Chapter 3

THREE

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Lucifer roared, already storming out of his room.

The elevator seemed to take too long to get him up to his office and he fought hard to keep still.

"We just saw the…"

He hung up before Antonio could finish his statement, knowing fully well that the elevator would not be able to contain him and his ferocious anger if Antonio said anything more.

Red and boiling with rage, he flung the door of the room open to see three of his men staring in his direction like confused idiots. There was a flicker of fear in their eyes as he advanced closer.

Lucifer looked around the room and put the pieces together within seconds; it was obvious that she had removed the curtain from the window and pulled the bedsheets off, tied them together to form a long strong rope and then tied one end of it to the immovable legs of the bed.

Lucifer's anger grew as he traced the makeshift rope to the window where she had escaped down from.

"How the hell did this happen?" He barked angrily at the same time that his hand grasped the throat of the nearest man. "About a dozen men were right in front of that door and none of you noticed a thing?!"

It was totally unheard of. He had a very competent security team so how could such a weak-looking girl be smart enough to escape without their knowledge and they couldn't notice until she was gone! And more confusing was the fact that she had the courage to even do so.

"I'm sorry boss," the man said with a choked voice, not even bothering to pull Lucifer's hands away.

A whiff of cocaine fanned Lucifer's face.

"You fool!" Lucifer snarled and pushed the man aside violently.

"You were all smoking away the little piece of brain you had left while she ran away!" His chest heaved with anger.

"I… I can tell the boys to mobilize a search party immediately if you wish," Antonio said in a bid to quell Lucifer's anger but it only seemed to make things worse.

"Wonderful thinking! And what would people think when they realize I'm searching for a young girl who has outsmarted well trained men like all of you!" 

Lucifer turned sharply and walked out of the room followed by Antonio and two other massively built men who were good with guns.

"Get the car ready! We'll leave for Cassius's house immediately," he ordered and walked into his room to put on clean clothes.

He could almost not believe what was going on. And to think that Castello's consigliere would arrive soon to take the girl! 

He knew he had to find her, and quickly, before anyone else knew that the girl had escaped. He knew, of course, that the girl's first instinct would be to go back to her home to hide.

They were in front of Ivan's house in minutes, and with the way the man was staring at them with blunt confusion, Lucifer had a hint that he had no idea of the whereabouts of Katherine. But he didn't want to take chances. And he definitely was not going to reveal that she had escaped.

"Cassius!" He beamed and threw his arm over Ivan's shoulder as they both walked back into the small apartment.

As they walked inside, Antonio waved two fingers, a silent order for two of the men to search around just incase Ivan was hiding Katherine somewhere.

"This is a completely unexpected visit, sir. I…I hope Katy hasn't done anything wrong?" Ivan asked fearfully, knowing how difficult Katherine could be.

"She's perfect, Cassius," Lucifer said and elegantly lowered his weight onto one of the couches.

"Home alone?" He asked, noticing the quietness.

"Yes, sir. Wilson's out to play tennis, so he said."

Ivan was shaky as he poured him some wine and when he handed it to Lucifer, he only brought it to his nose and sniffed it.

Cheap wine.

"S-so what brings you here so soon, sir? I don't have your money yet."

"I know you don't. I want to know more about Katherine because I'm very picky about the people that work for me. Tell me about her birth, her upbringing, her education," Lucifer said to pass time, knowing his men must be sweeping the area searching for Katherine by now.

"Um, okay, sure. Her birth," Ivan seemed fidgety. "She's not actually my biological daughter."

Lucifer's eyes narrowed and he was suddenly interested. 

"Go on." Lucifer requested and sat back to listen.

"Kat's birth mother was Madelyn. She was one of the most perfect women to ever walk this earth." A small smile spread through Ivan's face as he reminisced on the days when she was still alive.

