Page 66 of Secret Mafia Daddy

“My brother let Angelo slip through his fingers, but Claudio was the love of my life. I won’t be so careless with Angelo’s family,” she drawls.

“Wh-what are you going to do to us?” I stutter out.

She smiles, coldly beautiful. “The same thing he did to Claudio,” she says. "Slit your pretty little throats.”

I start to scream and she nods at some man in the shadows and a big, scarred man puts a sock in my mouth, putting duct tape around my head to secure it.

I cough but eventually try to breathe out of my nose. Chelsea is cuddled up against me, crying into my chest, and now I can’t even talk to her.

What the hell am I going to do? When are they planning to kill us? They could do it right now, and there’d be absolutely nothing I could do about it.

“Not yet, sestra,” a man’s voice says from the back entrance of the warehouse. “We’re going to lead Angelo here to them, and for that, I want them alive.”

“But Dmitri…” Anastasia protests.

“But nothing. I am pakhan, not you, sestra. Thank you for your help, but I’ll take it from here.”

Chelsea’s trembling against me and I wish I could hold her.

It sounds like we have some time, at least, and I’m grateful for it, but I’ve got to make some kind of plan. My father has always been terrified this would happen to me, but so far I’ve done everything he taught me. I kicked and screamed and bit and it got me nowhere.

“If you're ever in trouble, cara mia, wait. Just wait for me, and I’ll come and save you." That’s what he said to me.

So now, all I know to do is wait.

27

ANGELO

Catarina and Chelsea are both gone. I had Nico ask his wife to go by the penthouse. Apparently Catarina took a few of Chelsea’s things. All of Catarina’s things were already packed for the honeymoon.

They’re gone. Chelsea’s favorite toy is missing, a stuffed giraffe she’d named Sophie.

My heart feels like it’s being blended into paste.

“Listen, man, maybe she just needed some time. She called me, looking for you—”

I hold up my hand to stop him. “Don’t pity me, Nico, I just...I need some time alone.”

Nico nods and heads to his room quietly, and I immediately go to the kitchen and pull a bottle of tequila out of the freezer.

I take a couple shots right from the lip of the bottle, and I don’t feel ashamed. If there’s any time to drink, it’s when your wife and child have left you.

But before I can get really drunk and pass out on, Nico is back.

I frown. “What now?”

“Something isn’t sitting right with me,” Nico says mysteriously. "Why would Catarina call me looking for you if she was just going to leave?”

I shrug. ”I don’t know, maybe she wanted to make sure I wasn’t on the way back here.”

Nico frowns. “Maybe.”

He doesn’t look convinced. “Did you try to call her back?”

Nico nods. “Several times. She’s not answering her phone."

I swallow hard. I know it’s probably just paranoia, maybe even a little bit of wishful thinking, but I can’t stand the idea that something might have happened to my girls. Even if Catarina has left me, broken my heart, I still love her and Chelsea more than anything.

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