The words hit their mark, a flash of rage surging through me that I carefully controlled, channeling it into calculated menace rather than blind fury.
"Test that theory," I suggested, pulling a knife from my jacket pocket and setting it on a nearby crate with deliberate precision. "See how soft I am when it comes to protecting what's mine."
Something in my expression must have convinced her. She broke, words tumbling out in a desperate rush.
"Ricci knows the marriage is fake! He has photos, evidence. Planted me right after you got out of prison, when you were rebuilding. He's been planning this for months, working with—" She stopped abruptly, as if catching herself.
"With who?"
She pressed her lips together, shaking her head.
I moved toward the knife, my intent clear.
"Her uncle!" she blurted. "Don Moretti's brother. They've been working together for nearly a year. Planning to take over both families. The Romano-Moretti alliance threw a wrench in the works, but then—" She hesitated again.
"Then what?"
"Then we discovered it wasn’t a love marriage. That you two hated each other. It was perfect—we could expose the lie, trigger a war between the families, and sweep in during the chaos."
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Angelo's security detail. I frowned, surprised they'd break protocol for a routine report during an active interrogation. Something cold slithered down my spine as I accepted the call.
"What?"
"Boss." The voice was tight with tension. "We have a situation. Your wife—she's gone."
The world stopped for one crystalline moment of perfect clarity.
"What do you mean, gone?" Each word emerged with deadly precision.
"She's not in the apartment. Security logs show the service tunnel door was accessed about ninety minutes ago."
Ninety minutes. She could be anywhere by now.
"Lock down the club," I ordered, my voice deadly calm despite the ice flooding my veins. "I'm on my way. Marco—finish here."
I turned back to Claudia, who was watching me with growing comprehension and something that might have been satisfaction.
"What did you do?" I demanded, crossing back to her in three strides. "Where did Ricci take her?"
"What? I don't—"
I grabbed the armrest of her chair, leaning in until we were inches apart. "My wife is missing. Disappeared from a secured location ninety minutes ago. You just told me Ricci and Giuseppe have been coordinating. So I'll ask once more: where did your people take my wife?"
Confusion flickered across Claudia's face—genuine confusion, not an act. "We didn't take her. The plan was to wait until after the Moretti situation resolved. Giuseppe wanted to move against you when you were weakest—after your wife's family fell. Taking her now would unite the families against us, not divide them."
The words hit like ice water.
She wasn't taken. She left.
"Terminal B," I said. "The text message Giuseppe sent her. The bait about her father."
Claudia's eyes widened slightly. "I don't know anything about—"
"She got the message. I told her it was a trap. I told her to stay put." Rage and fear warred in my chest. "And she went anyway."
"Then she's walking into exactly what Giuseppe wanted," Claudia said, and for once, I heard something like genuine concern. "He's been setting up Terminal B for days. Security bought off, escape routes blocked. If she goes there alone—"
I was already moving toward the door, phone in hand.
