He loved her now with a destructive, all-consuming hunger that defied logic and morality. His mother had wanted Giana submissive or dead because she was the last loose thread in their bloody revenge.
And for years, Rodrigo had played the part of the dutiful son, agreeing in principle while ensuring Giana was the most protected woman in the world, caged in a fortress of his design. Now Gabriella was in the ground. The threat was gone, and the cage was open. Wasn't it?
The Sorrentino name alone made her a target for ordinary criminals, but Rodrigo's mind went darker. Since Gabriella's death and Serapis's assumed death, there had been whispers. Old Aurora contacts were going silent. There were strange movements in their networks. If someone was rebuilding what Serapis had destroyed… Rodrigo shook his head. No. Giana was nothing to the Aurora and people like them. The Sorrentino fortune had nothing they would want. No relics or artifacts or anything else that even whiffed of magic.
Rodrigo knew it was paranoia playing games with him, just like it had been since Giana had left him.
Where are you, Giana?
The question was a constant, agonizing hum beneath the surface of Rodrigo's thoughts. He knew where she would have gone. Not because he was tracking her. He had kept his promise, no matter how hard it was, but because he knewher.
Giana would go to a sea somewhere, to a place of sun and salt and anonymity. She craved freedom like a drowning woman craved air, and he had seen paintings of the water she had done in university. He knew she had stuck images of turquoise water and white-washed villages on her fridge. Wherever she chose, it would be far from Italy.
Far from him.
Weeks of not knowing whether she was safe. Was she happy? Had some other man put his hands on her? The thought was a white-hot poker to the gut. His jaw clenched so tight, a molar groaned in protest.
You made the right choice.
Giana deserved autonomy. She deserved a life, even if it wasn't with him, and the thought of her building that life with someone else made him want to burn the world to ash.
This was his penance. For his family's sins. For his own. To love her was to release her.
ButGesù Cristo, the silence was killing him. The lack of her was a phantom limb, an ache for something that was no longer there. Every instinct, honed by years of strategy and violence, screamed at him.
He fought it down every minute of every day, a constant, brutal war waged within the confines of his own skull. He was a predator who had willingly let go of his prey, and his teeth ached with the need to hunt and reclaim her.
The wine glass was empty. He set it down on the polished mahogany desk with a sharp click that echoed in the oppressive quiet. His fingers twitched. One call. That was all it would take. One call and a satellite would pivot, a drone would launch, and a man on the ground would report in.
He wouldn't. Hecouldn't.He had to be stronger than his own demons.
As if summoned by the thought, his phone vibrated against the desk. The screen lit up with a single name.Dario.
Rodrigo's blood went cold. His brother wouldn't be calling him at this time of night if something wasn't wrong.
"What is it now? I thought you were meant to be going to see Leo in Istanbul for a few days."
"I fucking was, and then I might have, maybe, got a call from someone," Dario said, sounding guilty.
Rodrigo pinched the bridge of his nose. He loved his brother, but sometimes he wished he would stop fucking about and grow up. "Spit it out, Dario, I don't have time for your nonsense riddles."
"Imayhave kept a tab on Giana. Just a little one," Dario admitted quickly. "Don't be mad."
Rodrigo stilled. "Say that again? Because I said she was free. Ipromisedher, Dario."
"But I didn't! Fuck, Rodrigo, we ruined her life. She has no family to protect her because of Mama. It felt too much like throwing a lamb to the slaughter!"
Rodrigo flinched. "I taught her to look after herself. Her father did too."
"So what? She's one girl, and all the old families want her name and money. I knew they wouldn't fucking leave her be, and I was right."
A knot of pure, black dread tightened in Rodrigo's stomach. "What happened, Dario?"
His brother let out a rush of breath. "Giana… She was snatched from a café in Bodrum an hour ago."
Rodrigo hung up the phone. Leo was in Istanbul and was the closest to her. He hit his contact number. No answer.
"Porca puttana!" he snarled and then found Kon's number. Only Giana could make him dare to call the Basty of Istanbul.
