Page 80 of My Dark Ever After

The train had already left by the time Renzo pulled up onto the sidewalk outside the train station and we all spilled out of the car into a sprint.

But the beautiful thing about modernity was that you could find records of everything.

Including footage of the platforms.

Two hundred euros greasing the right palms, and we were crammed into the security room with the adviser, watching in black and white as Philippe dragged Guinevere up to the train. Pride blossomed like a night-blooming flower in my chest when I watched mycacciatricecall for help and slip out of his grasp, only for an icy draft to obliterate it the moment I saw Philippe escape the crowd and get onto the train himself.

“Pezzo di merda,” I cursed, hitting the side of the small television so the image spasmed with static. “How the hell did Philippe pass inspection when we went through our ranks?”

“He’s known us since we were boys,” Carmine said quietly, his gaze still fixed on the screen, shock wide in his eyes. “He was never even on the short list.”

“Fuck,” I shouted because English curse words hit differently, and anger was roiling through me like a cyclone. “Call Ludo. I want Philippe foundnow.”

“And Guinevere?” Martina asked softly.

“Ludo is on Philippe. The rest of us do not sleep until we find where they have taken her,” I ordered.

And sleep we did not.

The first night Renzo and Martina tracked down passengers who had been on the same train, using the CCTV footage and Ludo’s facial recognition software. A German man claimed he had been one of the few to try to help Guinevere get away from Philippe, and when Philippe had followed her onto the train, the German, Karl, had followed him too, even though it was not going to his destination.

He had followed him through the cars until he reached the end and watched as Philippe sat beside Guinevere and an older woman who looked like her mother.

“She did not even blink when the man sat down with them,” Karl had admitted with some confusion. “So I watched for a few minutes, but they chatted calmly, and then the girl settled in to take a nap. I figured I had interrupted a lovers’ quarrel and left them. Was I wrong to have done so?”

“Yes,” I shouted when Renzo relayed the information.

How could he have left her with a man she had tried to run from? I did not care for his logic, and my gums and fingers ached as if I could sprout fangs and claws and eviscerate him for his poor decision-making.

When it was I who had made the critical mistake.

But I could not understand Philippe.

He had been boyhood friends with Renzo, Leo, Carm, and me. We had played in the vines and pelted each other with olives. We had gone to school together and been pimply-faced teens.

How did someone like that turn on me so viciously?

Abducting the key to my heart right out from under me.

I felt like half a man knowing Guinevere was somewhere out there with the enemy.

“They won’t kill her, boss,” Carmine said quietly on day two while we watched hours of CCTV footage collected from every stop the train passed through, looking for Guinevere as she left the train with her captors. “They could’ve done it on the train, and they didn’t. They could have done it in the street. They wanted her alive.”

“To manipulate me,” I growled.

Later that day, the demand came by way of a hand-delivered envelope. The courier, when pressed, explained it had been dropped off at the reception area of his firm, and he had no idea who it was from.

Fatti trovare alle due in Piazza de Miracoli, vieni da solo e sii puntuale, altrimenti la ragazza perde un occhio.

Two o’clock on Saturday in the Square of Miracles. Come alone and on time, or the girl loses an eye.

Fury blinded me, white-hot rage eviscerating my insides. I sat very, very still so that it would not split my skin and explode everywhere. Giving in to wrath would help no one. Calm, cool heads reigned supreme, especially in this world where hot-blooded men abounded.

“The Venetian and the Pietras have at least one man who truly knows me,” I said as I sat in my office at the palazzo with Martina, Carmine, and Renzo late the second night. “So I need to do something they would not think me capable of.”

“Leave her with them?” Martina asked, then held up her hands at my glower. “I’m just saying they would not expect that.”

“That is not an option, obviously.”