Page 121 of Ruthless Mafia Daddy

I connect my phone to the central screen and load my tracking app so Dez can follow the directions to where Lila’s phone is supposed to be. It’s only ten minutes away, and I know Dez can get us there faster.

Part of me hopes she’s not there, because if she is, it’s likely that we won’t find her alive. But the alternative may be so much worse.

It’s happening again…

I screw my eyes shut, trying to ignore the feeling of dread building in the pit of my stomach. Images of Lila turn to images of Valentina, and then Rosa, and then my parents. So much death, and there’s nothing I can seem to do to stop it.

Everyone I love is going to be taken from me.

“Oh fuck,” Marco curses under his breath.

My eyes fly open to the freeway in front of us, and up ahead is a mangled silver car. Smoke is billowing out of the front radiator, and glass covers the ground around it from the smashed windscreen.

“Pull over!” I yell at Dez.

He swerves, slamming his foot on the brakes.

“Rosa, stay in the fucking car,” I order as I throw open my door and start running toward the wreckage, reaching for my gun as I scan the surroundings.

Glass crunches beneath my feet as I slow my pace, pointing my gun at the car in case Lorenzo’s planted a guy inside.

Tire marks cover the ground leading away from the car, so it seems whoever the uber crashed into managed to get away.

Sloan appears at my side. “Check the driver.”

He nods, pulling a knife from his back pocket as he approaches the wreck. He leans into the driver's side and shakes his head. “Dead.”

“Fuck. And Lila?”

I hold my breath as Sloan walks around to the passenger door and peers inside.

“No sign of her, sir.” He shakes his head, bending down to pick up a cracked device. “But her phone is here.”

“Lila,” I breathe.

I sink to my knees among the shattered glass as my heart cracks in two.

Lorenzo has taken Lila and my unborn child right out from under my nose.

I thought I had already lived through my worst nightmare.

But it turns out I was wrong.

38

LILA

Where the hell am I? Why is it so cold here? I pat around for my sheets, but the bed feels off.

I open my eyes to an unfamiliar room.

As I glance down, I find myself stripped down to my underwear. My skin is covered in goosebumps, and a thick cuff is locked around my left ankle.

I scramble backwards off what I notice is a thin, stained mattress I must have been put on, but I can only go so far until the chain locks out.

“Not again,” I breathe, as I pull against it. The chain rattles, the sound echoing around the damp cell and in my ears as it pulls against the heavy metal pipe it’s connected to.

I pull again, and the muscles in my leg scream at me, as if I fought whoever it was who put the chain on me.

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