Where Are You?
Icaro paced furiously in his office. His father, uncles, and several of his cousins were all sitting waiting for more information to come to in. Zorah was gone. His beautiful, sweet, loving wife was gone and with every single second she was away, the more his heart bled with the agony of her absence.
Without a trace. Those were the words which haunted him, uttered by his father when he’d called family in Europe, America, and Canada to begin searching for Zorah.
“Icaro, you should try to get some rest,” his uncle Calogero stopped him in his circular track and put his hands on his shoulders.
“I will rest when she is back here, where she belongs.” He looked away from the concern in his uncle’s eyes.
“It has been fifteen hours and not a peep. I expected we’d hear from whoever took her by now,” Vodingo was sitting on the edge of Icaro’s desk, his arms folded over his chest. “If not to brag then to ask for ransom and yet it’s been silent.”
“It makes no sense,” Icaro muttered and pushed his uncle’s hands off his shoulders. “Tell me again what Walrus said.”
“He was offended you suspected him but understood why you would. He insists he did not have anything to do with her kidnapping.” Dagoberto Lucchesi eyed his son critically.
“I want to talk with him.”
“It’s a dead end, Icaro and the truth of the matter is, with the way you are feeling right now, you’ll end up letting your need to kill him cause more trouble than we need to deal with right now. He’s a friend and an ally and a business associate. I understand he was under your skin over Zorah, but Zorah put him in his place. He was very vocal with me that while he holds great affection for her, kidnapping isn’t his style. He wants her to go to him willingly and out in the open, not hiding her.”
“He knows something.”
“He doesn’t and you’re grasping at straws because you’re at a loss,” his father chastised bluntly.
“I have something,” Amauri walked into the room and pushed his laptop onto the desk moving to sit in Icaro’s seat and opening a video he’d managed to get.
“What is it?”
“Gallo.” Amauri looked up as Icaro leaned over his shoulder. He hit play on the video.
Icaro felt his fists furling into tight knots as he watched the scene. Sveva Gallo and her father meeting with a man known to the Lucchesi family as a Russian assassin.
“Where was this?”
“Yesterday morning at a café in Rome.”
“Sound?”
“None. The only reason I have this much is because when we reached out to contacts, someone mentioned seeing Sveva in a club and how the little bitch was telling everyone who looked in her direction how you’re diluting the Sicilian bloodline by using an American woman.”
“She’s fucking Sicilian. Her grandparents were from our country.” Icaro was violently angry. “I want the entire Gallo bloodline wiped the fuck out.”
“All I know,” Amauri pointed at the screen, “is the night before this at the club she was talking about how she deserves to be part of the family more than Zorah. Then not twelve hours later she and her father are meeting with this guy. We know him. We’ve run into him before, Icaro.”
“He’s not known for being delicate.” Dagoberto took a deep breath. “Send a crew in to collect him, Calo. I want him alive. I also want Sveva and her father in a warehouse and take his wife too. He wants to fuck with our wives, I’ll fuck with his. I don’t usually involve women in our battles, but this family has gone too far.”
“Is he still in Rome?” Icaro asked Amauri of the Russian man.
“Yes.”
“Then how did we get him linked to her disappearance now?”
“He has done jobs with other individuals in the past. He would know how tight security would be here. Maybe he sent a team in. For all we know, Sveva in her psychotic mind could have said she wanted to be there when he killed her. He could have arranged her kidnapping to bring her to Rome for the Gallo family do torture her or –"
“Christ,” Icaro gripped the back of his neck at Amauri’s words, blinking back tears of terror. Without another word, he turned and left his office, taking the stairs two at a time and moving to his bedroom. Slamming the door behind him, he gasped for breath, his lungs feeling as if they were caving in with the pressure of his emotions. Falling to his knees beside the bed, he grabbed her pillow and pulled it to his chest and inhaled the scent of her deep into his nostrils.
“Zorah where the fuck are you,” he whispered into the cotton pillowcase, fighting the way his eyes were watering. He hadn’t cried since he was a small boy but, in this moment, this feeling of hopelessness, of knowing his wife, the woman he loved more than his own life, was out there and potentially in the hands of men who would do her harm, tears were springing forth.
He closed his eyes and pictured her straddling him the way she was on the beach the evening before. The way her hands rested on his shoulders and the naughty look in her eyes when she flirted with him. Her beautiful cinnamon eyes in the light of the setting sun staring down at him. He knew she was falling for him, feeling the connection of their souls. He wanted her to want him and to love him. He wanted her to love him the way he loved her.
A knock on the door had him scrambling to his feet, clearing his throat, he took a breath, “come in.”
“Son, are you okay?”
“No.” He couldn’t face his father with his eyes red with unshed tears. He was supposed to be an assassin, but his emotions were all over the place. “What if whoever took her is of Walrus’s mindset and thinks they are rescuing her, and she is glad to be gone? What if she is happy to be away from me?”
“Icaro, her heart is hurting to be away from you. She cares for you.”
“I took her life and future away from her without giving her a choice. Perhaps someone is giving it back to her and she isn’t missing me an ounce.”
“You are known to be an arrogant man, Icaro. Do not start doubting your confidence now.”
As his father pulled him into a hug, he rested his head on his shoulder and exhaled as a single question floated through his mind unspoken.
“Zorah, do you miss me as much as I miss you?”
Log in with Google Account
Chapters
Favorite
Settings
