Page 107

The Ducati hums beneath me, the engine eating up the road as dawn breaks over the hills. Dante rides just behind, close enough to cover me if needed, far enough to give me space. We’re headed back from the final perimeter sweep, clean, secure, no threats in sight.

It should be over. She should be safe.

My mind drifts to her in that bed, tangled in sheets still warm with us. Her scent still on my skin. I’d left her with a kiss and a promise.

Back before you know it. Then my phone vibrates against my chest.

Just once.

But it’s the wrong kind of buzz.

I pull the bike to the side of the road fast and hard, gravel spitting under my tyres. Dante cuts in behind me, already frowning as I rip off my gloves and yank the phone from my jacket.

The screen lights up.

Location Alert: Bracelet Movement Detected.

JORDYN – STATUS: MOBILE .

Everything in me stills.

Not a thought. Not a sound. Just that cold, sudden drop in my chest like a blade slipping between ribs.

She’s not at the villa. She’s not on the grounds. She’s moving .

Dante swings his leg off his bike and steps toward me. “What is it?”

I stare at the screen. The blinking red dot. “She’s gone.”

His eyes narrow. “What do you mean gone?”

I look up at him slowly, my voice a low snarl. “She left the fucking estate. She’s not on the grounds anymore,” I growl, shoving the phone in his direction. “She’s moving. Car or van, I don’t know yet, but it’s not her walking. She doesn’t even know the bracelet’s tracked.”

“Cazzo.” Dante hisses.

I find her number and hit call.

It rings.

Once. Twice. Four times. Voicemail. I end it and call again.

Still nothing.

“She’s not answering her phone,” I add, voice tightening.

“She’s on the route to the airport.” Dante exhales, pulling out his own device and syncing locations. “Could be she ran. Or someone helped her.”

“Or someone took her.” The words leave my mouth like venom.

Because this isn’t her sneaking out to get air. This isn’t her being stubborn, slipping past a distracted guard.

This is something else. A gut-deep wrongness wraps around my spine and tightens.

She left without telling me. Unless she didn’t make it far enough not to be found.

I swing my leg back over the bike, the engine roaring to life beneath me.

I swing back onto the bike, engine snarling beneath me like it feels the shift in my blood.

“Let’s move,” I grit out. “We follow the signal.”

Dante’s already remounting. “Got it.”

The Ducati tears back onto the road, gravel spraying behind me. The blinking dot on my phone guides me, steady, precise. She’s still moving. Still out there.

Still breathing.

But my gut’s a storm. She didn’t answer her phone. She didn’t tell me she was leaving.

And that bracelet? She doesn’t know it tracks her.

This wasn’t a plan. It was a mistake, or a fucking ambush.

I bite down hard, muscles locked. “Track her phone and pull traffic cams,” I bark through the comm. “Every feed from the estate to the airport. I want eyes on the car, the plate, how many men. I want to know exactly who took her before I rip them apart.”

Dante doesn’t argue. “Already on it.”

So help me God, if someone’s dared to take her... they didn’t just cross a line this time. They opened the gates to hell, and I’ll be the one dragging them through it.

The signal grows stronger with every mile. Still moving. Slowing.

Then, stopped.

Static.

I lock onto the dot as it steadies on a stretch of road just outside the industrial district. No buildings. No traffic. Just gravel, trees, and silence.

“She’s stopped,” I mutter, voice dark.

Dante’s voice crackles through the comm. “I see it.”

We take the corner hard, tyres shrieking as we tear down the final stretch of road. And then I see it, a car. Bianca’s car. In the middle of the road. The driver’s side door is still half-open.

I kill the engine and jump off the Ducati, boots crunching across dirt as I reach the vehicle. Dante’s not far behind, scanning the treeline.

The interior’s a mess. The passenger door’s ajar. There’s a bag on the floorboard, half-zipped, clothes spilling out.

“Blood,” Dante mutters.

I look down. Smears along the driver’s side. It’s small, but there.

He crouches by the tyre. “Tracks. Heavy. At least four men.”

I slam the door shut, cursing inwardly. “She ran,” I say quietly. “She tried to run.”

Dante rises slowly. “And they caught her.”

I nod once, my hand curling into a fist so tight the leather of my gloves creaks. “Whoever took her, has Bianca too.”

I pull out my phone and call the guards at the villa. The first one answers on the second ring, groggy. “Boss?”

“Tell me when the fuck you last saw her,” I demand.

A beat of hesitation. “Boss, she said she was going to the manor to grab something. She’s not ba?—”

I hang up. No excuses. No second chances. They’re already dead.

“Anything on the traffic feed?” I ask Dante, my voice dead cold.

