My heart stops beating.
It’s a photo of Liana.
In a dark room that looks like an abandoned warehouse. Sitting in a metal chair. Her wrists zip-tied behind her back, bleeding and raw. Her ankles bound to the chair legs.
Her face is turned toward the camera. Eyes wide with fear. Mascara smudged.
There's a cut on her cheek, dark and angry. Blood on her lip from where it's split.
Someone hurt her. Someone has her.
My Liana.
And I did nothing. For three hours, I sat in a social club playing cards and drinking while she was—
"Marcello!" Dominic's voice cuts through my shock like a knife. "What's going on? What did you see?"
"I just—" My voice cracks, breaks completely. "A photo. From her phone. Someone just sent me a photo."
"What photo? What are you talking about?"
"Of Liana." I can barely force the words out past the constriction in my throat. "She's tied to a chair. In what lookslike a warehouse. She’s alive but there's blood—" I stop, unable to continue.
Silence on the other end of the line. Heavy and terrible. Then, in a voice that promises death. "Send it to me. Now."
My hands shake so badly I can barely navigate the phone, but I manage to forward the image to him.
"I'm coming to your location," Dominic says, his voice deadly calm now, which is somehow worse than the shouting. "Where are you?"
"The social club. Via Colombo."
"I'll be there in ten minutes. And Marcello?"
"Yes?" My voice sounds hollow, distant.
"If anything happens to my daughter because of your negligence, this alliance is over. And so are you. Do you understand me? If anything happens to her, you’re a dead man."
He hangs up before I can respond.
My phone buzzes again immediately. Another text from her number.
But not from her. I know it's not from her.
We have something that belongs to you. Call this number if you want her back.
A phone number follows. Not one I recognize. I stare at the photo again, unable to look away from it.
At her face. At the fear in her eyes that I've never seen before.
At the blood that proves this is real.
At the evidence of my catastrophic failure.
"Boss?" Bruno's voice sounds far away, like he's speaking from the end of a long tunnel. "Boss, what's wrong? What happened?"
I can't speak. Can't breathe. Can't do anything except stare at that photo.
She was telling the truth. She was really being followed. She needed me.
