Page 18 of Roman

CHAPTER 5

ROMAN

Midafternoon the next day, I was pacing my office. I’d been up all night. I had no idea why I was so upset. Marianne had done something horrendous, but the bottom line was, it didn’t affect me. I didn’t know Effie. We had no relationship.

Except, every time I shut my eyes, I saw her face. Those eyes. That sweet smile. The fact that I had inadvertently caused this chain reaction didn’t sit well with me. Knowing those eyes would soon be pits of despair and that mouth would never smile again bothered me on a level I didn’t understand.

The car Marianne was riding in showed her getting off at the bus station. I had no doubt she was headed to Toronto. Gordon dug around and found a plane ticket. She had departed late last night for Costa Rica. I couldn’t find her there, but I had him tag her passport. If she came back to Canada, she would pay for her crime.

The car that contained Effie had disappeared quickly, and Gordon couldn’t find it. The license plates of both cars were unreadable. No doubt purposely dirtied up or damaged so they couldn’t be read.

The chip on the card I’d slid into Effie’s pocket remained dark.

I had no doubt this was the Santini brothers. The one choice I had was to contact them. Offer to buy her back if I could get them to admit they had her.

I dragged a hand through my hair in frustration.

A knock at my door made me look up from my desk. “In.”

The door opened, and Aldo walked in, tanned and relaxed-looking, his large frame filling the doorway. “What are you doing here?” I asked, surprised. “You’re not due back for days.” I hugged him. We had grown up together, and he was my closest ally and my right hand. I trusted him as much as I trusted Luca.

“I was getting restless. Vi thought we needed to come home early. From the look of you, I’d say I made the right choice. Gordon says you’re furious over something, and you look as if you’re about to explode.”

“I fucking am.”

He shook my shoulders. “Tell me.”

I poured us a scotch, and he listened to what I had to say. He sat on the sofa, his large frame taking up almost half of the space. Growing up, we had always been similar in our build. But when we turned sixteen, Aldo hit a growth spurt and packed on muscle and inches. I was tall at six foot two. He hit the six-foot-five mark and outweighed me by forty pounds. He was a deadly shadow, at my side whenever I needed him.

When I finished telling him what had happened, he frowned.

“Atrocious, I agree. But when have you bothered before, Roman? We’ve seen and heard lots of horror stories. You walk away.”

“I caused this.”

“You care about this woman?”

“I care I destroyed her life for no reason other than my stupid mouth.”

“You had no idea her sister was that horrendous.”

“She is diabolical. Psychotic, I would say.”

My intercom sounded, Gordon’s voice filling the room. “The chip just came online.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Aldo came with me, and we rushed to the computer room. “Can you get a lock on it?” I asked as I hurried in.

“I’m trying.”

He tapped away, doing whatever computer geniuses did. He moved from keyboard to keyboard, mumbling to himself. “Just a little longer.”

“I got the area. Not a good part of town. Way toward the west.”

“Not surprising.”

My phone rang. My personal cell phone. The one very few people had the number for. The caller ID said unknown number and I was going to ignore it, but knowing I had given it to Effie the day before, I glanced at Gordon. “Trace this. It could be her.”