Page 146 of The Silence Lies

“She’s gone,” I hear Luca whisper. “She’s fucking gone!” He smashes his foot against the door, the metal groaning under his weight. “Figlio—!” His rage fully takes over as he goes from calm to calamity in a matter of seconds. He kicks the door over and over, the hinges creaking and bending until I hear the metal door crash to the ground.

“Luca! Stop!” I rush to him, yanking him backwards. “Stop!”

“Don’t!” he snaps, shoving me. “She’s fucking gone!” If I thought my own heart was breaking over what we’ve just discovered, Luca sounds like his own is shattering.

He drops to the ground, running his hands through his disheveled hair. “What do we do?”

Fuck. I’ve never heard the guy sound so broken before. It hammers away at the weak wall I’m frantically trying to put up to gain some sense of control over this situation, but it’s no good. I push back the anger, leaning down and grabbing Luca’s face. “We need to get back and tell Raf.”

“What do you mean you can’t fucking find them?!” Luca roars, throwing his coffee mug across the room. It smashes into thousands of pieces, tiny bits of porcelain splintering under his rage. It doesn’t matter what we say to him, he’s like a bomb about to explode. He’s one second away from self-destruction, only seeing the blame he can place on himself and others.

Tensions are obviously high since we found the wreckage. Even higher since Raf downloaded the dash cam footage from the vehicle. My blood ran cold when I saw Luciano approaching, but after that, we couldn’t see a thing. Not until Sera’s body came back into view, being carried by one of the Verdi’s. They tossed her into their trunk like she was nothing more than a fucking rag doll, and I don’t even need to think about what’s going to happen to her.

We’re all feeling lost in some way without Sera. There’s no evidence to lead us to Sera. No sign of Giovanni, meaning the Verdi’s probably have him too.

“Your fucking job is to make sure nobody follows us, and you can’t even do that!” Luca screams.

“Hey!” I press my hand to Luca’s chest. “This wasn’t Raf’s fault. Calm down!”

Luca jabs a finger into my shoulder, pressing forward with his body. I try to step back, but every retreat is met with his advance until my back hits the wall.

“Don’t. Tell. Me. To. Calm down!” He emphasizes each word with a stab of his finger.

I grab it and push it away, pressing my forehead to his in challenge. “I’m on your fucking side, Fontana.”

“Then fucking act like it!” He fist slams through the wall beside my head, drywall cracking as dust and broken paint litters the floor.

“Guys!” Raf shouts over us.

“What!” Luca and I both bark in unison.

“This isn’t going to solve anything. I’m trying to locate her, but you guys need to help.” Raf starts tapping away frantically on his keyboard. It’s silent, except for that damn clicking noise, leaving us all to stew in our own furious thoughts because yeah, we should have seen this coming.

Even though we’ve got The Vultures running surveillance constantly and Sera’s soldiers increasing defenses around the house, we still fell short when it came to her safety. And that was my job. It should have been my job to protect her, to make sure nothing happened to her. Sure, Giovanni is her bodyguard, but he’s just one man. Serafina should have had an entire army behind her, and I let her down.

“What do you need?” I ask solemnly.

“We need the twins back, and we need Zeke to run his men further afield. Someone has to know something.” He resumes tapping away on his keyboard. “Someone has to have heard something, rumors, anything!”

I pull out my phone, shooting a text to the twins. In a matter of seconds, I get a response telling me they’ll be over in an hour. I sink down onto the couch, my fear warring with my determination to stay strong. But it’s too powerful. The guilt wracks through my body like poison, a promise that if anything happens to Sera, I’m as good as dead. I don’t just mean in the physical sense, but mentally, I don’t know if I’m strong enough to live in this world without Bianchi.

Combing a hand through my hair, I observe Raf at work. I’ll never forgive myself for this. I’ll never forgive myself if I really lose her. “Please find her, Raf.”

He gives me a curt nod before absorbing himself completely in his work. Every click of his mouse, every tap of his keyboard fills the silence with even more dread. I’ve never liked the silence much, hating it even more now as we wait on answers that might never come.

Hours go by where we all sit in silence or pace the living room. The coffee cup still lays broken on the floor, a reflection of how we’re all starting to feel. The clock on the wall ticks by, alerting me to how long we’ve spent in this room, all quiet and anxious.

Raf hasn’t come up for air from his laptop. He’s doing a damn good job of focusing on his task, so much so that he doesn’t even bat an eyelid when Luca goes from silent and stoic to pacing frantically. We all know that Luca’s no good to us like this. He’s supposed to be the calm and collected one, but he won’t stop until we have some kind of answers. He’s placing all of his blame on Raf, and it isn’t fair.

At some point, the twins join us from wherever they’ve been. I think it was to scope out their next target on behalf of Sera, but I couldn’t focus past Luca’s frustration to really listen to them. We’re waiting on tenterhooks for Raf to give us something, anything.

But it never comes.

“Let’s get some rest,” I say, standing up slowly.

All eyes lift to me as I take the lead on the situation. It’s midnight, somebody has to, and it’s fallen to me to keep this crew in line.

“We can start our search again tomorrow. Get The Vultures involved, ask questions.”

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