Islammed my fist into the side of the delivery truck that was supposed to be full of Luca’s product. Then I hit it again. And again. Until blood smeared the dirty white surface. But I didn’t feel the pain.
Gripping my phone in my left hand, I tried to call Sera again. And then again.
‘Goddammit, baby. Where the fuck are you?’ I swung around, my eyes skittering wildly from side to side behind my sunglasses without really seeing anything. ‘Think…just think…where would she go?’
If anyone could see me right now, they’d think I’d lost my fucking mind. And they wouldn’t be entirely wrong. But this truck had been abandoned on a lonely strip of highway halfway between Austin and Mexico, the pounds of meth it was transporting gone. And I was still waiting for some of Luca’s soldiers to arrive and drive it the remainder of the trip, where we would hide it in one of our warehouses until we could figure out what the hell happened.
In the meantime, I was stuck here while Sera was…who the fuck knew where.
Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to calm down. If she had her phone on her, even though she wasn’t answering it, I could get a location on her. I pulled up the tracking app I’d installed on her phone before I gave it to her and saw her photo in downtown Austin.
The club. Of course! If they owed her money, she would make an appearance there. I called the guard I’d hired to watch over her. ‘Have you seen Sera?’ I nearly shouted into the phone when he answered.
‘I was just about to call you,’ he responded. ‘Her car is here, but no, I haven’t seen her.’
‘She didn’t come into the club?’
‘No, sir. I was alerted by the manager that she was coming in tonight and I was waiting outside for her like I always do. When she didn’t show up after about twenty minutes, I went inside to check to see if something had been changed. It wasn’t. So I walked out into the club proper to see if maybe she’d gotten a ride or come in a different way or whatever. The bartender told me she’d never shown up. When I went back outside, her car was there. Sera was not. The vehicle is locked, and her bag is inside on the passenger seat.’
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t fucking breathe.
‘Mr. Delligatti? Sir?’
‘You saw nothing,’ I reiterated, even though he’d just said he hadn’t. ‘You have no idea if she got into a car willingly with someone.’
‘No, sir. I’m waiting for the manager to arrive so he can pull up the security feed for the back lot.’
‘Thank you. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ Ending the call, I immediately called Luca. ‘How far away is your driver?’
‘About forty minutes. Why?’
‘Did you send Tristan after Sera?’
The accusation wasn’t missed. There was a slight pause. ‘No, Enzo. Tristan is sitting right in front of me. What’s happened?’
‘Fuck…FUCK!’ I looked around, searching for answers along the side of the abandoned highway. My gut clenched, and I couldn’t seem to get enough air.
‘Enzo! What’s going on with Sera?’
I took a few deep breaths. ‘She’s gone,’ I told him. ‘Her car is parked at the club where she works, but she never came inside. I have to go. I can’t fucking wait around here.’
‘Just wait a minute. Stop and think. Would she have gone off with someone?’
I shook my head. ‘No. I think she went there to pick up her paycheck.’
He was silent for a long time. ‘What?’ I finally asked him. But I didn’t have to ask. I knew what he was thinking.
‘Enzo, it’s likely her father found out she was here in Austin and sent someone to get her.’
‘Is there a way you could find out without giving her away?’ My jaw was clenched so hard I could barely get the words out.
‘Give me five minutes.’ He hung up the phone.
As I waited, I paced, concentrating on my breathing and counting my steps. I didn’t have time for a full-blown panic attack. When the phone rang, I closed my eyes and lifted it to my ear.
‘It wasn’t her father. He’s still searching for her.’
‘Luigi?’
‘No. My father is preparing for a trip and told me to handle it.’
An ugly feeling began to creep through my insides. ‘I have to get to the club, Luca.’
‘Is the truck clear?’
‘Yes. The key was still in the ignition and there’s nothing that will lead anyone back to you. I checked it twice when I first got here.’
‘I’ll meet you at the club.’ He hung up the call.
Even though I wanted nothing more than to tear out of there, I pulled gloves onto my shaking hands and went through the cab of the truck one more time, then checked underneath and all around before opening the back and doing one last sweep. It was completely clean. Jumping out, I closed the back, locked the doors, and buried the key. Then I texted Luca to let him know where it was so he could tell his driver and got into my car.
