Page 96 of Wild Fury (Fallen Royals 6)

I took out the SIM card from her phone and put it into an old one of mine out of desperation, and I’ve taken to texting it. Long streams of nonsense, but hitting send eases some of my guilt.

Her parents refuse to file a missing person’s report, which means they must know something. But no one will talk.

No one says a goddamn thing.

* * *

Four months gone

Me: Spring is here. Your favorite season. Where are you?

Me: Come back, Lux.

Me: I talked to my brother for the first time in too long. I told him about you, that you were gone. He was surprised that you’d disappear without a trace, and that no one seemed to care.

Me: I care. Don’t forget that. I couldn’t say it before, but…

* * *

Six months gone

I arrive at the DeSantis estate, and I’m greeted with chaos. It’s Amelie’s wedding day, but something happened. The guard won’t let me in, no one will talk to me. It’s late by now, when the party should’ve been in full swing. I only found out the date from a social media post.

Not Lux’s accounts—those have been stagnant since she vanished.

But her mother posted something, a picture of Amelie getting ready in the DeSantis tower in Manhattan. They’re big-time Mafia, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that the guard blocks my entrance. Security on a wedding day…

“Please,” I say. “I’m just looking for Lucy Page.”

The guard’s eyebrows go up. “The sister?”

I nod once, my teeth grinding together.

Please be here.

He checks something on his phone, then shakes his head. “Sorry, pal. She’s not here.”

“She didn’t go to her own sister’s wedding?”

He eyes me. “No, she was here, and now she’s not. She left.”

I wince. So close. But… not. I missed her again. I just keep taking punches, and the pain is almost more familiar than any other sensation. I go to her parents’ house, but it’s empty and dark. Wherever the Pages went, it wasn’t here.

Out of desperation, I check anyway. Sneak in through the back door and creep up the stairs, finding her small bedroom at the end of a long hallway on the second floor.

Nothing.

The room doesn’t even resemble the girl I know.

Knew.

“You won’t find her here.” Her mother steps into the room, eyeing me. “Just let it go, Theo.”

I can’t.

I won’t.

* * *

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