Page 25 of She Found Me

Chapter 14

Marco

“Why are they not answering my calls!” I boom.

“I’ve got a team that should be there any minute now,” Van replies as his phone rings. He looks at the caller ID and nods at me. It's them.

“Well?” Van listens intently.

Watching him, I know there is a problem. He rubs his forehead with his hand.

“What? What the fuck is going on?” I demand.

Van holds his hand up to stop me. “And Mia?” he shouts down the phone. His head then slumps. Ending the call, he turns to me. Emotion fills his face.

Pain in my gut almost cripples me. “Tell me!” I bellow.

“There’s been an incident. The team are trying to find out what exactly happened. There has been an explosion outside the bar where the launch event was being held. A car mounted the pavement, then drove headfirst into another car. Mia and the girls were in the middle of it.”

“What do you mean, they were in the middle of it?” This doesn’t make sense.

“They are getting the CCTV footage and sending it over to us as soon as they have it.”

“Organise the jet. We are going to England.”

It’s the longest plane ride ever. I cannot sit down. I am pacing up and down the plane, feeling helpless.

“Sit the fuck down!” Mia and Van’s father rages at me.

Before I can even think about it, my hands are around his neck, and I’m dragging him out of his chair. Mia’s father, Mr. Alboni, used to be the underboss of the Guerra a generation ago, but he’s just an old man now, and I’ve never liked him. Van intervenes before I do permanent damage.

“This isn’t helping.” Vans separates us as his phone pings with an alert. “The CCTV has come through.”

He shares the grainy video to the plane’s television. Their surveillance should have been updated before the event. We all watch in silence as the screen fills with the inside of the bar. It starts with Mia and her two friends Lucia and Marisa quickly exiting the ladies’ bathroom. The guards then appear, chasing after them. The girls run outside, and the guards follow quickly behind them. The video then switches to the cameras at the front of the building. The guards are shouting at the girls on the pavement.

They don’t even notice the car speeding up the pavement until it’s too late. The car hits all five of them at force. Their bodies bounce off the car, then fly through the air, apart from Mia, who impales the windscreen. But the car does not stop. Another car appears, driving in the opposite direction. They collide headfirst at speed. The first car mounts the second and flips backwards, landing on its roof. Seconds later the car on its roof explodes. The car containing Mia, my Mia. The cameras go dead, and the screen fills with darkness.

The plane is eerily silent as we all stare at the black screen, unable to believe what we just witnessed. Standing up, I turn and rip the chair I was sitting on from the bolts on the floor. I throw it down the aisle of the plane. The feeling inside of me is unbearable. I want to rip out my heart. The television takes the hit next when I pull it from it brackets and smash it onto the floor. Moving down the plane, I connect my fists with the walls and then the plane door. Alarms sound as I continue to beat the metal handle on the plane door.

“Enough!” Van bellows.

And I stop, taking a deep breath to expand my collapsing lungs.

He puts his hands on my shoulders. “That is my sister I have just watched being blown to smithereens!” he barks, emotion cracking his voice. Bowing his head, he takes a breath before looking me in the eyes again. “You are my boss. The leader of the Guerra. Now get your fucking act together and lead.”

I don’t reply. I can’t. I just pant, trying to catch my breath.

Leaving me to my thoughts, he goes and sits with his father. Van is right. It shouldn’t be him taking control of the situation—it should be me. Pushing my feelings down, I stand tall and return to Van and the others.

“I need to know who was driving those cars. And why the girls were trying to get away from the guards.”

The team on the plane get to work. With my mind occupied, we soon arrive in London.

When we arrive at the bar, the street has already been cleared. The cars are gone, and the road is being sprayed down. The water runs red down the street, flowing into the nearest drain. Police have the area cordoned off.

“I will speak to the police. We don’t have the MPS on our payroll. You will end up getting arrested,” Van advises, then he and his father go in search of who is in charge while I take in the scene.

The front windows of the bar have been boarded up. The sign above them is broken and melted. The walls above are covered in the black remnants of smoke. So many questions bounce around my mind. This wasn’t an accident, but this also wasn’t an assassination. Why didn’t they just shoot them? I need to see Mia. I cannot believe she is dead.

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