Page 36 of Devil Mine

“What is it?” I ask.

“Jefe,” he says, pausing there. I’ve never seen Marco at a loss for words. Arturo frowns at him.

I settle back into my chair and bounce it a few times, looking at him appraisingly. “Is it the Italians? Did you learn something new about Adriana?”

“No,” he says, grimacing. “It’s Tess.”

I stop my chair mid-bounce, and my heart momentarily follows. “What about her?”

She was fine when I left her. If something happened to her, if her father did something…There are two hundred and six bones in the human body and I’ll filet every single one out of him like a fish.

“She’s gone.”

I stand abruptly, placing both of my palms on my desk. Heat crawls up my neck at his words.

“What do you mean gone? Where is she?”

“We don’t know,jefe. We put a couple falcons on her like you requested and they lost her.”

“Where?”

He winces. “They’re not sure. She seemed to be following her normal routine. She took her car to work, they watched her walk into the Noble Group building, watched her come out around lunchtime with a couple of colleagues and head toBistro Barbès. According to them she returned to the office around one thirty and never came back out. They haven’t seen her since.”

I look down at my watch. “It’s noon right now.”

He grimaces again, his expression pained. “This was the day before yesterday.”

An arctic chill lowers the temperature of the room. My palms clench into tight, bloodless fists.

My ears must be deceiving me because surely I’m hearing the information coming out of his mouth incorrectly.

“You’re telling me they waited almost forty-eight hours to tell me she was missing?”

“They wanted to make sure she was really gone before they flagged it to me. I came as soon as I heard.”

I roar furiously, pounding my fists on the table with such force that everything jumps up half an inch, landing haphazardly back on the surface a second later.

“Kill them,” I order cold-bloodedly.

“Thiago–” Arturo starts.

“Kill them. Send their heads to their families, wherever they are.” It’s standard punishment for betraying the cartel. They deserve no better fate.

“Consider it done,” Marco answers with a sober nod.

The emotion I’m feeling is unfamiliar. Something akin to agitation. Our engagement hasn’t been announced so the risk to her is low, but her position as my fiancée makes her vulnerable. Tess being missing triggers flashbacks to when I found out Adriana had been taken. I never got her back.

I won’t let the same happen to Tess.

My features shake under the weight of my fury and uncertainty. My being this rattled by news that she’s disappeared is concerning for a whole other set of reasons.

“Are you sure she isn’t at home? Or that she didn’t stay overnight in her office for some reason?”

“No, I sent other men to her home. Noble confirmed she isn’t there, that she hasn’t come back since she went to work Monday. I have men at her office now…Hold on, this is an update from them.” He looks down at his phone, the screen lighting up with a notification. He reads whatever message he just received, his eyes flashing before he throws me an indecipherable look.

I have to actively work to keep my breathing regulated. My clenched fists hold my weight on the desk, keeping me stable. If he’s about to tell me she’s dead my reaction is going to be less than pleasant.

“Tell me.”

---