Page 42 of Reign of Fate
The last man shakes his head, then states, “I’ll deal with you when I get home.”
I grip Ivo’s arm more tightly.Please,I mouth, but to no avail. He moves me off to the side, letting the husbands deal with their wives. “They already hate me. This will only make it worse.”
“Fuck that!” he bellows. “How long has this been going on?”
“It’s been years. I just refused to come to any other social functions after the last incident a few years ago,” I tell him. Ivo looks over his shoulder to see the women being practically dragged out of the room.
“They get what they deserve,” he says softly, then turns back to me. “Go to the ladies’ room, wipe your tears, and I’ll wait for you here.”
I nod and make my way down the hall to the bathroom.
IVO
It’s been over fifteen minutes, and half a dozen women have been in and out of the bathroom since Elisa first went in. I was called away for a few minutes to speak with Raffaele. He saw Evangeline’s outburst and is fuming. He’s calling a meeting to have all the underbosses in attendance to, in his words, “lay down the law.”
I’m getting concerned and ask Ada, an older woman, whose husband worked for us until his death last year, if she could go into the bathroom and check on Elisa.
“There’s no one in there, Mr. Avante,” she replies, looking at me strangely.
I slide past Ada and push open the door to the ladies’ room to find it empty. Scattered around the floor are some beads that were part of Elisa’s purse. I run out into the ballroom to look for her, then race through the room and out to the patio doors. There are a few couples out there, but no sign of Elisa.
I dial her cell phone, but it goes directly to voicemail. Something’s wrong. Someone got to Elisa. No matter how upset she would have been, she never would have left without telling me. Raffaele catches me as I’m running through the hallway, with Evangeline by his side.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
“Elisa’s missing. I can’t find her anywhere. There are beads from her purse all over the bathroom floor,” I explain, and immediately, I feel panic rising inside me.
“Fuck!” Raffaele roars, and silence drops over the room. Aris and Nina are the first to come over. All our men then rally around us, Francesco leading the pack. Raffaele starts issuing commands: “Francesco, take Evangeline and Nina home. Grab Adriana and her nanny and get them to the safe room. You all stay put until we come back with Elisa. Massimo and Aris, you’re with Ivo and me. We’re splitting up the rest of you into teams. No one rests until we get Elisa back.”
“Maybe she just went home,” one man says. The same man whose wife caused the ruckus. It would be a normal thought that any other woman would be embarrassed and leave without being noticed, but not my Elisa. She wouldn’t do that to me.
“No!” I state vehemently. “I know my wife, and she wouldn’t walk out without telling me.”
Raffaele has a team searching the grounds and the entire casino, and another team is making calls to our contacts at the police station to get eyes on the streets. Elisa’s father hasn’t moved a muscle to help, but I can’t concentrate on him. Elisa comes first. I go back to the bathroom for clues, and that’s when I notice drops of blood on the floor. There’s a back door, which her kidnapper must have used, and we find our man who was left guarding it knocked out cold. There’s no way he would have been able to come through the main room without being seen.
“I’m going out to look for her,” I tell Raffaele.
“We’re coming with you,” he responds.
“Where do we start?” Massimo asks as we walk out the back door and toward the parking lot.
I have no idea, but I can’t sit here and wait. There’s a burning in my chest, and I’m barely hanging on to my sanity. “I can’t lose her,” I say, my throat clogging. I can’t even imagine who has her and what they’re doing to her. With every minute that passes, she’s closer to being lost to me forever.
“We’ll find her,” Aris states.
My phone begins to ring. It comes across as “unknown” on the screen. “This isn’t a good time—” I start.
“Ruggero’s got Elisa,” he blurts out, and I can hear him running. “I’m calling from a burner. Elisa must have dialed my number, and I can hear them.”
“Where?” I shout.
“I don’t know, but Elisa’s smart and must have hit the Call button on her phone. I must have been her last call. I can hear him, and he’s threatening her. He’s hurting her, Ivo. I’ve got to find her,” Leno says, clearly just as frantic as I am.
Leno is so loud that the others can hear him as well. “We can track her,” Raffaele says and takes my phone. “Leno, call my phone.” He hands my phone back. “Track her phone.”
“Shit! I should have thought of that.” Fuck! I’m not thinking straight. I open the app, and immediately, Elisa’s phone blinks on the screen. As part of Elisa’s protection, I added the app on her phone, hoping I’d never have to use it. It’s routine to find every method possible to keep our families safe. We have plenty of enemies, and although Ruggero is mixed up in something nasty, I never thought he’d go after Elisa this way. We recognize the address: the home she shared with Guido. The place was going on the market at the end of the week. Elisa’s been in a good place, and I didn’t want to bring up selling the house again. It was Elisa who came to me and told me it was time to sell it. “A new family will move in, and they’ll make it their own. They’ll fill the rooms with laughter,” she said. She wasn’t sad about it, in fact, the opposite. She was happy that a new couple could find happiness there.
“Meet us at Guido’s place,” I vaguely hear behind me as I race to my car. The others are at my heels. I drive like a demon through the streets, and I vaguely hear Raffaele making phone calls to have soldiers meet us at the house. I’m not thinking straight, but Raffaele’s right about anticipating problems. We have no idea who Ruggero’s in bed with and what else could be waiting for us once we get there. “Kill the lights,” Raffaele orders as we approach the edge of the property.
