“I’m sorry I can’t come to the phone right now, but if you leave me a mess–”
Frowning, I hang up the phone without leaving a voicemail. That’s the fifth time I’ve tried calling Tess tonight with no response from her.
I’m in the car on my way back to London. The new supplier I was supposed to meet with tonight never showed, the number I was given to reach him disconnected when I tried to call.
My lieutenants who are usually always by my side are both gone tonight — Marco had surgery to remove problematic scar tissue from an old bullet wound and Arturo was called unexpectedly away for an emergency with his daughter — so I can’t ask them to look into the supplier.
It would be surprising not to talk to Tess even on a normal night, but something about the coincidence that I would be stood up on the same night that I can’t reach her doesn’t sit right with me. Years of experience have the back of my neck tingling, telling me that something isn’t right here.
Instinct tells me I was lured away tonight. For what purpose, I can’t tell. The more I can’t get through to Tess, the antsier I get. The stronger the tingling in my neck gets, until it’s a full on buzzing.
When I try calling a sixth time and she doesn’t answer, I consider lobbing my phone out of the window. It’s only the fact that she would have no way to reach me that keeps me from doing so.
“How far away are we?” I ask my driver.
“Thirty minutes, jefe.”
I’m going to turn the back of the Rolls into my personal rage room and destroy it in that time.
“Drive fucking faster,” I snarl.
I unlock my phone and call Dagny.
“Well, well, well,” she answers mockingly. “This is a surprise. Dare I dream that you’re calling to generously offer to pay for my floor bill? Or is this some sort of courtesy call before you shoot me again?”
I cut straight to the point. “I can’t reach Tess. I’ve tried calling six times.”
She sobers instantly, immediately understanding the serious tenor of my voice. “I’ll see if I can get through and call you right back.”
My phone rings thirty seconds later and my stomach plummets.
“Well?”
“She didn’t answer.”
My jaw works back and forth silently. Maybe she doesn’t have her phone on her. Or maybe…
Dagny reads my mind. “She didn’t run.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, apart from the fact that she’s in lo–” She starts coughing violently. “Sorry, something in my throat.” She clears it once more, then starts again. “She wouldn’t leave you. You know she wouldn’t.”
She’s right. I don’t think Tess would leave me.
But her leaving me would be preferable to the only other option her silence could mean – that something happened to her.
“I spoke to her earlier tonight when she was cooking,” Dagny continues. I groan loudly and she laughs. “Don’t worry, she was just making grilled cheese.”
“And she was fine?”
“Yeah, she…” Her voice trails off suddenly.
My hand tightens around the phone. “What is it?”
“She was looking into the embezzlement. We were talking about it and then she abruptly said she had to go. She sounded like she had an idea of where to look… Maybe she found something?”
“She would have called me if she did.”
“Not if…”
Dagny doesn’t finish her sentence. She doesn’t need to.
Not if something happened to her.
That possibility chills the blood in my veins.
After I hang up, I find myself praying for the first time in years. Praying that she left her phone in the other room and that I’m going to find her in her favorite spot on the living room couch, reading a book, lost to the outside world.
Praying that I didn’t put her in danger by letting her help me while leaving her vulnerable tonight.
Praying that she’s alright, that those big blue eyes will lift to mine and smile at me when I walk in.
But when I burst through the doors of our home, I already know that she’s not here. I can feel it. The air is too still. The silence too quiet. The walls too stiff, like they witnessed something they’re desperate to confess to.
“Tess!”
I scream her name, going from room to room, searching for her, refusing to believe what I know deep in my core to be true. My desperation grows with every empty room I find until it feels like my heart is going to crawl out of my throat and fall lifelessly at my feet.
There are traces of her everywhere. An open laptop on the living room floor. A dirty pan in the sink. A half eaten grilled cheese on a plate.
Her phone on the counter.
Dread wraps its tentacled fingers around my lungs and squeezes. I pick up the phone and the screen comes to life, reflecting a picture of us back to me. It’s a selfie we took last week; my forearm is wrapped around her shoulders, my lips pressed into her hair. She’s mid-laugh, giggling at something I said. I can’t remember what it was.
Seven missed call notifications sit just above her face.
Rage flames to life in my belly.
Someone took her.
I have to fight my own body to get through the haze of fury and adrenaline that sweeps over my body, murdering the rational part of my brain.
Think.
If she’s wearing her necklace, I can track her.
Sometimes she takes it off for bed. I send up prayers begging for her to still have it on.
I click the security app on my phone and the dot immediately beeps to life, bringing with it a small measure of relief.
Until I see where she is.
In the very same underground bomb shelter I took her to the night I killed Augusto Leone.
There’s no way she would have gone there by herself, not only because she’d have no way of remembering exactly where it was, but also because she has no reason to go.
And the only people who know about it and are still alive to discuss it are cartel members.
Dagny was right, she must have found the mole.
My breathing is uneven, my heart arrhythmic.
I don’t know how long she’s been there, how long they’ve had her, if I’m too late–
No, I can’t let myself think that.
She’s okay, she has to be.
I run blindly for the car, desperate to get to her, but her laptop on the living room floor stops me. There are papers strewn every which way around it.
I tap the mousepad and the screen comes to life.
There’s a password, but I know it.
RockyRoad21
The day we first met in the kitchen for ice cream.
Multiple windows pop up, but the top one is a historical email from a batch of files I sent her. From what I can tell, it’s an approval for a wire transfer. The vendor is one I recognize – they were among those who told me they hadn’t been paid.
But when I see who signs the email, who authorizes the payment, who Tess discovered had betrayed me, my blood goes from chilled to frozen.
It’s a name I know well.
A betrayal that stabs a knife deep in my back.
