Page 7

“Any news on where Madelaine is hiding?” he barked.

“Not yet, sir,” one of his guards answered, fingers flying over the laptop perched on his knees as the SUV sped through Paris. The wet streets glistened under the streetlamps, a city wrapped in beauty, history, and elegance. Ronan saw none of it.

His thoughts were consumed by his daughter.

Madelaine.

The useless chit had slipped through his fingers. For years he’d kept her trapped at boarding and finishing schools, guarded and watched. Yet, now she was gone. Vanished. How the hell had she managed it? How had she gotten past the men he paid to keep her in line?

She was just a woman, damn it. A female. Weak, delicate, dependent. He’d raised her to understand her place! Obedience, service, heirs were required of Madelaine. Nothing more. Yet, she’d dared to defy him. Had the audacity to run.

His lip curled. She’d prattled at him about getting a job once, about wanting “a life.” A life? As if folding napkins and balancing books on her head at some Swiss finishing school made her capable of earning her own income. The very idea was laughable. Pathetic.

He slammed a fist against the leather seat, the sharp sound making the guard with the laptop flinch. The impotence of it enraged him further. He wanted blood for this failure. He wanted to put his hands around a throat and squeeze until the fight left their eyes.

He thought of Madelaine again, thought of her rebellion, and his jaw clenched so tightly it ached. He’d find her. He’d drag her back, kicking and screaming if he had to. She was his property. His legacy. His leverage.

And when she was back under his roof, she’d learn the hard way what happened to someone, anyone, who dared to humiliate Ronan Keane.

Banishing Leonid’s foul words, and breath, from his mind, Ronan forced himself to focus on the bigger problem. Locating his daughter. Where the hell had the little brat hidden herself? And why? She wasn’t bold. She wasn’t clever. She was timid. Annoying. Always had been. During school breaks she’d skulk through his house, scurrying between rooms like a mouse. She squeaked if he barked her name, flinched if he so much as looked at her.

And the books. The stupid girl was always reading. Or picking up sticks and plucking flowers, doing something with them that he’d never understood. He clenched his fists. Flowers, reading, hiding. That was Madelaine. That was all she was.

Still…he cursed under his breath. Did she keep a diary? Maybe write out her thoughts? Maybe a map of her stupid little dreams, the kind of sentimental breadcrumbs she thought no one would see, let alone understand?

He had underestimated her. She’d slipped away, left her phone and clothes behind. But she’d stolen silver from the dining room and fenced it for cash. He’d figured that out several months after she’d disappeared. That was more clever than he’d expected. Not smart enough to vanish forever, though. Cash ran out. But cash also left no trail.

“Did you check with passport control?” he barked suddenly.

The man on the laptop froze, shoulders tense. “We don’t have a contact there anymore, Boss.”

Ronan’s jaw worked, fury building. The hacker he’d lost six months ago, a brilliant little bastard, would’ve had answers by now.

“Fine. Grab Bobby before he gets home tonight. Sit him down in front of a computer and remind him what happens if he disappoints me. I want information fast.”

“On it, Boss,” the guard murmured, phone already to his ear.

“And her friends from boarding school?” Ronan pressed.

“We’ve checked, sir. They haven’t seen her.”

“What about…,” he snapped his fingers in the air, searching his memory, “…Kitty, or whatever the hell her name was.”

“Catarina Bianchi,” the guard corrected. “She didn’t attend her father’s trial. Nor has she visited him in prison.”

“So?” Ronan demanded.

The guard’s mouth twitched, but he swallowed the insolence.

“Sir, she married Salvatore Romano. We don’t have contacts in his crew.”

“Romano?” Ronan repeated slowly. A dangerous man. Ruthless. He had a reputation built on broken bones and bodies that stayed buried. Ronan nodded, eyes glinting. “He’s tough. But he’s also fair.” And in Ronan’s mind, “fair” meant the man could be manipulated. “I’ll go to Chicago myself. If Romano’s wife is hiding my daughter, I’ll know it.”

He spoke confidently, but a thin thread of doubt crept into the back of his mind. Romano was one of the biggest mafia bosses in the world. If he didn’t want a meeting, there wouldn’t be one.

But Ronan shoved the doubt aside, clinging to the swagger that had carried him through decades of blood and domination. His reputation was enough. It had to be. And if Romano tried to deny him, then Ronan would carve his answers out of someone’s hide until he got what he wanted.

Madelaine belonged to him. And he’d burn down half the damn continent to prove it.