I made it back to Austin in record time. Luca was already there when I arrived. He was in the office with the manager, going through the video feed of the back entrance, each in front of a different monitor on the desk. Sera’s guard stood by the door. ‘Have you found anything?’
‘Yes. Just now.’ He pointed at the monitor in front of him. ‘Do you know who this guy is?’
Taking off my sunglasses, I leaned down beside Luca until I was eye level with the guy’s face. Luca glanced at my bloody knuckles, but said nothing.
Sera was talking to a man in the back parking lot. I knew it was her even though I couldn’t see her face and she had the hood of her sweatshirt pulled up to cover her hair. And by the way she held herself, I could tell she was uncomfortable.
No, not just uncomfortable. She was afraid.
An ice-cold calm filled me. Screaming and punching things, although it might make me feel better, would not get Sera back. Neither would panicking.
I was so focused on her that I almost missed the face shot of the guy she was talking to when he turned his head slightly to follow her movements as she tried to walk into the club. Then he looked straight up into the camera, and we lost the picture. When it came back, he and Sera were gone. And so was the car he stood near. Hers was still in the lot. ‘Back it up,’ I ordered the manager.
He did, and I watched it again. ‘Can you zoom in on that plate number?’
‘I’ll try,’ he told me. ‘But I don’t know how close I’ll be able to get before it goes blurry.’
‘Do the best you can.’
‘You know him?’ Luca asked me.
‘Yes. That’s Derek Jonak. He’s a customer who’s been harassing her.’ It all clicked together the moment I saw him waiting for her. ‘He was bothering her one night when I was here. One of the other waitresses gave me his name, and I pulled up some info on him. He’s a business guy. Runs a tech company. Thinks he’s hot shit and above everyone else. He left bruises on the inside of her thigh. A few nights ago, I believe, when I wasn’t here.’
‘Apparently, he has a thing for your girl.’
‘Looks that way,’ I murmured as I wrote down the plate number. ‘Let me have the computer.’
Luca ordered the club manager out of the way and gave me his chair. ‘As soon as you know anything, I’ll call in some guys. I need two to stay with Veda, but the rest are all yours.’
‘I won’t need them,’ I told him. ‘I can handle this myself. But thank you.’
‘Enzo, you don’t know what you’re walking into.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I told him as I went incognito and typed in a website. ‘I let this happen to her, and I’ll get her back.’
A few minutes and one phone call to Tristan later, and I had a general direction of where he was headed with my girl. Although traffic cameras weren’t always our friends, they did come in handy at times like these.
‘Enzo.’ Luca stopped me from leaving with a hand on my arm. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you? Or a few of the men?’
‘No. This son of a bitch is mine. I’ll call you when I have her.’
‘Check in with me before then and keep me updated, alright?’
I nodded and walked out of the office and out of the club, checking the clip in my gun before sliding it back into its shoulder holster. In the SUV, I opened the glove box and pulled out the backup weapon I’d taken with me to the abandoned truck. I also had a knife strapped to my right calf. If I had my way about it, I wouldn’t be needing any of these weapons. I’d rather kill him with my bare hands.
This motherfucker would not be leaving our meeting alive.
With Tristan coming over the Bluetooth, we tracked the bastard. He was heading south toward San Antonio, and I broke out into a cold sweat with every mile that went by. There were reasons women were taken to San Antonio, and none of them were good.
We lost him when he hit the city limits, and I pulled over at a gas station. He had a good three hour start on me, but there was no sense in driving around aimlessly when I had no fucking idea where he went.
I fought down the feelings of panic that threatened to overwhelm me.
‘Enzo? You still there?’ Tristan’s voice came over the car’s Bluetooth.
‘I’m here.’
‘Where’s here?’
‘I pulled over at a gas station just inside San Antonio.’ My sunglasses sat beside me on the seat, and I rubbed my eyes with the thumb and forefinger of my right hand. ‘She can’t be gone, Tris.’ I said it so quietly, I didn’t know if he heard me.
‘She’s not,’ he told me. ‘We’ll find her. Stay where you are and let me make a few phone calls.’
