Chapter Eleven
Giovanni didn’t want to wake Mia up. He had forgotten to click the “do not disturb” button, and now he heard the ringtone at the side of the bed, and with it buzzing, his cell phone had dropped to the floor.
He’d wrapped himself around Mia, and he was being careful not to wake her. The last few days, he was aware she had struggled to get some sleep.
“What is it?” Mia asked.
“It’s fine. It’s work. Go back to sleep,” he said, kissing her neck.
“Ignore it.”
“And if it’s nothing, I will ignore it.”
She sighed, but he saw she was already so tired.
Kissing her neck, he left the bed, being sure to tuck in the blanket so she was nice and warm. Summer was approaching, but sometimes the nights were still a little on the chilly side.
Leaving the room, he grabbed some pants and answered the call, as it was from Diego.
“What’s going on?” Giovanni asked.
“There’s been another kidnapping.”
“What?” He pressed his fingers to his eyes, as he felt the anger starting to build.
This was pissing him off. Whoever was doing this was starting to make him feel like a fool.
Holding his cell phone against his ear and his shoulder, he quickly pulled on his pants and made his way downstairs toward his office.
“There’s a live feed right now,” Diego said. “It’s through the usual link.”
Giovanni was pissed off, and as he fired up his computer, he felt that anger start to rise.
“Are we any closer to figuring out who this could be?” Giovanni asked.
“No. There’s not even any clear money or any of that shit.”
“You’re kidding me?”
“Nope.”
“Do you still think this is an inside job?”
“It must be. There is no one else bragging about having our girls, and they haven’t turned up dead. Whoever is doing this is real fucking sloppy, or they’re struggling to kill the girls,” Diego said.
Giovanni looked at the screen. It was a blonde girl, she had just turned eighteen, and there was even a hint of her marrying one of the old capos who had just lost his wife.
Giovanni was not interested in the union.
The man in question already had six children from his previous wife.
The only quality the union could make was that of wealth.
That was what most marriages were—a contract of wealth.
“They have already taken her virginity,” Diego said. “They used the drugs again.”
“For fuck’s sake. When are we going to catch a break with these fucking scumbags?” His anger was rising with every passing second.
Giovanni couldn’t make out anything significant about who had taken her. Their voices were doctored.
“They’re mocking us,” Deigo said.
“How long ago was she taken?” Giovanni asked.
“This morning.”
Giovanni looked at the camera. The girl was still on the bed, completely naked, and then the camera went dark. He shook his head and sat back in his seat. He hated to admit defeat, but when it came to this asshole, he didn’t even know where to start. He was at a loose end.
Rubbing his eyes, he sighed.
“You okay?”
“I don’t even know where to look.”
“Her parents are pissed off, and I am on my way there. They’re not aware of the live footage. No one is but Colombo himself. He wants this handled,” Diego said. “I’ll meet you at their place.”
“What is the fucking point?” Giovanni asked. “They never leave any fucking evidence.”
They had been to the missing girls’ homes. There was nothing that pinpointed them to the people.
“The point is we’ve got to fucking try. We can’t just give up. That’s not who we are.”
He hated to admit he was right. It wasn’t who they were. No one ever did this to them and got away with it.
Giovanni couldn’t stand that the missing girls were not mounting up. They were fucking amateurs for hiring Julio, but even still, he didn’t fucking know who he was working for. This pissed him off.
“I’ll be right there,” he said, hanging up his cell phone.
He got up from his computer and made his way back upstairs to his room. Giovanni glanced toward the bed, where his sweet, beautiful, sexy, and pregnant wife lay. She was fast asleep and he didn’t want to wake her, so he quickly changed and did so quietly.
As he was about to leave, Mia woke up and yawned. “Are you okay?”
He moved toward the bed. “I’ve got to take care of some stuff. I want you to rest, okay? I’ll be back before you know it.”
Mia looked at him and smiled. “Miss you already.”
“Miss you too, babe.” And he pressed a kiss to her temple. All the time, he just wanted to tell her he loved her.
Mia had already fallen back to sleep, and for a second, he just crouched beside the bed. He needed to protect her, and he had no choice but to stop whoever was stealing women.
