I kissed her cheek and ruffled her curls. She waved goodbye to Sofia’s other two boyfriends, her uncles. When Luca drove off in his SUV, I slumped back down in my seat. “Fuck, why haven’t we found her yet?”
Dante scrubbed his face, a rare moment of vulnerability from the Sicilian boogeyman. “Fucked if I know.”
“We’re not going to shift course,” Nick added firmly, his hand sliding across Dante’s back in firm reassurance.
I marveled at the doctor’s determination to hold us together. He wasn’t just determined to find Sofia. He was determined that when we found her, we’d be the men she needed us to be, and little by little, he steered Dante and me in the direction he wanted.
Was it the direction I wanted?
No, but the “running off with Sofia into the sunset by myself” ship had long since sailed, and I had only myself to blame.
6
DANTE
The wailof sirens as another Costa warehouse went up in flames didn’t do shit to soothe the slash of pain in my chest each time I thought about Sofia. This wasn’t getting us fucking anywhere. We knew Gio Costa was trafficking in girls, we knew he was keeping them in the city, and just like goddamned Sofia, we couldn’t fucking find them.
My phone rang—Matteo, my second-in-command back in Sicily.
“Pronto,” I growled.
Bad news. Always bad news. Matteo informed me in rapid Italian that one of our European suppliers wanted an in-person meeting to discuss why he couldn’t sell me the raw materials I needed.
Fucking hell.
“They can come to Yorkfield,” I berated. “I’m not fucking available.”
Matteo’s silence told me more about what he thought of my foolishness than anything else. “Is it the girl?”
“Of course it’s the fucking girl.”
He sighed, conveying his annoyance and weariness withone deep exhale. “Should we look at opening an American office?”
“Sì.”
My obsession with Sofia hadn’t faded with distance and with time. Four days in Sergio’s fucking clutches, and she was all I could think about. I woke up thinking of her, stroked my cock in the shower thinking of her, wondered if she’d like the goddamned house I’d bought here with her in mind, and murdered indiscriminately to get a lead on where she was. I’d intended the house to be a surprise when she graduated, a way of binding her even closer to me, so she’d never leave.
So much for thinking I could fuck my obsession with her out of my system.
Lorenzo looked at me quizzically. I shook my head, not ready to admit how fucking deep my kitten had sunk her claws into me.
“Any luck with the European trafficking networks?” he asked me.
“No,” Matteo answered, in English, before I could repeat the question. “Put me on speaker.”
His voice came out tinny. “Sergio embezzled the money from us because the European and North African traffickers wouldn’t extend him any more credit. His only shot was to go back to the States and reestablish himself there.”
“He’s desperate,” Lorenzo said, jerking his head toward the firetrucks and police cars arriving at the scene. “Like the Costas.”
Briefly, I missed my home, where it didn’t matter whether I set the fire or not, the police would extend deferential treatment to me.
America was different. Here, the police at leastpretended they weren’t corrupt. Nico’s father needed to increase his political ambitions, not diminish them.
“Keep me updated,” I snapped at Matteo.
“She better be worth it,” he said in Italian.
Lorenzo heard, and his lips turned up in a cruel smile as I hung up the phone. “You don’t deserve to breathe the same air as Sofia, much less lay a claim to her when we find her.”