Mom presses the call button. I hear Dad almost immediately. “My love, I will call you back.”
“Marco—”
“Mia, I will call you back.” He hangs up. Mom frowns and looks at us, her eyes full of concern. Dad almost never calls her Mia. And he never hangs up on her like that.
“Fuck, you sure you don’t want to go get drunk, Ari?”
“I’m sure, Lil.” My insides feel cold, dread flowing through my veins.
“Let’s go have some hot chocolate and cookies,” Mom says, like we’re nine. It does sound good, though. And I did make some really good snickerdoodles the other day. I want to keep my head clear, or else I would throw some vodka in that hot chocolate.
I throw some fresh coffee in it instead. We sit and wait. For hours, we sit at the counter, drinking hot chocolate or coffee or both, eating cookies, then ice cream. I should be working on redecorating my old room for us or looking over the wedding photos the photographer emailed this morning, but I can’t. All I can do is sit and worry.
It’s after midnight when the front door opens. We all jump upand rush toward it. Dad and Anthony are standing in the entryway.
Alone.
My heart plummets.No. No no no no no!“Where’s Luca?”
“Sweetheart—,” Dad starts.
I shake my head vigorously. “Don’t ‘sweetheart’ me, Daddy. Where is my husband?”
“We don’t know. We’re looking.” Dad’s jaw clenches. So do his hands. “We’ll find him.”
“How do you not fucking know?” Lil yells, her voice filled with disbelief.
“His phone was left behind. He hadn’t put his ring back on yet.”
“He has trackers in his teeth, Marco,” Mom says, her eyebrows almost touching.
Dad’s eyes come back to mine, and he can’t hide the sadness and fear. Not from me. I see them through his mask. “They knew about the trackers. They pulled them.”
I feel my legs give out, but Lil’s arms go around me before I hit the floor. Her voice is like steel when she says, “Tell us everything, Dad.”
“I don’t think you need to know the details right now,” he answers.
“Marco, we’re going into your office and you’re going to tell us what happened, so then we can all work on finding our boy.” Mom’s mama bear has extended to include Luca and she’s not playing games. She storms across the floor and slams the door open. Dad follows her silently.
Lil’s arm stays around my waist. Anthony hasn’t said a word. I can’t look at him. He’ll blame me. I blame me. There’s no way my biological father isn’t behind this. When I finally meet his gaze, I see fear, sympathy, and love. No anger, no accusations.
Somehow, that makes me feel worse.
Lil and I sit on one couch, Mom and Anthony on the other facing it, and Dad sits in the chair at the end of the coffee table between them all.
Dad leans forward, placing his elbows on his knees. “Luca went into the locker room, changed clothes, and texted you, Ariana. When he didn’t come back out after about ten minutes, we went to check on him. His bag was in the locker, and there was… some blood on the ground.”
My eyes close, and I try to focus on breathing. I can’t panic. He’s not here to bring me out of it, and I need to be present to help find him. He’s my safe place. I can’t fall apart until his arms are around me to keep me together.
“Wasn’t there someone stationed in the locker room?” I ask, my voice cracking.
Dad’s eyes flash with anger. “Yes. Someone betrayed us. Both the man in the locker room and the one directly outside the back door are missing. They’re newer but came highly recommended. Parker’s looking into everything. Everyone.” Dad takes a breath. “We immediately checked Luca’s trackers and followed the ones in his teeth. Ford and Sully stayed behind to check cameras, but it seems the ones we need were tampered with during the fights. The trackers stopped moving, and we found them on the side of the road.”
My stomach twists, and all the hot chocolate and cookies and ice cream threaten to come back up.
They pulled his fucking teeth out in a moving vehicle.
“We only found two teeth, so they knew which ones to pull. No one has contacted us yet. We’ve reached out to every crew. We’ll have an army behind us when the time comes.” Dad looks at me, determination in his eyes. “We will find him, Ariana. We will get him back.”