Kissing her cheek, because he just couldn’t resist, he got to his feet and made his way down the long staircase, where one of his men was already waiting.
He climbed behind the wheel, put the car into gear, and took off, leaving his home behind.
He knew Mia was completely protected. His men would keep her safe.
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and drove forty minutes to the Ricci house, where Isabella had been taken.
Diego was already there, and he was surprised to see Lorenzo as well as Emilio. They were outside, waiting for him.
He pulled the car into the lot. Several guards were outside. Isabella’s father was nowhere to be seen.
“You waited for me?” Giovanni asked.
“We’re not going to do this without you,” Lorenzo said.
“You have a knack for seeing what we don’t,” Emilio said.
Giovanni sighed.
“How’s Ricci doing?”
“He’s livid,” Diego said. “He wants the bastards dead. Every last one of them. It doesn’t help that since hearing of this news, her suitor has removed his name from the running.”
“So, whoever is doing this is also affecting business now,” Giovanni said.
He ran a hand down his face.
“Yep, whoever it is has a real vendetta with us,” Diego said.
They made their way into the house, and it took him a good twenty minutes to calm Ricci down. Matteo Ricci didn’t like to appear a fool. With his daughter gone, and the two men guarding her dead, he was not calm.
His daughter was now tainted. Giovanni knew this was bad for business, but he didn’t know if Matteo was upset because his daughter was no longer a virgin, or because he loved her.
There were many men within the Colombo Mafia who didn’t have any real love for their daughters.
They were nothing more than commodities.
Their only value was in their virginity and their beauty.
It wasn’t something he liked, but it also wasn’t something he could do anything about.
Making his way up to Isabella’s room, he couldn’t really read the room. It kind of reminded him of Mia’s woman’s shed, which he got for her, until she had changed the decor. He really should change it back to the way she liked it. Giovanni had loved Mia exactly the way she was.
“Wow,” Diego said. He shook his head, looking around the room.
Giovanni stood in the room and frowned as he made his way over to the window.
“Did Isabella have any ... other men or suitors she was interested in?” Giovanni asked.
“Why?” Lorenzo asked.
“Whoever came in here had to have done so through the main door,” Giovanni said. “There’s no way anyone could have done a kidnapping like this without them knowing.”
“You think Isabella is in on this?” Emilio asked.
“I know it’s a stretch but think about it. There’s no way they’re going to get ladders to this window. They didn’t come in using force.” He shook his head. “Something isn’t right with this one.”
It was then that Giovanni started to rummage through Isabella’s drawers for a sign, or anything that could show what he was looking for. The first couple of drawers showed nothing.
“Okay, fine,” Diego said, and he started to look, as did Emilio and Lorenzo.
He didn’t know how long they were looking, until Diego held up a stack of letters.
“Anyone say secret romance?” Diego asked.
Giovanni moved toward him and took some of the letters. They were split open and looked dirty.
“They must have a secret hiding space,” he said.
“Well, Matteo has a pretty big garden, and even though he likes to boast about having a lot of men, most of the time they are nowhere to be found,” Lorenzo said.
Giovanni opened the letter and started to read.
The writer talked about big changes coming, that they would be together.
He looked through the letter and frowned, not liking the extent of the mail.
He made his way through each letter, and after reading five of them, he looked up at his three friends.
“I know where they are.”
****
Mia hated waking up without her husband. She ran her hand across the length of the mattress and was surprised as she waited for the morning sickness to kick in. Only, it never did. There was no sickness.
For several seconds, she just laid across the bed, looking toward the small slit in the curtain, but it wasn’t even light yet. It was still very dark.
She let out a yawn and took her time, climbing out of bed.
She kept expecting the morning sickness to crash upon her, but it was like her stomach was settled this morning.
After using the toilet, brushing her teeth, and running a comb through her hair, she decided to get changed into a pair of sweats.
Giovanni had said he was leaving, but he often went and slept on the sofa in his office, so he didn’t wake her.
Mia made her way downstairs, and the house was so silent. She knew guards were always lurking, but they had been trained to stay invisible.
She gave another yawn and made her way toward Giovanni’s office with a smile on her face. Only, the smile didn’t last, and she felt like pouting, because he was not in his office. She glanced around and sighed, as it looked like he hadn’t gotten home last night.