Page 64 of Claimed By the Enemy

This is how it ends, then, not in some dramatic final confrontation with Dom, not in a blaze of glory where I complete my mission and avenge my parents.

But in a cheap motel room, at the hands of men who claim to be saving me while they drag me toward some unknown fate.

Dom,I think desperately.Find me. Please find me.

Chapter Sixteen

Dom

My house feels wrong the moment I walk through the front door.

It’s too quiet and too still—like the life has been sucked out of it.

“Sophie?” I call, dropping my keys on the hall table. My head pounds from too much whiskey and sleeping in my car in some random parking lot, but I need to find her. Need to apologize for walking out last night like a coward.

Silence.

“Patrice!” I shout, my voice echoing through the hallway.

She appears from the laundry room, looking frazzled and worried instead of her usual composed self. “Mr. Moretti! Thank God you’re home.”

Something in her tone makes my blood run cold. “Where’s Sophie?”

“Mrs. Moretti left this morning around nine. She said she needed some air, needed to think.” Patrice wrings her hands anxiously. “But sir, that was five hours ago, and we haven’t heard from her since.”

“Five hours?”

“Vincent has been trying to call you all afternoon. We both have. Your phone kept going to voicemail.”

My phone died at the bar last night. I never charged it. “What happened? Where did she go?”

“Vincent followed her as instructed, but…” Patrice’s voice gets smaller. “Perhaps you should speak with him directly.”

I find Vincent pacing the garage like a caged animal, his usual calm professionalism completely shattered. The moment he sees me, relief and panic war across his face.

“Sir! I’ve been trying to reach you for hours.”

“Where is my wife?”

“I don’t know.” Vincent’s face crumbles. “Sir, I followed her to several motels downtown. She was hunting for someone, showing people a photograph.”

“What photograph?” I grab his shoulder, probably harder than I should.

“An older man. Couldn’t make out the details from my distance. At Highway Motor Lodge, she got sick in the parking lot. I was about to help when she disappeared into one of the rooms.”

“Which room?” My voice cracks.

“Couldn’t see the number from where I was parked. But sir…” Vincent’s eyes fill with terror. “She went in. Never came out.”

“What the hell does that mean?” I’m in his face now, desperate.

“I waited an hour. An hour and a half. Finally went to check. Door wide open. The chair was knocked over. Lamp on the floor. Sophie was gone.”

The garage floor seems to drop out from under me. I stagger backward, hitting the car.

“Gone where?”

“No idea. The manager heard the noise but didn’t investigate. Said there were no cameras in that section.”