Stolen: Dante’s Vow by Natasha Knight
Dante
“This wasn’t what we fucking agreed!” Cristiano bellows.
I bite into a piece of crispy bacon, enjoying the saltiness, the texture. I eat the rest of the strip. “Any word on that fuck’s location?”
“Dante,” my brother starts. I can almost hear him forcing himself to breathe, to calm down. “You were going in to get her. To bring her home safely. That was the plan.”
That was his plan. I want Petrov. He’s at the top of my list of assholes to kill and I’m not leaving the city until he’s dead. After what I did last night, I know he’ll crawl out of whatever hole he disappeared into. He won’t be able to resist.
“Charlie?” I ask, again, ignoring my brother. He and Charlie are in his office back at the house in Italy. Charlie’s been monitoring for Petrov’s location but nothing as of last night.
“Come home,” Cristiano says. “Bring her home. Get her safe. We’ll go back together. I want him as much as you do.”
“She is safe. And I’m not leaving the city until I take care of him.”
“He’ll be on high alert.”
“That’s the point.”
“You’re reckless, Dante. You’re going to get yourself killed. Please, for fuck’s sake, wait until I can do this with you.”
After giving birth to Alessandro, Scarlett and Cristiano’s little boy, Scarlett miscarried twice and now that she’s five months pregnant, he’s taking extra precautions to keep her and the baby safe. I’m pretty sure my brother hasn’t told her about last night yet. She’ll lose her shit when she hears.
“You have a family to look after, Cris,” I remind him.
“You’re my fucking family too.”
“This one’s for me and I’ll take care of it,” I finish. I check my watch, look at the closed bedroom door. “I gotta go. Charlie, you still there?”
“I’m here, Dante.”
“Call me as soon as you hear anything.”
He’s silent.
“I mean it. Cristiano means well but I’m not going to let him get himself killed.”
“I’ll call,” Charlie says reluctantly, but he agrees with me. Now that Cristiano has his family, there’s more at stake for him. I’m a one-man show. No one will miss me when I’m gone.
Not that I plan to be gone just yet.
“Good.” I disconnect the call and tuck the phone into my pocket. I put another strip of bacon into my mouth and chew. There’s a low rumble in the warehouse. An unusual sound now that it’s otherwise quiet. I sent the men away so as not to scare her. She’s skittish. Understandably so.
After a few minutes, I check my watch again. That rumble repeats and it bothers me. I hear the shower, but something doesn’t feel right. Setting my coffee mug down I walk down the hall to the bedroom and knock first, but there’s no answer which isn’t surprising considering the shower is going.
I try the door, but it’s locked as I expected, so I pull the ring of keys out of my pocket, unlock the door, and open it thinking I should make some noise so as not to startle her even though some sixth sense is telling me I fucked up. That I’m going to find the room empty. And it takes all of a moment for me to see my mistake. The open window.
“Fuck!”
I make my way to the bathroom, confirm the shower’s empty. Water left running. Clever. I reach in and switch it off, my sleeve getting wet. The clothes are gone. My bad again. I shouldn’t have left her alone. Shouldn’t have left her with an out. She didn’t have a coat. That’s in the other room. She probably wore my hoodie on top.
I return to the bedroom, go to the open window, see the strip of cloth caught on a rusty nail. I recognize the material of my hoodie. I should have pulled the rusted old fire escape out.
A train rattles by. That’s the rumbling I’d heard inside through the open window. The place is soundproofed otherwise. We’re about a fifteen-minute drive outside the city and it’s noisy as hell out there. I look at the train, at the myriad of tunnels created by the elevated tracks. At the bums gathered around fires they’ve made in barrels. At the snow that’s begun to fall.
I send a text to Matthaeus telling him to send the men out to look for her. He confirms before I’ve even grabbed my wallet from on top of my jeans. I shove it into my pocket as I hurry through the warehouse, putting my shoulder holster in place, tucking the pistol into it. I throw on my coat and head out into the icy night to find her and bring her back.