"It was years ago," Ivan started. "She was pregnant when she came to me, you see, very young and very beautiful, yet very scared. The slightest noise frightened her. I don't know why she was so afraid or who she had been running from but she couldn't walk the street without turning back to check if she's being followed. And at that time, I was also nursing a heartbreak as well. My wife had just left me because she claimed I was too irresponsible and bankrupt so she couldn't live with me anymore. She left Wilson to me and I had no idea what to do. That was when I took to gambling," Ivan paused and looked downwards, as if ashamed of the path he had taken.

"The first few times were successful but afterwards, not so much. Madelyn came into the picture one fateful night and she received Wilson so warmly that I was certain I'd found the woman of my dreams. As the time for her delivery drew closer, she fell terribly sick yet she refused to be taken to a hospital or any public place. The nurse kept saying that we have to take her to a hospital but Madelyn screamed that we shouldn't…," Ivan said solemnly and wiped his eyes.

"She knew she wasn't going to make it. She held my hand and made me swear that I wasn't going to let him have her."

"Let who?" Lucifer asked.

"She didn't live long enough to say his name," Ivan replied just as the door flung open and Antonio walked in.

He shook his head in Lucifer's direction, signalling that Katherine was nowhere around the premises.

Lucifer rose to his feet.

"Her mother. What's her full name?"

"It's Madelyn Dixon, sir."

"Madelyn Dixon," Lucifer repeated to himself. "And what did she do?"

That look of embarrassment came over Ivan again and he hung his head downwards.

"She was an exotic dancer before she met me, but I swear she was a good woman!" He replied defensively.

Lucifer looked up at Antonio, both men thinking the same thing. If she was an exotic dancer like Ivan claimed, it wouldn't be difficult to dig up her history.

"Thank you for your time, Mr Cassius," he said to Ivan and walked out.

"Find out everything you can about a woman named Madelyn Dixon. I want answers in two hours, perhaps she has some relations that the girl may have run to."

"Yes, boss," Antonio replied as he opened the door of the limousine for Lucifer to get in.

They were back in his office in less than thirty minutes but his mind wasn't at rest.

Castello's consigliere had called twice but he had completely ignored both calls and left a voicemail for him to wait until the next day. 

The situation pissed Lucifer greatly. He hated when his associates did not keep their part of the bargain and he had never envisioned that such could happen to him as well.

The response he had been waiting for soon came when Antonio knocked on his door and walked in with a thin file.

"One of the most shocking revelations ever made, boss," Antonio said as he passed the file to Lucifer who impatiently scanned through the papers.

The first thing that caught his eyes was the sultry photos of the woman, scantily clad and standing beside a pole. The striking resemblance between the woman and Katherine was obvious, but that was not what made his brows furrow.

What threw him into shock was the name of the clubhouse where she had been a dancer for four years. 

The Pyramid.

An exclusive clubhouse which was owned by Giovanni Ivanovo, his biggest rival as well as the man who had killed his parents in cold blood yet he had not been able to take revenge on him because he was a well respected drug lord and was heavily protected.

"Give me a summary," he said to Antonio.

"Apparently, Giovanni was very high-handed and abusive to his girls, Madelyn included. There were complaints that he used them more and paid less yet none of them was bold enough to confront him to his face. Our sources say that Madelyn was Giovanni's favourite sex toy, but she ran ran away all of a sudden, no trace, no reasons, she just disappeared."

"And why do you think that is?"

Antonio shook his head. "I'm afraid I don't know."

Lucifer remembered the story Ivan had told him about meeting Madelyn.

He quickly put the pieces together and a lazy smile spread across his lip.

"Because she was pregnant! She knew it would be dangerous to raise a child under Giovanni's watch and that's why she must've ran away from him, from that life. Yet she knew how ruthless Giovanni could be. She knew Giovanni would torture her for running away if he found her and that was why she seemed to live in perpetual fear."

Lucifer dropped the report and sat back with a smirk as the stories added up.

Giovanni was a man whose wings he had been trying to clip for so many years and here was a wonderful opportunity, presented to him on a platter.

Katherine would be the perfect means to get his revenge on Giovanni but his worries also increased now that she had escaped without trace.

"We need to find her," he said to Antonio when he realized how much he would lose if Giovanni found out about her first.

"Pronto!" He added.