He nods, grim. “Two black SUVs. One came from the west road. Second intercepted from behind. Both unmarked. I’m cross-referencing plates now, but it looks clean. Pro.”

My jaw throbs. “Nicolai.” It has to be him.

“Cazzo. She was here,” I say under my breath. “Stopped less than five minutes ago.”

My eyes stay locked on the screen as I follow the signal, each step heavier than the last. I come to a halt when I see it—her phone, abandoned on the floor. I kneel, pick it up, and just stare, an ice-cold weight settling in my chest.

“Ares.” I look over at Dante, and he gestures to something on the ground.

My boots crunch over broken twigs and gravel, heart thundering in a rhythm I don’t let show.

I move past the edge of the road, into the ditch, and there, half-buried in the dirt, the metal catching the faintest edge of dawn, her bracelet.

I drop to a crouch, staring at it. The metal is scraped, and the clasp bent.

I pick it up slowly, holding it in my palm like it’s something holy.

She didn’t take it off. Someone tore it from her, or it broke off during a struggle.

Behind me, Dante approaches quietly. “That’s where the signal became static.”

I don’t speak. I fucking can’t bring myself to utter a word, out of sheer rage.

The bracelet sits there in my hand like a severed lifeline, warm from the sun, but cold in every other way.

I curl my fingers around the bracelet, slow and tight, until the metal bites into my palm.

“What the fuck was she doing out here, Dante?” My voice is low, barely a breath. “Why the airport?”

Dante doesn’t answer. Because he knows I already know the answer. My gaze shifts toward the car, Bianca’s, and something in me turns. I walk toward it, slow and silent. The passenger door hangs open, like she got out in a hurry. Like she tried to run.

Inside, her bag lies half-spilled across the floorboard.

I crouch, push aside a sweatshirt and a phone charger. And there it is. A white envelope. I know exactly what it is before I even open it.

Cash. A lot of it. More than she can get her hands on by herself.

A passport. New IDs. A plane ticket to London.

My chest turns to stone. She wasn’t just going for a drive somewhere.

She was leaving. She was leaving me.

“Fuck,” I whisper, breath barely catching on the word. “That’s why you begged me to marry her.”

Dante approaches behind me, silent, watching.

“She was running,” I murmur, thumb brushing over the fake name on the ID. “From all of this. From me. ”

I clench the envelope in my fist until the paper crumples. I don’t blame her. I just don’t fucking accept it.

Then I turn to Dante.

“Call the Comandante Provinciale. Tell him I’m calling in that favour he owes me. Have him lock down the island.” He nods without hesitation. “No one in or out without our eyes on them. Tap into our network, call in every favour. I want every street watched, every fucking face accounted for.”

“And Nicolai?”

I glance back at the road, at the gravel stained faintly with blood and tyre tracks.

“He’s the only bastard bold enough to pull this. Find those SUVs. I want names, blood types, family trees. And then I want them in pieces.”

He hesitates for just a beat before asking, “What about Luciano and Enzo? They have Bianca too, he should know.”

“I’m going to pay them a visit.”

The silence that follows is a different kind, dangerous. Slow burning.

I turn back to the road; eyes locked on the dirt where tyre tracks cut through blood and gravel.

“They have her,” I say, the words bitter steel in my mouth.

I slide the bracelet into my jacket pocket, slow, like I’m loading a bullet into a chamber.

Dante nods once. “Not for long. We’ll find her before the day is out.” He’s already turning toward his bike, phone pressed to his ear, issuing orders like fire.

And me?

I stay where I am. Staring at the empty road, the gravel, Jordyn’s footprints in the dirt.

What if we’re too late?

The thought creeps in, quiet and cold.

What if they already touched her? What if they’ve already hurt her?

What if she’s…

No.

I grit my teeth and shut it down. But the chill in my spine stays. Lodged there like a knife.

And if she’s gone?

There won’t be enough blood in this world to make it right.

Nicolai Moretti, if I find out you and Luciano are behind this. I’m going to drag you both to the deepest core of hell myself.

So help me God, I will burn every fucking inch of Sicily before I let Jordyn disappear into a shadow I can’t reach.

I pull the bracelet from my pocket, the metal still warm from the sun. I stare at it for a second too long before my fingers curl tight, clenched so hard the edges dig into my skin.

“She wasn’t planning on leaving,” I voice quietly when Dante walks over.

“Not like this. Something must have happened.” Dante watches me, tense.

Waiting. “Someone spooked her,” I continue.

“Maybe my father. Maybe Enzo. Maybe Bianca. Someone said the right thing to push her over the edge. She wouldn’t just up and leave, not after what we promised each other. ”

I shove the bracelet back into my jacket and turn to him.