“Who was she with?”
“No one, sir. She left on her own.”
I strode to the back door, tossing it open so hard it smacked against something halfway open and bounced back.
“And you didn’t stop her?” Natale continued his interrogation as I glanced both ways down the alley. To the right, the alley hit a fenced area and beyond that a dead end. Straight ahead was the small parking lot with our vans. With my men blocking the area off, she wouldn’t have gone down that path. That left only one way out: left, back to the main street.
“She’s the sottocapo’s family,” the cleaner added. “Unless instructed, we keep hands off.”
“Cretino.” Idiot.
I agreed with Natale. If anything happened to her, I’d personally put a bullet through that numbskull. Even if she was fine, I’d beat him until he couldn’t walk straight.
I ran down the alley to the main street, two of my men in pursuit. The alley gave way to nothing but a street, with few cars and pedestrians walking down the sidewalks. Not a single clue of where she went. No sign of a struggle. No sign of anything. I tugged at my hair and dialed my cousin.
“Tore, get me Brielle. I need her to track down Ainsley’s phone.”
“Can’t do, cugi,” he yelled. Heavy metal played across the line. “I’ve got no idea where the woman is.”
“Call her.”
“She changes her number every two weeks. Only Ainsley gets the new one. By the time I get it, she’s on the verge of changing it again.”
“And that doesn’t seem shady to you?”
“Don’t care. The less I have to deal with her, the better.”
“Yeah, well, we’ve got the Greeks, but we lost Ainsley.”
A door slammed across the line, and the music cut off. “What the fuck do you mean you lost her? What the hell are you doing over there?”
“Watch the tone, Tore.”
“Watch my kid sister, Ren. Vinny was right. You. Her. A bad fucking idea.”
“Very productive. Just get me a location on her cell. She can’t have gone too far.”
“You want to tell me why she ran?”
I hung up, because wasn’t that the million-dollar question? At first, I thought the Greeks had found a blind spot and kidnapped her. Then I suspected she’d witnessed the fight and gone queasy, but that wasn’t the Ainsley I knew.
Now, I remembered the way she’d paled at the table. The way she’d closed in on herself momentarily before pulling her chin up. The way her eyes had seemed to glimmer. All things I hadn’t had time to deal with as my plan for Julius went into motion. I groaned.
This was shit I hadn’t had to deal with in prison. Letter exchanges were simple. Romantic entanglements were not.
I walked back to the restaurant exit. Natale had finished interrogating the cleaning staff, all on the outfit’s payroll, and met me under the awning.
“What do you have?”
“Not much. Ainsley walked out alone. Wasn’t pursued. We’ll check the cameras. Either she walked or took a cab.”
“I want her found. Call whoever you need to track her location. You’ve got an hour.”
“Yes, boss.”
Even if mypiccola civettaran and hid from me, I’d still find her.
Chapter 38
