Page 75 of Beautiful Torment (Empire of Kings #1)

ANGELO

“ A nything?” I grit out the question as soon as I answer Nicky’s call.

“Nothing yet,” he says. “Did you make it to the island?”

“I just got here.” I glance up at Cristian and Romeo as I stalk across the dock to meet them. By the look in their eyes, I can tell they don’t have anything for me either.

“Follow every lead,” I tell Nicky. “Burn the fucking city to the ground if you have to. I want to know where she is.”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line, a moment of hesitation before he answers. “Sure thing, boss.”

I disconnect the call, an incendiary cocktail of anger and disbelief seething through my veins.

She left me.

She just fucking… left.

That bitter wound has reopened, leaving a gaping hole inside my chest.

I swore I’d never let it happen again.

She kissed me like it meant something, and then she just walked the fuck out of my life.

Her records and her rushed goodbye are still folded into my pocket. I’ve stared at them twenty times over, replaying every moment of the last six years through a different filter.

Everything she did. Every lie she told. Every sacrifice she made.

She did it for me.

It wasn’t her sword to fall on, but she did. And then she let me punish her for it. Over and over again.

I want to punish her right now for not trusting me to protect her. But I can’t. Because she fucking walked away.

“What are you going to do if you find her?” Cristian glances at me as he drives us back to the house.

He sounds concerned, and I don’t like it. “That’s for me to figure out.”

“You can’t bring her back here.” He lowers his voice. “Not if you’re going to crush her. You know what it will do to her if you have a baby with someone else. You saw what her father did.”

“Stop,” I growl.

“You need to decide what to do about the treaty?—"

“The last thing I want to hear about right now is the goddamned treaty,” I snarl. “She’s my wife.”

Wisely, he chooses not to say anything else as we pull into the drive and get out.

“Where are they?” I ask him.

He hesitates. “We can talk to them.”

“Where. Are. They?”

He sighs. “In the ballroom.”

I stalk up the stairs and into the house, Romeo and Cristian trailing after me.

Rafe and Michele have been with the girls since they picked them up in the city, trying to sneak back into the ball.

It’s been hours since they helped Abella escape, and knowing what I do now about Aegis, I can just imagine how this will play out.

When I slam open the doors, all six of their gazes swing to me. They’re sitting on the hardwood floor, lined up like they’re about to face the firing squad.

I stop in front of Mariella, glaring down at her and the roll of masking tape in her hands.

“Where is she?” An undercurrent of fury bleeds through my words.

“None of us know,” she says. “That’s the entire point.”

If I hadn’t seen the journalist’s notes myself, I might not have believed her.

But before Ray killed her, she had infiltrated their organization under the guise of being an abused woman herself.

She broke down the entire process of how they moved women through different safe houses, the anonymity behind it, the secrecy, the codes, and the enormous network of women risking their own lives to help others escape theirs.

The scale of what they’ve accomplished under the watch of the Cosa Nostra and IVI is impressive—I’ll give them that.

But it’s also fucking dangerous. In my gut, I already know Mariella is the woman who’s been supplying the poison to the worst cases.

I can see it in her eyes as she rips a piece of tape from the roll.

She holds my gaze with more courage than most men can, lifting the tape to her mouth with one final word.

“ Omertà .”

She passes the roll to the next in line, and Valentina repeats the performance, ripping off a piece of tape before she glances up at me.

“ Omertà .”

And so they continue down the line.

“You think this is fucking cute?” I clip out.

They all stare back at me, unmoving.

“Angelo.” Rafe meets my gaze.

He doesn’t have to tell me it’s been a long fucking night and everyone’s exhausted—or that the wound is too raw for me to deal with anyone right now.

“Take them to Mariella’s wing,” I tell him. “Keep them there until I say otherwise.”

I exit the ballroom and wind my way through the halls of the estate until I’m back in my wing. In the kitchen, I pour myself a glass of whiskey and drain the glass before I enter our suite. Everything is as Abella left it. All her clothes, jewelry, and keepsakes remain untouched.

I can’t bring myself to look at them, so I walk to the window where the sun’s beginning to rise. A suffocating pressure chokes the air from my lungs as I consider how far she might be already. How much distance has she put between us?

In the forest, a flash of movement catches my eye as the black stag emerges from the trees. He stares at me through the window, stomping his hoof as he snorts. It feels like he wants something from me, but I’m also fairly certain that I’m losing my goddamned mind.

With bleary eyes, I watch him walk back into the forest until he vanishes from sight.