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It seemed frankly impossible that he could have been taken.

Or that anyone would dare to.

For the first time in years, I felt a true fissure of fear sear down my spine. Embarrassingly, I found myself wishing for the comfort of my long-dead family, the other men in my life who had protected me before Dario.

Papà, Ricco, and Beppe.

Niccolo, who I rarely allowed myself to think of at all.

But no.

Even if Dario had been taken, I wasn’t some helpless twenty-year-old girl with no skills in a foreign country anymore. I could take care of myself.

I wanted to be ice cold about his disappearance. I wanted to think my life could even be better off without his hot-and-cold, mysterious, and torturous existence in it.

But that soft part of me I’d never been able to forge, not in the flames of hatred or the icy folds of neglect, hurt at the thought of Dario under someone’s control, no doubt brutalized and tortured for information, if he was even still alive at all.

I swallowed thickly, and it tasted of blood.

“Darling!” Carla called to me, sweeping into the foyer with open arms. “Oh, I am so glad you are okay.”

I let her embrace me, hugging her back automatically even though I felt a sudden, fierce aversion to being touched.

Cerberus appeared in the mouth of the hall, staring at Carla as she embraced me with his lip curled because he didn’t particularly like her. Then again, Carla was not the kind of woman who had patience for children or animals, anyone or anything she viewed as unimportant.

Carla stepped back to take my face in her hands, concern crumpling her otherwise smooth brow as she studied me. “We worried when Cesare couldn’t reach you that you had been taken.”

Even though my mother-in-law had initially been my biggest supporter in asserting my independence from Dario, over the years she had grown increasingly uneasy about it. I’d never told her about my work as the Oracle, but my late nights out on the town, my preoccupation with self-defense, and my own rising cachet in the Mafia network obviously unsettled her. I wasn’t sure if my continued distance from Dario played a role in her disquiet. If she was secretly worried I’d leave him to go back to Sicily or divorce him in a terribly public scandal that would hurt the Family.

She referenced it with me often when we went for our monthly dinners or shopping excursions, just how much it would harm Dario’s reputation if I ever left, and now that he had disappeared, I had to wonder if she was anxious about me using it as my own opportunity to flee.

“Just Dario,” I said woodenly, still dazed enough for her guilt trip to roll right off my tensed shoulders.

Carla clicked her tongue. “We have to hope for the best. He was on a flight to Sicily and should have landed in Palermo hours ago, but there could be a dozen reasons for his lack of communication, hmm? Let’s be positive.”

I pressed my lips together to harness my annoyance. Carla was perpetually unruffled, even when circumstances were irritating or less than ideal. It was a skill, I knew, but it chafed me, especially now when my fucking husband was AWOL.

It didn’t help that I had a flash drive burning a hole in my purse with information that could possibly lead to finally getting the answers I’d centered my entire life around discovering. Walter had probably been informed by Alessia or Renata about what happened, but I was still desperate to hand over the drive so Finn could get to work dissecting the information for me.

It was a distraction I didn’t need when I was also facing the impossibility of Dario being abducted.

“Darling,” she said again, smoothing a hand down my hair. “I know you don’t care much for him, so you can only imagine how I would feel if I truly believed he was in danger. Dario is not a man to be trifled with. In his forty-two years of life, no one has ever seriously threatened him, and I don’t know why that should change now. I’m sure there is a perfectly good reason for his lack of response.”

I looked up at Ciro when he entered the foyer, one of the only men in Dario’s inner circle I actually enjoyed. His dark brow was creased, but he reluctantly nodded toward Carla. Cerberus took the opportunity to move into my side, pressing himself hard against my thighs with his sleek, powerful body between mine and my mother-in-law’s. I knew he felt my despair, and it distressed him, so I reached down to rub one of his silky ears.

“There was bad weather across the Mediterranean,” he allowed, swiping a lean tattooed hand over his damp forehead. “It’s possible they were rerouted and the weather has made contact difficult.”

Possible, but not probable.

Dario would have found a way to connect with his team if he was able.

He was nothing if not proficient.

Dread dropped like a heavy stone to the pit of my gut.

“He’s really been taken,” I whispered to myself, but Carla clucked her tongue and hooked my arm through her own to lead me to the formal living room, where I could hear Lando spitting orders to various foot soldiers.

If Dario was gone, did that mean Lando was back in charge?