Page 28 of Dangerous Deception

Vito falls silent and complies while my driver takes us toward Revenge. I try to focus on the tablet in front of me as I check my credit cards and Adelina’s. There are no charges so Marie must have been paying for everything. That will take more time to get that kind of info, but I put the request in with a contact regardless.

Vito’s words cut too close to home. Worrying about Adelina suggests I care beyond my attraction to her, and that’s not true. We barely know each other, and she made it clear that she hates me because of my reputation. I can live with that.

So why do I feel like someone’s hands are around my throat, restricting everything from air to blood flow?

I like seeing her at breakfast. I like the soft scents she leaves after her shower. I like seeing her run around the garden, and I like her warmth next to me in bed at night. She mightrarely speak to me, but there’s a companionship there that’s been quietly soothing a part of me that I didn’t even know was damaged.

When I get my hands on her, she’s in so much fucking trouble.

“Got her!” Vito lurches forward in his seat, causing his seatbelt to lock and snap him backward. “The footage is delayed for sure, but she was at the Crystal Maze with Marie… thirty minutes ago.”

“It’s the closest we have. Driver!”

“On it, Boss.”

“Good work, Vito.”

He flashes me a smile but doesn’t speak. Probably a wise decision.

Despite the speed with which the driver weaves through the city, we still take too long to reach the Crystal Maze. The car has barely come to a stop before I’m flying out the door and sprinting up to the door. The bouncer raises a hand but upon seeing Vito immediately steps aside and lets me through. We head through a sea of drunk, sweaty people to the security office behind the bar where a security guard leaps up from his seat while choking on whatever greasy pastry he’s just shoved into his mouth.

“Boss!”

“Move,” I bark, shoving him out of the way and taking over the camera controls. The delay from the real-time cameras to the mainframe has never been an issue due to how rare it is to require immediate footage like this, but now it feels like the worst thing in the world. I line up the cameras with the timestamp from Vito’s video and play the footage on fast forward while Vito has our men search the club in case she’s still here.

Adelina comes onto the screen and seems to be having the time of her life with her friend. She’s dancing and laughing, which would be amusing at such a rapid pace, but the sight just makes my chest tighten like a weight is pressing down.

Why didn’t she just ask me? I could have organized it if she had told me she wanted to go out with a friend. These are the perks of owning the clubs.

Sure, I told her no, but that was because it’s harder to secure the hospital she frequents so much.

By the time Vito appears, I’ve got Adelina at a bar with Marie and two strange men. I glance at Vito and he briefly shakes his head.

Adelina isn’t here.

Which means we have to keep searching.

Vito continues while I play the video until something on the screen makes my blood run cold.

While Adelina and Marie are giggling with one another, the strange men’s hands flash briefly over their drinks. It’s so fast, but I know a drugging when I see one.

“Raffaele…” Vito leans over my shoulder, and his grip turns to iron as we watch Marie fall over and Adelina try to help her. It’s not long until Adelina appears out of it and they’re both carried away by the strange men. I follow them on the cameras until they disappear outside. The angle isn’t great, but I glimpse Marie being loaded into the back and something delays them at the trunk of the car.

Then they race off and vanish into the night.

“Find that car,” I grind out to Vito, and my voice sounds thin to my own ears. “Find it NOW!”

Vito is gone in a flash to do just that.

“And you.” I rise slowly and turn to the guard who still has pastry flakes clinging to his lower lip. “How the fuck did you miss that?”

The guard’s eyes widen. “But it happens all the time. It’s just one of those?—”

His last words fall empty as I whip my gun out of my belt and shoot him right between the eyes. He drops like a rock. “I don’t pay you to watch shit like that happen!” I snarl, delivering a swift kick to his lifeless body. “You fucking fat fuck! You stupid fucking—” Another swift kick, and I pour all my rage and terror into the next kick.

We deal in drugs, it’s true. But we don’t drug people. We sell recreational drugs to drunk teenagers, not sedatives to fucking creeps. I kick him again as hard as I can just as Vito sprints back inside.

“Car was already flagged for running two red lights on the next street over. Belongs to a guy called Geoff Roulston. They’re sending us the last known address now.”

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