Page 73 of The Kingpin’s Bride

I did not know where I was going next. I only knew I could not stop.

Not while Camilla was out there. Not while the man who had bought me was somewhere in the same city, burning through every resource he had to find us both.

The street outside was starting to wake. Delivery trucks. A man walking a dog. Normal people living normal mornings.

I walked until the industrial blocks turned into quieter side streets. My bandaged feet burned with every step. I found a narrow alley between two closed shops and sank down onto an overturned crate because my legs finally refused to carry me any farther.

I sat there with my head tipped back against the brick and let the morning light find me. For the first time since I walked out of the penthouse, the anger thinned enough for something else to slip through.

I missed Matteo Ventura.

The thought landed so hard I almost laughed.

It was stupid. Dangerous.

True.

I missed the weight of his hand on the back of my neck when he was pretending this was only for show. I missed the way he looked at me when he thought I was not watching, like the crack under his ribs was spreading and he did not know how to stop it. I missed the low sound he made when he pushed into me the first time after the auction, half curse and half prayer. I even missed the cream. The quiet orders.

I hated myself for it.

And still.

I pressed the heel of my hand hard against my sternum, right over the place that felt hollow. I could almost feel the ghost of his fingers there instead.

“You absolute bastard,” I whispered to the empty alley.

A car passed at the end of the street. I flinched, then forced myself still. The burner phone stayed silent in my pocket. No new leads. No replies from the last two numbers I had tried. The four hours the doctor had given me were almost gone. Somewhere in the city Matteo was tearing through every contact he had. Somewhere Dario was moving Camilla farther out of reach. And I was sitting in an alley missing the man who had bought me.

I wanted to go back.

Not to the soft clothes and the scheduled claiming. I wanted to go back to the version of my husband that had whispered he would find my little sister. The version that had looked wrecked when I put the knife to my own throat. The version that had said “please” like the word cost him something vital.

I wanted him to find me.

The thought terrified me more than the empty safe house had.

I stood up before I could sink any deeper into it. My feet screamed. My body felt used up and too aware at the same time. I shoved the jacket back into my pocket and started walking again, nowhere in particular, just forward.

Chapter Twenty

Matteo

The second the elevator doors closed on her, I stood in the hallway with her ring clenched in my fist and the taste of her last kiss on my mouth. The knife with her blood sat on the dresser like it was waiting for me to acknowledge what I had done.

I called Santino first. He answered on the second ring, voice rough with sleep. “This better be important.”

“She left.”

Silence. Then a quiet curse. “Morena?”

“Yes. She put a knife to her own fucking throat and walked out. Her little sister is missing. Her bastard of a stepfather moved her. I need everything you have on After Dark’s old networks. Drivers. Girls who talk. Anyone who ever moved product or people for Dario Rizzo.”

Santino was quiet for a second. I heard sheets shift. “You’re in war mode.”

“I’m past war mode.”

“I’ll be there in twenty.”