CHAPTER1
Enzo
Sera has disappeared off the face of the earth as though she’d never existed, and I was about to lose my fucking mind.
She’s been gone for a full week now. Luca and Tristan have been working overtime trying to help me find her, and I’ve never been more appreciative of my friends, or more grateful for the fact that they haven’t questioned me once about why I was risking my life—all of our lives—to find her. A woman I barely knew.
What we knew is that Derek Jonak, the walking dead man who took her, seems to have dropped her off at that rundown house and left. She was later picked up by a guy driving an unmarked delivery truck and the house had been cleared out. I’d missed her by less than thirty minutes when I’d arrived.
We’d tracked the truck to the Mexican border, and then we’d lost it.
I paced Luca’s office as he spoke with his contact Rene in Mexico, one of the few men he trusted implicitly. They’d mourned the death of Rene’s sister together, and Luca had kept his promise to avenge her death by killing the man who’d shot her—Luca’s brother Mario—therefore earning him a trusted friend for life, even if they did work on opposite sides of the border.
Veda coming into his life three years later had been a godsend. She’d saved my friend from an emotional spiral of self-destruction. And for that, I will protect her with my life. Always.
“Thank you, Rene.” Luca watched me cross the room with impatient strides as he finished up the call. “Yes.” He paused. “Yes. Alright. I’ll talk to you soon.” He hung up the phone.
I stopped on the other side of his desk. “What did he say?”
“He’s going to get in touch with some of his contacts throughout Mexico who deal with or who know people who deal with sex traffickers. Maybe someone has seen her. With her pink hair and pierced nose, he’s hopeful she’ll be remembered.”
Nodding, I stepped back. My entire body trembled with the need to hit something. The backs of my legs hit the arm of the couch and I made my way around it and sank down onto the leather cushion. Leaning forward, I braced my elbows on my knees and held my head in my hands.
“Enzo.”
It was a command. My head snapped up to find Luca standing in front of me.
“We’ll find her.”
I nodded again. It was all I could do.
“She’s still alive.”
“How do you know?” I barely managed to get the words out.
“I know, because they wouldn’t have bothered taking her all the way across the border if they were just going to kill her.”
A small flare of hope kindled in my stomach. He had a point. I was letting my emotions rule my thoughts.
Sitting down across from me, he mimicked my pose. “I think that guy, Derek whatever-the-fuck-his-name-is, is trying to teach her a lesson. For rejecting him, perhaps. But he’s a pussy. He didn’t have the guts to hurt her himself, so he sold her.”
The office door opened and Tristan walked in, closing it behind him.
Luca and I stood. “Did you find out anything?” I asked him.
He smiled, but it was cold and didn’t reach his eyes. “Our boy is in California.”
“Do you have an exact location?” Luca asked him.
“I do. And I already contacted Franco in LA and told him we were coming.”
We. I was grateful for the support, but I could handle thisstronzoon my own. “You don’t have to come with me. Luca needs you here.”
But Luca placed his hand on my arm. “Take Tristan with you. Just in case there’s trouble. We don’t know why he’s in California or what connections he has out there, and our relationship with Franco can be a bit…testy at times.”
“What about you? And Veda? Someone needs to watch over you both.”
“She’s only got one class tomorrow and then she’s off for the weekend. I’ll take her myself if I need to.” He gave Tristan a nod, and he walked out of the office, leaving us alone.
