Chapter 128

TALEN

Cold, frightful dread consumed me. Two hours. Two hours since my wife was taken.

“You need medical attention, Alex,” Uncle Damien’s voice broke through my dark thoughts.

Despite the pain in my right arm, which made me wince, I shook my head. “My wife needs my attention.”

Damien sighed. “What if it’s a targeted attack? We’ve already linked the two attacks—the one at your house a few months ago and this one—as orchestrated by the same person. What if Mia was always the target?”

“It can’t be,” I seethed. “The first time, they had no idea who she was.”

“And now they do?”

“Now, she’s my wife.”

“A fact that wasn’t true until yesterday afternoon.”

“We’re wasting time! We’re wasting time!” I ran a hand through my hair and kicked a chair in frustration. It toppled over with a loud crash. “My wife needs me.”

“We have to consider the possibility…”

“Don’t!” I screamed, cutting him off. I didn’t care that he was my uncle or the head of the organization I’d dedicated half my life to. “If you want to help, help. If not, you’re free to leave my house. But I’m not stopping until I get my wife back.”

Next. To. Me.

Taking only Mia and Dominic to meet Damien was a miscalculation. I figured we’d be safer in a house with triple the security of mine, and that she wouldn’t be overwhelmed by life’s changes with a hundred extra soldiers.

A fucking miscalculation.

Six hours had passed since my wife’s abduction, and even turning the city upside down wasn’t enough. It was like searching for a needle in a haystack.

We’d captured three men, but none would talk, despite hours of interrogation. I may have used methods my wife would kill me for if she ever found out.

“This could severely backfire,” Nico cautioned.

Now that Xander had Hannah, he agreed with me. “Backfire how? He’s a bandit, not the head of an organization. A fucking lowlife goon. Do it, Alex.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m sorry if I made either of you think your opinion matters.”

“Does mine?” Uncle Damien asked.

“With all due respect, no, Uncle,” I replied. “Would anyone’s opinion matter to you if it were Aunt Elena who was taken?”

A glint—perhaps pride, or perhaps a sinister plan to punish me—shone in his eyes. “Bring the little girl.”

Stephen, my third-in-command, entered with a woman and a three-year-old girl. “What’s going on?” the raven-haired woman cried, tears streaming down her face. “Who are you?”

“I’m sorry for what I’m about to do,” I said before taking her daughter. She cried out, struggling against Stephen’s grip.

Her daughter was calmer, seemingly unable to comprehend the situation.

I carried her to the torture room.

“Dada! Dada!” Her eyes lit up at the sight of her chained father, then filled with tears as the blood appeared.

“Fucking King…” the man roared. “Leave my daughter, you fucking devil!”

“I want my wife back. Tell me where she is, and I’ll send you home with your daughter. Your wife’s in the other room, by the way.”

“You fucker, she’s three!” Daniel Tripp—I’d learned his name—screamed.

“Where is my wife, Tripp?” I asked.

“I don’t know!” he cried. “I’ve told you a million times, I don’t know! We were paid to do this.”

“Where did they tell you to take her?”

“I don’t know!”

“Okay then,” I shrugged. “Will, take the little girl.” My eyes remained fixed on Tripp. “Do with her as you please.”

“I don’t believe it! Even you’re not this unhinged.”

“For my wife? Try me.”

The little girl immediately burst into tears. “No, Dada! Dada please! I don’t want to go!”

I waited. Tripp gulped, his eyes hesitant. “Leave her… please…”

“Location, please,” I said calmly, though I felt anything but.

He didn’t break. Will took the little girl.

“Leave her.”

“Location.”

Will dragged the little girl away. Tripp sobbed, and I raised a finger. Will froze. The little girl ran to her father; the one who would die by nightfall without medical attention.

“Speak. Now. Or I will make you see your worst nightmare, starting with your little girl, not your wife.”

Rage flickered in his eyes. “There’s a warehouse. It’s not far from here. We were told to take her there; they’d transport her after payment.”

“Transport her where?”

He shook his head. “The warehouse is all I know. I can take you there if you let my daughter go.”

“You think I’m stupid?” I hissed. “I’m going to the warehouse, and only after I confirm you haven’t set us up will your kid go free. One mistake, Tripp, one attempt to cross me, and I will make sure your daughter suffers a fate worse than death.”

He nodded and gave me the location.

I covered the three-hour distance in one. The Italian Mob—that’s all I could think of as we drove towards the isolated outskirts.

Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York were Bratva territories, yet Nico had found Italian thugs setting up shop on our outskirts, preparing for an attack. Xander had eliminated them, but they’d returned like a plague.

My heart pounded as the warehouse came into view—abandoned and dark. It looked uninhabitable, disease-ridden.

“Stephen, approach from the right,” I said over the comms. “Nico, take the back. Xander, the left.”

“The main door?” Uncle Damien asked.

“I’ll enter.”

“Alone?”

“Alone.”

“Seven hundred guards, and you want to walk in alone?”

I nodded. All the way, I’d prepared myself for the possibility of finding my wife…unrecognizable.

And now, the lump in my throat and the pang in my stomach overwhelmed the adrenaline. The doctors were on standby, and I prayed she’d be safe and sound, needing no medical attention. Wishful thinking.

I kicked the door down, armed, but the silence was heavy. It was likely empty.

“Mia?” I screamed. “Mia?”

“The right is clear,” Stephen reported. “Left too.” Xander added, “The back is clear as well, Alex.” Nico’s pity made me want to vomit or shoot him.

“Fuck.” My hope drained away. “FUCK!”

“Alex…” Uncle Damien appeared.

“Don’t,” I warned. “Just… don’t.”

“There’s a basement,” he said, and I froze. “A loose tile leads to a ladder.”

“And?”

“And I didn’t send anyone down. The smell of blood was overwhelming.”

I descended the ladder, alone, lost in thought. Anyone could have shot me. But no one did.

I stilled upon finding a bloodied Dominic at the entrance. I checked his pulse; it was weak.

“Medical assistance needed!” I barked over the comms. My world shattered when I found my wife—on the ground, frail, unconscious.