‘Thank you.’ I ended the call and shut off the car. Tristan was calling his contacts in the area and putting out the word that we were looking for the high-tech mogul who’d taken my girl. If he was smart, which he must be to have gotten where he was in the world, he would’ve changed cars somewhere along the way. However, he was also way too cocky and probably thought he could get away with whatever the hell he wanted to. So, the chances were about fifty-fifty he was still in the same vehicle.
While I waited, I checked my weapons again just to give myself something to do, my mind replaying Sera the way I’d last seen her just that morning. She’d smiled at me just before she got out of the SUV. It was timid, but it had been real, and it’d made my heart race.
I wondered if I’d ever have the chance to get to know her the way I wanted to. Or get to lavish her with gifts. I wanted to talk to her about stupid shit like what television show was better, and serious stuff like what her life was like as a young girl growing up with her father. I wondered if she’d ever been in love, and then had to stop thinking about that because it made me want to rip apart the unknown boy she may or may not have known.
I wondered if she’d ever accept being with me, or if it would be a constant battle when I told her I wasn’t giving her up.
My cell rang as I was watching a couple of underage kids try to get someone to buy them something they couldn’t buy themselves. Probably beer. ‘What did you find out?’
‘Derek Jonak’s car was spotted on a dead-end road in Wheatley Heights two hours ago.’
I closed my eyes. ‘Motherfucker.’ Bad things went on in that east side neighborhood. ‘Do you have an address?’
Tristan gave it to me, along with the information that the car was no longer there. I punched it into my GPS, thanked him for his help, and hung up.
It took me another twenty-seven minutes to get to the east side with traffic. I drove by the house first, turned around in the circle at the end of the road and parked across the street facing out toward the main road. The house was one-story, with dirty yellow siding and thick curtains across the windows. I could see another window toward the back that had bars. The house was completely dark, and there were no vehicles in the drive.
Sliding my sunglasses onto my face, I got out of the SUV, leaving it unlocked. I wouldn’t be here long. As I walked up to the front door, I unbuttoned my coat, so I’d have easy access to my weapon. I gave the door a casual knock and listened.
No one answered, and I didn’t hear any footsteps.
With a quick look up and down the street, I took two steps back and gave the front door a strong kick. Two more and I was inside, the doorframe hanging loose where the rotting wood had been ripped through by the lock. I pressed up against the wall and pulled out my gun.
Again, I listened, but there was only silence.
Feeling for a light switch, I flipped it on and the living area I stood in was flooded with light. It was empty except for an upside-down bucket and an empty Dos Equis box. Kicking the door closed behind me, I began to make my way through the house room by room, flicking on lights as I went. Adrenaline raced through my veins, sharpening my senses as I crept quietly across the floor. I kept my gun aimed directly in front of me, even though I had no intention of shooting anyone unless I had to. No. I wanted to smash in faces. Rip out intestines. Tear apart any motherfucker stupid enough to mess with what was mine.
But all I found were more empty rooms.
Letting my arms fall to my side, I kept my weapon palmed just in case, and walked into the back bedroom. The one that had the bars on the windows. There was a bare mattress on the floor with a dirty pillow and no blankets. I began to leave, but stopped. Something propelled me across the room. I stared down at that mattress, then bent over and picked up the pillow. Bringing it to my face, I inhaled.
The scent of coconuts and tropical flowers hit my nose.
Pain slammed through the middle of the chest, and I hugged the filthy thing to me for a second, telling myself this was good. It meant she was still alive.
I don’t know how long I stood there holding that pillow, but when I was able, I dropped it back onto the mattress and called Tristan.
‘What did you find?’
‘An empty house. But she was here, Tris.’
He didn’t ask me how I knew. ‘That’s good.’
‘I need to know who owns this house and what they use it for. There’s no furniture other than a mattress in the back bedroom, which is barred, so no one can get out unless they go out the front door. It’s not someone’s home. It’s a drop-off point.’
‘I’m on it.’ He paused. ‘This might take a while, Enz. Why don’t you come back to the lake house?’
He was right. There was no use staying here. I had no idea where Sera was now or where they could’ve taken her. All I’d be doing by staying here was making myself a target. ‘I’m on my way.’
Hang on, baby girl. I’m coming to get you.
