Page 24 of Played By the Fool

“Okay, everyone knows what the plan is right?” Celestino asks. “I just got the text that John’s with Kali.”

We all say yes. My partner is Salvatore, I like that since I have no idea what I’m doing and he’s trained for these types of situations. All I know is that I need to find my girl.

“We need to be quiet, he has neighbors and we don’t want them to be alerted. And try not to damage anything. If we don’t find her, we don’t want him to know we were here.”

“We’ll be careful.” Keegan nods.

I’m so nervous. What if Emilia isn’t in there? What if we’re wrong?

“Okay, let’s go.”

John leaves lights on in his house, which makes it easier. We don’t have to turn lights on that would attract unwanted attention. We make our way around the house, Salvatore and I have the basement. We carefully check each room and knock on the walls to make sure there’s no hidden door or hollow area that could be a hidden room.

When we come up empty, my heart sinks a little.

“Anyone have anything?” Salvatore whispers over the intercoms.

“Nothing,” each person says.

And my heart sinks even further. If John didn’t take her, who did? And where is she?

“Let’s get out of here and regroup at Emilia’s house. Enzo just texted me and said John just left.”

It takes us fifteen minutes to get to Emilia’s house. We wait for the others to get back. I don’t know what to say or think.

Emilia

I open my eyes and figure out I’m tied to a bed. What the fuck is going on? The last thing I remember is John hitting Frank from behind and grabbing me before I could get out the door. And now I’m tied to a bed. But this doesn’t look like John’s house. I’m confused and my head hurts. Why would John do this to me? I can’t hear any noises around me, but I can see that this room is big. Like a basement maybe? I can’t really focus on anything with my head spinning the way it is.

Finally I hear some noises, and I see John’s face come into focus in front of me.

“Oh goodie. You’re awake,” he says.

He looks like John. But he doesn’t sound like him…

Chapter Twelve

Ciarán

I’m sitting here waiting again, but this time it’s because we couldn’t find Emilia and we need to figure out who has her. Sebastiano and Francesco have been looking for more information about John. They think he’s the key to all of this, but they don’t know why. And I told them I have the same feeling about him. I wish I was good at finding information. Teeth? I can tell you all about teeth and how to take care of them. But getting information on someone? I’m clueless.

“I’m going to tap into our database and see if there’s anything there. We have to be missing something,” Salvatore says.

“I’m sending Lorenzo and Keegan to go and check on Frank. We need to make sure he’s safe,” Enea tells everyone.

“What can I do? I need to do something.” Kali frowns.

“What can you tell us about John? What are we missing?” Francesco asks her.

“He’s an only child, he’s adopted?—”

“Wait. He’s adopted?” Francesco asks as he starts typing. “That wasn’t in anything I pulled up about him. Nothing about him being adopted. Not even sealed records.”

“How is that possible? Are you sure he’s adopted?” Salvatore chimes in.

“He told me once, a long time ago, that he overheard his parents talking about how he was adopted. He was too scared to ask, so he never did. That was the first and last time he brought it up. And I never asked because he seemed so sad about it.”

“Fuck. We missed something. We had to have. How can you adopt a baby and there’s no record?” Francesco frowns more as he’s searching.

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