Page 78 of Mine Again (Mafia Bride #2)

Chapter Seventy-Seven

Luca

T he roar still burns in my throat. My chest heaves, lungs dragging in jagged breaths.

My hands won’t stop flexing open and closed, itching for a throat to crush, a body to break.

Bloodlust. Raw. Blinding.

It feels foreign, yet familiar, like a shadow I thought I’d escaped. My father’s shadow.

His world was built on blood and broken bones, not code. I never wanted to be him. But right now, I can taste the part of myself that could be.

All I want is Hale’s throat between my hands.

The thought is dangerous. Useless. If I stay in this state, I’ll destroy everything. A good strategy requires control.

I squeeze my eyes shut, drag in a long breath, and force it out between clenched teeth.

Once. Twice. Again, until the pounding in my veins sharpens instead of scattering.

Isa needs me.

I open my eyes and go to pull a burner phone out of one of my bags. Fury won’t find Isa. Focus will.

The screen glares to life under my fingertips. I punch in the command sequence I swore I’d never need.

Two seconds of black. Then a single red dot appears.

Moving. High altitude.

Isa is airborne somewhere over the eastern Atlantic, just north of Portugal.

A quick calculation runs through my head. That puts her about an hour into the flight. Factoring in the time it took them to tranquilize her and get to a local airstrip, she was taken two hours ago.

Fuck. I was completely oblivious.

There’s nothing I can do to reach her midair, not when I don’t even know the destination. But if I had to wager, I’d bet on America.

All I can do for now is follow the dot.

I’d meant to tell Isa about the tracker, the sliver I buried beneath her hairline when I got her to the island, just before I tattooed her ring finger with my name.

It’s a biocompatible, non-metallic composite, body-heat activated. Invisible to every scan, every detector, every hand that might try to find it. I was going to come clean about it yesterday morning before the Delaware alarms screamed across my screens and tore the moment away.

Now it’s the only thread tying her to me.

My foresight pays off. She won’t be able to be mad when she learns about it, not once she understands it’s the reason I found her.

For a moment, I let the silence of this room bombard me. It tilts the room off its axis, like gravity itself forgot which way to pull. Then my mind screams.

Find her, find her, find her.

I hit the update button for a third time. Each time it takes longer to respond. The encrypted ping wasn’t designed for constant use. Long intervals and manual requests only. Just enough to keep it hidden. Not nearly enough to keep me sane .

This is what Hale wanted. Not just to take her, but to trap me in the helplessness of it.

I won’t give him that.

I force my focus onto the room. How did they get her out?

The door upstairs is still locked. No signs of forced entry. Which leaves only the balcony. A ladder, most likely. Quick, silent.

The dart confirms it. Hale’s mockery. The same type I used in the chapel in Vegas. He wanted me to know.

I should have told Isa to keep the balcony doors locked, but it felt like overkill. I was so sure no one had followed us here.

Why did I let her out of my sight?

I should have had cameras in this room. Something. Anything. Better still, I should have taken her with me into the cellar. But it’s too cramped down there, with barely enough room for me and the equipment. And I wanted her to rest and sleep in a proper bed.

How did Hale find us here? I took every precaution. What did I miss?

And if he knew, why not alert the authorities and let them cage me, take me out? I could be behind bars right now. Out of his way.

Why take Isa?

The answer twists in my gut because it’s obvious.

He wants me to suffer. He knows I thrive on control, and taking Isa rips that away. And as long as I don’t name him, Isa stays alive. She’s his insurance policy that ticks all the boxes.

Plus, he can’t risk turning me over. Agencies are unpredictable. And my skills make me valuable. They’d flip me, recruit me, shield me. Hale can’t afford that, not when I know his identity. He wants certainty.

So do I.

But mine is simpler.

I want him dead. No more games.

I pivot into planning mode. I need to get to my jet in Gibraltar. It will be hours before I find out where Hale is taking Isa. Until then, I’ll follow her current route.

I return to the cellar and copy the dossier onto three different storage devices. A drive for my pocket. A backup shard, encrypted and sealed, sewn into the lining of my jacket. And one final copy loaded onto a remote transmission chip, rigged to fire off should I disappear.

Next, I set the dead man’s switch.

Seventy-two hours without a manual check-in and the files go wide. Interpol, select journalists, and two former enemies who will open anything signed with my signature out of sheer morbid curiosity.

When I’m done, I close the laptop and lean back in the chair. The room is quiet except for the hum of the generators and the hammering of my pulse.

I refresh the tracker again, forcing myself not to do it too often in case Hale has a way of sniffing out the outgoing signals.

The red dot is well over the Atlantic now, steady, moving.

I picture Isa slumped in a seat, head lolling, still drugged. Do they have her strapped in? Is she cold? Did they touch her? Every answer is a torment I can’t prove, and still my mind won’t stop supplying them.

My stomach pitches, bile clawing up my throat. My hands twitch for something to destroy, but all I have is air and the gnawing ache of not being beside her.

Where are you taking my girl, bastardo ?

The States. Chicago makes the most sense. His main residence there is a fortress. But it could be New York, DC, or someplace remote. He’s got properties everywhere, and I’ve seen enough to know any of them could be it.

Wherever Isa lands, I’ll be there. And when I find Hale, I won’t just kill him. I’ll make him wish he’d never touched her.

The last thing I remember of Isa is her smile, the softness of her lips when I kissed her before I went down the ladder. That moment should have carried us through the night.

Now it has to last me until I have her back. And for that alone, I’ll delete Hale’s name out of existence.

Hold on, farfalla , I’m coming.