Page 51 of Unspoken Ties

“Oh, yes,” he mocked, his lips curling into a sinister grin. “Ettore, the unfortunate obstacle in the plan. But don’t you worry about him, darling,” he laughed humorlessly. “I’ll take care of him.”

A sudden wave of nausea hit me like a truck, and I knew immediately that it wasn’t just morning sickness. The expensive tiles of his grand mansion became my unfortunate target as I doubled over and vomited. My shaking hand instinctively went to cover my lower abdomen, a protective gesture of the tiny life that was growing inside me.

“No…” he said, his face turning into a sneer. He continued to pull me up the stairs and shoved me into a bedroom. “I did have a fun night planned for us, but knowing that disgusting spawn of his is inside you… well, we’re going to have to take care of that first.”

Take care of it?“No!” I said, shrinking away from him. “Ettore will come for me.” I tried to say confidently. But the truth was, Ettore had no idea where I was. He had no idea Dillon was behind all of this.

Dillon chuckled, a sound devoid of any mirth. “Oh, will he now?” he asked, leaning against the door frame. His eyes raked over me with a predatory gaze.

I glared at him and was surprised to find a surge of strength within myself. “You don’t scare me, Dillon.”

“Just because I’m not a mafia Don like your husband, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t scare you,” he replied. Without saying another word, he left and slammed the door behind him.

“And I know how supply and demand works!” I screamed at the door, letting out an angry tirade of everything I never said to him. Everything I had held back as shy, quiet Hilaria.

I knew he was no longer around to hear my words, but it felt liberating to let it all out. With a newfound boldness, I paced the room. The lush carpet, once a symbol of Dillon’s lavish lifestyle, now felt like quicksand beneath my feet, trapping me in this gilded cage.

Ettore didn’t know where I was. Would he be able to find me?

Chapter twenty-six

Ettore

All I could see was red. Someone had Liria, taken her and our unborn child away from me. My heart pounded like a drum against my ribs, its rhythm deafening in my ears. The world around me seemed to shrink and swell in and out of focus as panic bit at the edges of my consciousness.

“Pull it faster,” I snapped to the mall security guard.

My friends and I requested (demanded, rather) the security tapes from the mall immediately. When the lazy mall cop told us we’d have to file a form, I pulled out a gun from my waistband and held it to his temple.

“I’m-I’m going as fast as I can,” he stuttered, and I thought he might piss himself in fear.

“I swear, if you don’t get that tape to me in the next minute, you’re gonna wish you had,” I hissed at him, my grip firm on the hilt of my gun.

The man’s trembling hands fumbled as he rushed to bring up the tapes on his console.

“There it is,” Rocco said, tapping on the screen. Liria was walking into the bathroom on the second floor, oblivious to what was about to happen to her.

The security footage was fast-forwarded until it showed the moment she exited the bathroom. A man wearing a hoodie lunged at her and pulled her into the stairwell, causing her to panic and struggle. My chest ached as I watched the terrifying scene unfold.

Without having to be told, the mall cop switched to the angle of the stairwell, following the kidnapping from the second floor to the underground parking garage. Liria’s kidnapper tossed her inside the vehicle and slammed the door shut.

We couldn’t get a good look at the man who kidnapped her, but I knew whoever was in that car was more important. From the angle of the footage we were looking at, we could only see the blacked out side windows.

“God damn it,” I said, slamming my fist into a filing cabinet. “Change the angle to the front of the car.”

The mall cop, his face pale and sweaty, scrambled to comply with my demand. His trembling hands danced over the controls until he found the right camera, which had recorded a full frontal shot of the car speeding away.

“There,” I pointed at the screen as a car license plate came into view, “Freeze it.”

The man hesitated for a moment before complying, freezing the frame to reveal clearly the license plate of the vehicle.

“Find who this car belongs to within ten minutes,” I told my friends. “And you,” I said, looking down at the security guard. “Forget this happened. Or the next time I see you, I’ll pull the trigger.”

The five of us stormed out of the office and back to the car with the new intel. Emilio had the answer within five minutes. Itbelonged to Dillon Carrington, Liria’s ex-fiance. He was stupid enough to use one of his own cars for a kidnapping.

But with a clever twist, he had deceived me. There was never a traitor within the four families. He had just passed that note to Liria so I would be preoccupied with something very important.

It was a desperate, but astute, strategy that he used to his advantage. With the false narrative, I became a weapon against my own people. The suspicion he planted had me doubting everybody in the four families, ignoring everyone in my peripherals.

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