Page 73 of Pretty Little Disaster

“That doesn’t mean she’s not still here.” Madalina tries to be positive, but I know something’s wrong, I can sense it.

“Okay, we’ll find her, don’t panic. I’m going to start asking people if they’ve seen her.” Madalina rushes back toward the ballroom where the band has started and the party is in full swing. While I head outside to the front of the house to checkshe’s not there. The rain’s coming down heavily now, and when one of the valets rushes over to me with an umbrella, I shake my hand at him while looking for any signs of her.

“But, sir–”

“Have you seen a girl, long, brown hair, sequin dress? She’s pregnant,” I ask him, as that feeling in my chest starts to feel more and more compressing.

“Sure, she sped out of here around twenty minutes ago,” he tells me, instantly making me feel sick.

“Left here, how?” I grab him by his shirt, making him drop the umbrella on the gravel.

“In the car, you came in, sir.” He flinches like he’s expecting me to punch him, but instead, I release him and rush back inside to find Madalina. The ballroom is full of people having fun and I scan the room trying to locate my sister again. I don’t see her, but I do see Vito standing guard against the wall. Wherever he is, I know she won’t be far away.

“Where’s my sister?” I ask him, still looking around and when Lorna’s phone starts to ring and I see Cass’s name flash up, I quickly answer.

“Girl, what are you doing standing outside my house in the rain,” she laughs.

“Cass, Cass, it’s Nic.” I press my hand over my other ear, trying to cut some of the noise from the room.

“Oh…” She’s clearly shocked to hear my voice.

“Is Lorna at your place?” I question her.

“I’m at work. I just took a break and noticed that I had an alert from the new door cam I got. She was there but…oh, wait.” She goes silent on me.

“Wait…Cass. I can’t fucking wait. I need to know where she is, right now!” I yell down the phone at her, earning myself a few strange looks from the people around me.

“I just got another alert, and she’s still at mine. Jonah’s there too, he’s just let her in…Wait up…. Why is she at my place? Have you upset her?” Cass changes her tone completely.

“No, there's been a misunderstanding. I promise that I haven’t upset her. I’m going to head to your place now and fix it. Do me a favor, call Jonah, tell him to make sure he keeps her there.” I go to hang up, but it turns out Cass isn’t finished.

“I’ll call him, but…I swear if you’ve hurt her, this is the last favor I ever do for you,” she warns.

“Like I said, it’s a misunderstanding. You have my word,” I assure her, before hanging up the phone and following the finger Vito points toward the door at the back of the room, where my sister is.

I march over to her and Dario, ready to interrupt them from talking to our host, Leandro, and his wife.

“Nic, good news, Leandro has his security looking through his CCTV footage, right now.”

“I know where she is, now,” I assure her before turning to Dario. “I need your car.”

“My car?” He frowns.

“Lorna took mine. She’s at Cass’s place and I need to get there. now.”

“Is she okay?” Madalina looks worried. “I should have stuck with her, I never thought she’d leave here without you. I thought what I was telling her was…all it did was back up everything that bitch said.”

The Marchettis look confused as hell as they stand in the center of our conversation.

“I’m coming with you.” Madalina takes my hand and starts dragging me toward Vito. “Dario, come on.” She turns around when she realizes that her husband isn’t following, and I watch the man who controls the whole of New York nod politely to the Marchettis before catching up with us.

“Come on, Vito, you got more than nine hundred horsepower under your foot, fucking use it!” I slam my hand on the console and look back at my sister and Dario. She’s looking worried as she chews on her thumb and I can’t make out what Dario’s feeling.

“She shouldn’t be having all this stress so close to her time.” Madalina shakes her head. “I have a good mind to go back to that party and throw my–”

“I think you made your point, darling.” Dario rests his hand on her knee to stop it from jerking. “You both need to calm down. Lorna is safe, she's with a friend and you can explain about Bianc–” He shakes his head and reaches into his jacket pocket when his phone starts to ring.

“It’s Leandro.” He places the phone to his ear and as I watch his frown get deeper, I can tell that whatever he’s hearing isn’t good.

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