11
GIULIO
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Gone.My wife—the young, innocent, painfully naive woman I have tied myself to for the duration of our lives—is gone.
In hindsight, it would have been best for me to inform her outright that she isn’t supposed to leave the penthouse without telling me. Then again, I hadn’t thought she’d beableto leave. She didn’t know the code for the alarm system. “Didn’t,” as in, past tense.
The disarmed security system flashes a reminder of my mistake. I reach into the pocket of my slacks and withdraw my phone. I click over to the application Dante installed on notjust my device, but on all of the Lucianicapos’cell phones. Daisy’s phone—missing, as I’ve already checked her room—doesn’t appear on the map of the application.
“Shit.” I bite down on the word and switch over the screen to call Dante. When the other man picks up, I bark out a command. “Find Daisy.”
Dante is silent and then, with a rueful tone, he chuckles. “Slipped her leash, has she?”
“This is not a laughing matter,” I snap. “She’s gone from the house, and her phone is turned off so I can’t track her. You’re the technology genius, D. I need to make sure she’s safe.”
“Damn. How the hell did she get out of the penthouse?” Dante asks. Distantly, I hear the rustling of sheets and then his feet hitting the floor as, I assume, he rolls out of bed. The digital clock on the stove in the kitchen reads just past 8 a.m. I’m not shocked he wasn’t up before now. He’s always been a late riser.
“She knew the code.” She must have planned this and spied on me putting it in. As annoyed as I am by the disruption to my morning, I also have to give credit where credit is due. She’s a clever little thing.
There’s silence on the other end, then the soft sound of a chair rolling and the creak of plastic and fabric as he sits. The typing on a keyboard tells me he’s in his home office, no doubt using those technology skills of his to track down my wayward wife. “I’m going to be honest, G, if she’s got her phone turned off, there might be nothing I can do. Her phone needs to connect with a cell tower for me to ping her.”
A low growl rumbles up my throat. “Why would she turn her phone off?” I demand. “She took it with her—it’s missing.”
Dante sighs. “Perhaps your wife is smarter than you give her credit for, hmm?” He hums in the back of his throat. “She did, after all, manage to escape your secure penthouse.”
My growl stops abruptly, and I shove a hand up through my hair, ruffling and messing up the strands I just brushed after my shower. Grabbing a chunk of the stuff, I contemplate ripping it out completely. “I have a meeting with a client this morning,” I say.
Dante starts typing again. A moment later, he speaks. “I can set up the system to ping your phone the second she comes back online, but otherwise, unless you want to send Otello and the other boys out to hunt for her, you might just have to wait.”
“Can’t you hack cameras or something?” I turn, stalking away from the security system as a mounting desire to do serious harm to some unseen force swells within my chest.
“Do you know how many cameras there are in the Upper East Side alone?” Dante demands, sounding aghast. “We’re not just talking a couple hundred, G. We’re talking thousands—hundreds of thousands!”
Another curse threatens to spill forth. “What am I supposed to do, then?”
“The best thing you can do is wait. I can have Otello and a few of the guys look for her, but we can’t sacrifice all of our men to look for a woman who probably just wanted to go out for a little bit. She’s been stuck inside since you moved her in, hasn’t she?”
Is that why she did this?I wonder dimly.Because I haven’t taken her out?
A groan leaves my lips. “I would’ve preferred it if your fatherhad ordered me to get a pet.” A wife is far too much work. Dangerous. Intelligent.Attractive.
That last thought creeps past my defenses, causing my upper lip to curl back away from my teeth. Damn it. How one tiny woman has got me tied up in knots, I’ll never understand. A five-foot-four little bit of feminine fury shouldn’t have this much of an effect on me. Not a single woman ever has, but Daisy… she’s unique. Maybe not a bombshell, but she’s quirky and amusing, and coming home to find her staring wide-eyed at me as she burns yet another chicken on my stove has actually come to be a highlight in my days. I’m not bored when she’s around, that’s for sure.
The problem now is that I don’t havetimeto search for her. I have work I need to do. The client I’m supposed to meet with has an important shipment coming into the country in the next forty-two hours. Considering the nature of the shipment’s contents, cocaine, I need to make sure enough hands are greased that customs doesn’t get curious. I move further away from the useless security system toward the refrigerator. I need fuel if I’m going to get through today.
“Has there been any update from Cesari?” I ask, yanking open the door and pulling out the carafe of milk. The self-starting coffee machine already has a full pot waiting. I pour a hefty amount of the dark, bitter liquid into a travel mug and then dump milk in to lighten and cool it down.
