance with Cesare. “Well. We’ll decide what to do with you.”
Cesare’s smile is a wound.
The door closes, and the darkness swallows me whole again.
I don’t know how long I lie there in the silence. Time stretches and contracts, losing all meaning in the void. My thoughts spiral between hope and despair, between certainty that Shelby will come and the creeping fear that my father might be right.
I imagine Shelby reading the note. His face closing off. Those icy blue eyes going cold. I imagine him wondering if everything between us was a lie. If I was playing him all along, gathering information to bring back to my father.
No. I refuse to let that thought take root. He knows me. We’re trying to build something real together.
But doubt is a poison, and it’s already spreading through my veins.
I think of everything we’ve been through together.
The night I showed up at his penthouse, desperate, asking for his help.
The wedding in Vegas. The weeks of pretending that became something neither of us expected.
The investigation that brought us closer even as it revealed the depths of my father’s depravity.
Brazil. The beach. His hands on my skin. His voice in my ear, promising me forever.
“Whatever comes, I’m not leaving you.”
Those were my words. My promise to him.
I cling to them now like a lifeline.
The darkness presses in, and the cold seeps deeper, and my wrists ache from the chains. But I don’t cry. I don’t scream. I won’t give them the satisfaction.
Instead, I close my eyes and picture Shelby’s face. Those sharp blue eyes. That rare, devastating smile. The way he looks at me like I’m something precious, something worth protecting.
Come for me, Shelby Boyle, I send the plea out into the universe.