From the registry of a Catholic Church in Nice, a document pops up. It establishes Michel and Diane as Lucie’s god-parents.
I frown. The years of CCTV show them always together, yet my girl hasn’t received a single text from the people who are supposed to be the closest to her?
A prickle of suspicion tickles the back of my neck and I look frantically for more information on the trio. From the moment Lucie came to London, and then moved to Edinburgh. Something doesn’t add up.
At the same time, I dig into Lucie’s texts. I don’t read them, but look for the thread with her godparents. The one with Michel is sparse, as expected. But the one with Diane is filled with hundreds of messages.
Until two months ago. From one day to the next, she goes silent. I cross-check with what I can find on cameras, credit cards activities and phone bills. One day, she hangs at her husband’s arm, a look of pure love in her eyes when she looks at the stocky man. The next, she’s gone.
And she’s nowhere to be found.
She’s not on any camera feed in Nice. Not at the the harbour or airport. She just vanished.
I turn to Bruno and Michel Armani’s patterns. They go to a tennis club every Thursday. Until two months ago. They do the rounds at their many businesses across Nice and its wider region. Until two months ago when they start delegating to other people I don’t recognise or know. I find their rap sheets. Soldiers who have been in the organisation for years. Men climb the ladder in the underworld all the time. It wouldn’t be suspicious if the change hadn’t been so sudden.
I spend hours, well into the night, looking for Diane.
Where I find her has shivers of dread waking goosebumps all over my skin.
I pick up my phone and dial Dante.
“Is Lucie safe?” he asks as way of greeting.
“Yes.”
“It’s fucking two am,cazzo di merda. Why?—”
“Why is Diane Armani in my brother’s personal brothel, Dante?”
My voice vibrates with restraint and rage. I stand, looking at the screen. She’s alive, but for how long?
That must be what he meant when he told me weeks ago that they infiltrated my brother’s organisation. They sent Diane as an informant, a lamb to the slaughter. When Petar finds out he has a spy in his midst, slaughter is too kind a word for what will happen to her. He will make an example out of her.
Muted noises of clothes rustle in the background as Dante curses under his breath. He calls out for his two partners, then his voice comes through the speaker again.
“You’re on speaker. Listen, Toma. We didn’t tell you because?—”
“Because honestly, we don’t know where your allegiance lies,” Irina says, her voice icy and haughty. If she weren’t someone I respect, I’d go back to London to kill her for the insinuation.
“My allegiance? Dante, did you not tell your lovers where I am right now?”
“What is he talking about?” the Bratva kingpin asks, threat laced with confusion.
“I’m in fucking Edinburgh keeping an eye on Lucie, you dumb fucks. My allegiance is to her and her only. My brother deserves to fucking die, and you’re going to tell me right now what you’re planning or I swear to God, you’ll never see Lucie ever again.”
I can’t see him but I feel Dante get closer to the phone when he threatens me. “If you touch a single hair on her head—,” he starts.
“I already heard that threat, Ventura. It doesn’t work on me. I wouldn’t have to touch Lucie for her to hate you. All I have to do is tell her all the shit you keep hidden from her.”
“Are you blackmailing us?” Irina asks.
“I might. Don’t fucking push me and answer the damn question.”
“She wants out, Kovac,” Dante says but I don’t budge. “Don’t bring her into this.”
“She already is. Now, speak.”
Silence and tension thicken the air around me, my heart beating inside my chest like it’s going to explode, the monster inside begging to do exactly what I threaten so I can keep Lucie all to myself. Away. Safe. Barricaded behind the walls of a castle I’d build for her. I shake my head and clench my teeth, waiting for them tofuckingtalk to me.
