“You should visit New York.”
“Why?” I replied dryly. “My place is in Chicago.”
“You sound bored,” Sera said. “When you’re bored, that’s not a good thing.”
“How can I be bored when I have a two-year-old to look after?”
“Aw, I can’t imagine you as a doting father.”
“You should be the one to fly over with Gio.” Gio was Sera’s one-year-old son. “Elias could use a playmate.”
“I was just there three months ago. I don’t think Matteo will let me go so soon again,” Sera said. “Please try to visit. Otherwise, it’ll be Carlotta pestering you next.”
“Good God. You all should leave me and Elias alone. We’re fine.”
“I don’t know, Luca. According to Tony, you hardly leave the mansion.”
“Hmm…I’m not sure I want one of my men tattling to you about my movements.”
“I’m your concerned niece.”
“You’re also married to a De Lucci. Besides, I recently had the mansion retrofitted with state-of-the-art technology,” I said. “I can run everything from here.”
“Okay. But just know we love you.”
“Goodbye, niece.”
“Love you, Zio.”
Ending the call, I threw my phone on the table and left the study to look for my son. I loved and hated talking to my niece. I was happy that she was happy, but I hated when I felt the trace of pity—sympathy—in her voice. She’d always liked Natalya, and I sure as fuck was glad she wasn’t one of those women who asked me to look for another wife or tell me that Elias needed a mother. I glanced at the wedding ring on my finger. As far as I was concerned, I was still married. Natalya was presumed dead because of those rings found in the fire, but that proved nothing, especially after Dario and I discovered her double life.
It made me reevaluate all my interactions with her, especially that night of the storm when she disappeared. Milkshake and fries. She’d been five months pregnant. How dare she risk herself? I didn’t know if I admired or hated my wife for it. There wasn’t a day I had not thought of her. In the beginning days of her disappearance and the discovery in the attic, I would alternate between rage and grief.
Because I missed her.
Because I hated myself for wasting my time trying not to fall in love with her when it was inevitable.
Because in between saying our vows and her disappearance, I did fall in love with her. Why else would there be an immense physical pain in the center of my chest that at one point I went to the emergency room thinking I was about to have a heart attack? How some nights, missing her brought me to my knees, and I would roar and rage, drunk or sober, because I needed an outlet for the agony of barbed wires squeezing my rib cage tighter and tighter in an attempt to expel the vacuum of emptiness. Like a black hole, it sucked me in, and if it wasn’t for my son, I would have surrendered to it.
And that was why sometimes I hated Natalya. Because she won in the end. She had become my weakness.
I passed the kitchen, and it was empty. Elias was a wild child. Poor Martha couldn’t keep up with him, but there was Tony and Rocco, as usual. They’d become attached to the boy. My own guilt was reflected in theirs that they had failed to protect Natalya.
I ran into Nessa. I’d been able to tolerate her now, but I forbade her to be the primary caregiver for Elias because one time I heard my son call her Mamma.
It punched me in the gut, and I screamed at the poor woman. It wasn’t her fault. I apologized later, but that was when I made Martha my son’s nanny. It didn’t feel weird when he called her Nonna because at one point, she was a mother figure to me too.
“Where are they?”
Nessa pointed toward the pool. Then she gestured for me to wait and grabbed her notepad and scribbled on it. I’m going to make snacks. Do you want any?
I shook my head. “What’s for dinner?” I didn’t like snacking and preferred to eat full meals.
She smiled widely and wrote on her notepad. Beef Wellington.
I raised a brow. “Really? I guess Martha gave up her secret. Well, carry on.”
When I reached the pool area, my son saw me immediately and toddled over. “Dadda, Papà.” He alternated between the two. It was amusing. I scooped him up, and he piped, “Cookies!”
“I see that, sport.”
I glanced over at Martha who was sitting on the lounge chair, exhausted. “Yes. I gave him cookies. What do you expect? I’m too old to run after him.”
“And yet you gave him cookies when it’s almost close to dinner?”
Ignoring me, she asked, “Has Dario found a nanny yet?”
“Not yet.” I whooped him up one more time, thrilled to hear his laughter, and then an ache would set in because I imagined Natalya beside me. To feel joy was to feel the sadness that followed. It was the endless cycle that had become my life.
“It’s kind of hard to find a good one connected to the family when you insist on an applicant who is fifty or older. Who would want to take care of a two-year-old when they are fifty?”
“Why, Martha, are you complaining so much?”
Rocco came out to the pool. “Dario wants to talk to you.”
“Okay, yeah…thanks.” It was my time with Elias. I sent Dario to look over our real estate acquisition in Grafton. Chicago had expanded its legitimate business. The alderman connected to us was a shoo-in to become mayor of Chicago and possibly a senate run in a few years, but I’d found out he was playing me against Orlov. Hedging his bets. It pissed me off.
Rocco was still staring at me.
“What?”
“He said it was important he talk to you immediately.”
I handed Elias to him. “Here. Take care of him and give Martha a break.”
I walked back into the house, but not before hearing Martha calling out, “You still need to hire a new nanny.”
I smiled inwardly. The old woman could handle Elias. It would keep her young. Returning to my study, I already spotted two missed calls from Dario. Hell, I hoped there was no screwup with the Grafton deal. I threw myself on the chair and called him back.
He answered on the first ring. “Where were you?” He sounded breathless.
“It’s four p.m., asshole. It’s my time with Elias.”
“I think I found her,” he said.
He didn’t need to explain the her he was talking about because our search for Natalya never ended. It might have stopped occasionally when the trail had gone cold, but we never stopped looking. Now and then we’d have hits on traffic cams. I was using my wife’s own weapon of technology and had hired a group of hackers to find her.
The south end of Illinois had yielded the most hits. That was why Chicago did business there in the guise of real estate deals. No one would question our presence. The last facial recognition sighting was three months ago. I didn’t expect Dario to call me himself.
“Luca?”
“Where?” I gripped the phone and slowly rose from the chair.
“A town called Danvers. I caught her license plate before her car drove out of the parking lot.”
“She ran from you?”
“I might have scared her. I think I looked at her as if I’d seen a ghost. It would have creeped out any woman. I have her information. Sending it to you now.”
I held my breath. An image popped on our messaging. An Illinois driver’s license.
Rayne Parish.
It couldn’t have been a coincidence. I traced an unsteady finger on the image. My chest tightened with the potent mixture of grief and rage that had hit me in the early days of her disappearance.
Even with the atrocious driver’s license picture, the face was clearly Natalya’s. But instead of blonde, she was brunette. Instead of straight long hair, it was shoulder length. She even had bangs.
Rayne Parish.
Paris Rain.
“Luca? What do you think?”
A knife twisted in my chest. “It’s her.”
