Scowling, he mutters, “It was an idea, that’s all.Don’t bite my head off.”
“Nobody’s biting anybody’s head off,” I retort.“But no, I’m not letting Sophia out of my sight until I can be absolutely sure this is over and she’s all right.”
My brother snickers when we reach the front courtyard, where guards pace, angry and agitated.“If I didn’t know better, I would think you actually care.But that can’t be true, right?”
How he can bother trying to get under my skin at a time like this, I don’t fucking know.“She’s my wife.Mine.”And she is the only thing I want to see once I cross the threshold into the house, where voices overlap and echo like the chaos in my head has spilled out.
Mama rushes out of the kitchen with her arms extended and her chin trembling.“I don’t see why you had to go down there.What if there was another explosive meant for you?”Her tearful eyes are a knife to my heart.
“There wasn’t,” I remind her gently, letting her throw her arms around me.This isn’t the first time she’s been through an emergency like this, but it’s never easy.Nobody expects their morning to literally be torn apart by a bomb.“Where’s Papa?”
“In his study, looking over the footage from the cameras out front.”She’s shaking, still in shock, when she lifts her head from my shoulder.
“Everything’s going to be fine,” I whisper, unsure whether I’m lying or not.“It’s nothing that can’t be fixed.”
“Tell that to that dead boy’s mama.”She wears a brave little smile, almost defiant, wiping her tears with one hand.“But then this is the risk we take.I can’t help thinking like a mother, that’s all.”
“A cup of tea might help you feel better.”I steer her toward the kitchen again, where Luca has already found Emilia and is practically hanging on her.I’m not sure which of them is clutching the other one tighter.
My sister looks up from the blender, where she’s assembling what looks like a smoothie containing all of the fruit she could find in the kitchen.“I had to do something,” she explains, dumping blueberries into the pitcher.
“Is Sophia helping you?”I ask, looking toward the pantry, expecting to find her digging around in there.I need to see her.My hands are aching to touch her and remind myself she’s real.
She knows the worst thing there is to know about me.At least, most of it, and what did she do?Did she turn away?Convey her disgust and disappointment?She absorbed it all and turned it into softness.Understanding.
It has me craving her because it was the last thing I would have ever expected.That, and the drive to know she’s safe.To have my hands on her, to feel her heart beating.
When I look back at my sister, she’s frozen, staring at me.“Sophia isn’t here,” she tells me in a soft voice.“We assumed she was at your house, waiting for the all-clear.”
No.
That’s not right.
The announcement is a gut punch that leaves me reeling.“I sent her here.”There’s no reason for the sense of dread that’s suddenly burst into bloom, no logical reason, anyway.It’s only been twenty minutes or so since I left her at the house.
There are some situations where reason doesn’t make a damn bit of difference, and this is one of them.
By the time I’m on my way to the front door, the drum beat of my heart has turned into something frantic, something damn near sickening.She would have gone to the house, as I told her to, if she could have.I know it.She would’ve wanted to be with Mama and the girls to make sure they were safe.
The leader of a family like mine shouldn’t be seen panicking.I need to project calm at a time like this.That message never reaches my feet, moving swiftly down the front stairs, then along the grass still damp from the sprinklers this morning, before a bomb shook the ground.
She’ll be there.She has to be there.At least that’s what I tell myself before I see it.
The front door is open, the way I left it earlier.
“Sophia!”I hardly recognize the sound of my voice carrying on the morning breeze while my heart pounds and my feet fly.The full picture is starting to come into focus.I don’t want to see it, it can’t be real, but by the time I burst into the empty living room, I know.He played us.
She’s gone.
It doesn’t take a minute to search the entire house, compact as it is, and by the time I am on the porch again, my brother has only made it halfway down.The dread stamped on his face is nothing compared to the firestorm blazing furiously in my head.Panic is dangerously close, tapping me on the shoulder, almost seductive.It would be too easy to give in.To hand over control of my mind and let the chips fall where they may.
“Get Giorgio on the phone,” I bark at my brother, then whistle and motion for the men patrolling the estate to join me while Luca breaks into a run.Cupping my hands around my mouth, I shout to the guards, “Scour every inch of the grounds.I want her found!”
Even before I start back up to the house at a sprint, I know it’s no use.She’s already gone because that was the endgame for her brother.To cause a distraction up by the gate and somehow breach the wall on the opposite end of the estate while we rushed around in the aftermath.
I played straight into his hands.
And my wife is the one who’s paying for it.
