“Davide didn’t report for work,” he states.
“What do you mean? I spoke with him this morning.”
“Salvo said Davide was here earlier, but it wasn’t his scheduled shift. He hasn’t seen him since.”
“Where’s Gina?” I force out through a closing throat as dread grows.
“Inside the house. Salvo said she hasn’t left. No one has been in or out all today.”
I relax marginally, but my unease won’t abate. “I want you to check on her.”
“On it,” Silvio says without any hesitation or questioning. “I’ll call you right back.”
I pace my office, waiting for him to call me back, reporting that Gina is okay and that this unease is solely due to not having seen her for a few days. The minutes feel endless, torturous; my body feels too big for my skin, like the beast within me wants to rip it to shreds and burst free.
My phone rings, and I pounce on it. “Talk to me, Silvio.”
He’s out of breath. “She’s not here. But there’s—”
“What do you mean,she’s not there?” My heart stalls, then thunders painfully. “Where the fuck is she?”
“I don’t know. Salvo and I searched the whole house. No one’s here.”
“You said no one came or left,” I bark, then curse. “The side door in the wall.”
“What?”
“There’s a locked side door in the stone wall. Is the key in her room gone?”
“I didn’t know to check.” His next words threaten to destroy me. “Tommaso… There’s blood in her bathroom. On the vanity…bloody fingerprints, a bloody cloth, like she tried to clean up.”
There’s a roar in my head. “Where’s Caruso? Guila?”
“I don’t know.No oneis here, T.”
“Find them.”
“All our resources will be all over this,” he reassures.
“Find her.” I almost collapse, saying the words out loud, fearing the worst.
If I lose Gina, if I loseil mio sole, the world will be faced with the black, completely unhinged version of the monster I keep locked up and controlled.
“We’ll do everything we can, Tommaso.” His words are grave.
“Silvio… Caruso lives. Until I have my hands on him.” Somehow, I know he has hurt Gina. “Understood?”
“One thousand percent, brother.”
Chapter 15
Tommaso
MarcoandSilviohavecoordinated all our people to search for the Caruso family, while I’ve basically ripped the city apart searching for Gina.
We still haven’t found them, but Marco discovered surveillance footage showing a different side gate door than the one Gina had a key for. It showed Caruso and Leandro dragging what looked like two bodies rolled in blankets before they were dumped into the trunk of a car.
I refuse to believe that one of those bodies is Gina’s. Not because I’m certain I’d know if she was dead, but because logic tells me there is one body unaccounted for and that the two bodies rolled up and tossed in the car like they were trash were most likely Guila and Davide.
