Page 36 of Corrupted By the Capo

We’d get past this, and I’d spend the rest of my life making it up to her.

“Did you pass Molly?” Hope said.

She didn’t look especially alarmed—just a little confused.

“She’s not with you?” I asked.

I tried to keep cool, but on instinct, I felt myself becoming concerned.

“She went to the restroom. I thought she had run into you on the way back,” Hope said, a smile on her face.

“I haven’t seen her.”

I walked toward the front of the restaurant, saw the table, and noticed that Molly hadn’t eaten much of her breakfast.

“Where’s Molly?” I asked Giacomo, Nico’s guard.

“She left about fifteen minutes ago,” he said, like that was an acceptable answer.

“And you let her?” I said, my teeth clenched with rage, my voice low, quiet, calm in a way that I knew terrified Giacomo down to his core.

And it should. Because if something happened to Molly, I didn’t know what I would do.

Or who I would do it to.

“I…” He looked at me and gulped, clearly not wanting to respond.

“Find her,” I said.

“I’m sure she’s fine. She wasn’t feeling well,” Hope said, but I looked at her and saw that she wasn’t convinced.

“She left without saying good-bye to you,” I said.

Hope didn’t have a response. But that was answer enough.

And suddenly…I knew.

“She heard me,” I said, looking at Nico.

Hope glanced between us, her brow furrowed. “Heard what?”

“You don’t know that,” Nico said, ignoring Hope.

He didn’t sound convincing.

“Heard what?” Hope repeated.

“I…”

I fidgeted, then took a second to roll my shirt sleeves up my forearms. I needed the break, something to distract me from the way my heart thundered. My shirt felt tight. Or maybe it was my skin. I felt like I was coming apart.

Molly was the only one that would put me back together.

Hope waited—not exactly patiently, but her stance and expression told me she’d get her answers.

I cleared my throat. “That night. At Carlo’s, when…”

“When your cousin threw me in the trunk of a car?” Hope said.