Enzo
The second Gino’s call ended, Enzo was already on Marco.
“Boss?” Marco answered on the first ring.
“Lola was drugged. Someone tried to take her.”
His voice was ice over fire–flat enough to be calm, but every syllable carried the weight of a loaded gun.
A sharp inhale on the other end. “You want me-”
“I want you at the dock. Nothing moves, nothing breathes without you knowing about it. You so much as blink wrong and we lose ground. I’m leaving now.”
“Understood.” Marco didn’t argue. Didn’t even say goodbye. Just moved.
Enzo hung up and hit Nico’s number.
“You’ve got the cameras from that bar?”
“Already pulled.”
“Then listen to me-” Enzo’s hand clenched so hard on the phone it groaned. “I want every second she’s in frame, everyone who touched her drink, anyone
uch as looked at her like she was passing. I want faces, names, where they sleep, and who they love–because when I’m done, they’ll wish I’d only
lives.”
more than that,” Nico promised.
grabbed his go–bag and stalked to the car, throwing it in the backseat like it had offended him. He barked at the driver to get to the airstrip. Ten nutes away. Ten minutes too long.
She was supposed to be safe. That was the deal. Keep her close, keep her out of reach. His reach. His world. His enemies. And yet-
His jaw locked so hard his teeth ached. If they’d taken her…
No. He refused to finish that thought.
But the image still clawed in–Lola in some dark room, her fire dimmed, her voice gone. His chest tightened until he couldn’t tell if it was fury or panic.
They don’t get to touch what’s mine. They don’t get to walk away with their hands still attached after reaching for her.
He wouldn’t make it to the hospital
- ut. Fine. He’d be in Vegas before she crossed the state line.
And when she did, h
tine at the end of a dark road.
imagine a world without her,
lone in the jet’s cabin, the leather under him creaking with every shift of his weight. Outside, the night was endless–black sky swallowing the
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Chapter 88
horizon, the wing lights blinking in slow, maddening rhythm.
Every time they flashed, another violent image cut through his mind.
Lola.
Drugged.
Taken.
Sold.
Chained.
Beaten.
The anxiety and what–if’s were all consuming.
It wasn’t just a headline in his head. It was a brand seared deep, and it burned hotter the longer he sat still.
Slipping something into her drink wasn’t just a violation. It was the start of anything–anything they wanted. His stomach turned hard, acid climbing his throat.
He pictured her–hazel eyes hazy instead of sharp, her wry little smirk gone slack. That hair, always spilling wild and warm across his pillow, limp and tangled in some stranger’s hands. Her voice–usually a knife or a purr–reduced to nothing.
And he was thinking about all of it. Every ugly, filthy, unthinkable thing. The what–ifs coiled like barbed wire in his chest, cutting deeper with every breath.
He trusted his men. But trust didn’t quiet the animal in his ribs, pacing, snapping, howling that it should have been him there. That he should’ve been the one pulling her into his arms, brushing her bangs back from her eyes, telling her she was safe. Not hearing it secondhand. Not imagining.
Twenty hours.
Twenty hours she was out there breathing without him close enough to feel it. Twenty hours where someone else could’ve been near enough to see the freckles on her collarbone or the little scar on her wrist–things that belonged to him.
She’d be furious when he got to her. Not for what happened, but for what he’d do next. She’d tell him she was fine, that there was no need for the ruin he was planning.
There would be no warnings. No negotiations.
Enzo would make sure their last moments were spent begging for a mercy he didn’t possess.
Twenty hours was too long.
But when his feet hit Vegas, he’d burn that time back out of the world in blood.
Lola
The nurse handed me my discharge papers like she was passing off the nuclear codes.
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5:59 pm PPP
Chapter 88
“Mandatory twenty–four–hour observation complete,” she chirped, as if she’d just freed me from a spa retreat instead of a beige prison where the Wi–Fi sucked and everyone wore shoes that squeaked.
A couple cuts. Some bruises. The faintest ache in my ribs. I’m fine. Fine. But tell that to the two brick walls flanking me in matching “we’ve–seen–some- shit” expressions.
Gino and Dom looked like they were personally escorting the President to safety, each keeping a hand near me like I might spontaneously collapse in the hospital parking lot.
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