BIANCA’S POV“Wh-what?! Is Luca okay?! Let me talk to my baby!” I exclaimed, my heart racing. I didn’t care about any identification at that point; I needed to know if my baby was okay.“The young Mr. Rossi is perfectly alright, ma’am,” the man assured me. My heart still couldn’t stop its frantic beating. Darren was looking at my phone with fear in his eyes after hearing what I had said. He couldn’t hear what the person on the other side was saying, but anyone would panic after seeing the fear in my eyes.“Let me talk to him, please!” I demanded. The man on the phone went silent for so long that I thought he had ended the call out of annoyance at my insistence. Then I heard my little baby’s voice.“Mommy, the super spies are so cool!” he yelled into my ear. My breath released with a whoosh, and I fell into a seat tiredly. My baby was truly safe.“Are you alright, my darling? No injuries?” I asked him, focusing on his voice intensely to catch any inconsistencies if he was lying.“No, M
BIANCA’S POVThe drive had been filled with comfortable, companionable silence as we reached the hulking mammoth of a utility factory. I had forgotten just how rich Alessandro really was. He wasn’t just some daddy’s rich boy; he was the type of rich that made people scared. How did he have so much time to hang out doing nothing?“Luca?” I yelled out the moment I got inside. It was well-lit, but there were so many containers. It seemed like a trap, but I had no self-preservation instincts. Linda, my American friend, had painfully drilled that into my head after I told her about my visit to the warehouse to meet Sophia the other time.“Shut up!” Darren hushed me, pulling me behind him to shield me from any oncoming horrors. I felt chagrined. It wasn’t safe to yell in a place that seemed so empty and deserted.“We are here, Miss Rossi,” the man I assumed to be their leader said, extending a hand to shake mine. I had no idea where he came from; Luca’s assessment that they were super spies
BIANCA’S POVI wasn’t exactly sure what was happening, but I didn’t like it. Why would Sophia be bold enough to take my son when Alessandro was gone? Luca wasn’t even her rival here; it was I. Did she think I would back away to protect my son?She thought right. If Alessandro’s men hadn’t caught the man, I would have given everything to get my baby back. As it stood, there was nothing I could do to deter Sophia except by using Alessandro’s men to send a message back to her.“I see. Well, I suppose we should send a message back to her, don’t you?” I steeled my voice, turning Luca towards Darren. “Give me a minute, will you?” I gestured for Darren to take Luca away.Darren was reluctant to leave me alone, but we exchanged a look, and he rolled his eyes, scooping up Luca and leaving the dark room. The dim lighting created an eerie atmosphere as the man’s chains rattled when he saw Luca leaving.I could see the desperation in his eyes as he realized the only assurance that things wouldn’t
BIANCA’S POVThe man sneered at me, making no effort to help me steady myself. “I should ask you that, young lady. This place is closed to outsiders,” he frowned. He looked angry about something, and being lost and alone with an angry man didn’t seem like the best situation for me.“Could you help me find the exit?” I asked instead, feeling for anything behind me that I could use as a weapon while I was still on the floor. The man looked angrier, reaching into his pocket for something I could only pray wasn’t a gun. He seemed too angry to be a normal person, and his resemblance to my missing boyfriend became slightly more pronounced, save for the difference in their heights and intonations.Alas! It was, in fact, a gun. I cursed my luck. Everything was going against me today. I should have told Darren immediately that I had no idea where I was. Luca was too young to lose his mother.I kicked up my leg, hitting him in the shin. The man yowled, and I scrambled to stand up before he coul
BIANCA’S POVI looked properly at the man, seeing the fight drain out of him completely. "I am so sorry," he breathed, his eyes still fixed on Luca. Darren snapped his head to look back at me, silently asking what was happening. I shrugged. I couldn’t answer what I didn’t know."We’ll be leaving now," I said pointedly, getting Luca into the car first. The man seemed more mellow at the clear show of distrust I was displaying."I’m Giovanni, Sandro’s immediate younger brother," he said, stretching out a hand to hold my car door just as I was about to enter. Darren quickly intercepted, placing a forceful hand on Giovanni’s and removing it from the door."You can introduce yourself without getting so close," he said, standing between Giovanni and me. The air was tense, and I half-expected someone to throw a punch. Instead, Giovanni sighed and backed away."I want to apologize to her," he said to Darren, giving him a slightly hostile look. I couldn’t see Darren’s face, but I was certain he
DARREN’S POV I had not been myself all day, just like Bianca hadn’t been herself all week. After hearing about Luca’s near kidnapping, fear had taken hold of me. I loved Luca; he was the biggest light in Bianca’s life, and the thought of anything happening to my best friend made me shut down. Then we saw my trashy boyfriend kissing a woman like some spineless bastard. I hadn’t really liked him anyway—I didn’t feel anything between us. He wanted to use me as a ladder to the top, and I needed something to pass the time. It still hurts, though. I needed to get to the roots of Alessandro’s life to protect Bianca and Luca because the man was becoming more and more convoluted. What could one man need a torture facility this huge for? No one could convince me otherwise, not even the fake happy vibe the interior decoration gave off. Something definitely screamed dark about it all. Bianca and Luca hadn’t noticed anything, though, with Luca droning on and on about how the spies were coo
BIANCA’S POVI was momentarily thrown into contemplation. Why would Luca ask such a question? I had already previously told him that Matteo was his father, way back since Matteo’s wedding, and my son was neither forgetful nor stupid. So why was he asking me this so seriously?I told him that Alessandro wasn’t his father just as Darren entered, and my little munchkin looked at me with grievous eyes. I couldn’t blame him—I wished Alessandro was his father too, instead of Matteo. But did it really matter who his father was as long as he had me?“Mommy, I look a lot like Daddy,” Luca said slowly, as though he were a fifty-year-old man speaking to a two-year-old. I regretted letting him and Darren hang out so much—his sass had completely rubbed off on my baby.“Not really. You look like me. You barely look like your father,” I said gently as Darren began driving. I hadn’t even realized we were already moving because of the bizarre conversation I was currently having with my son. He really
GIOVANNI’S POVI had come into the base extremely angry. The one person I respected more than anyone else was my older brother, Alessandro. I respected him a lot more than even our eldest brother, and I had just had to sit through an hour of some whore claiming that my brother was her boyfriend at some silly event I attended to assure everyone that my brother was not dead or dying.I hated going to events in general, especially when some idiot was talking my ear off. It was the anger from it that I had brought into the base.I hadn’t expected to bump into a woman on the other side, and my first thought was that she was a plant from the enemies. So, my anger multiplied when one of my brother’s hidden men came out solely to save her life.I was affronted by the women constantly hanging off my brother. They couldn’t have done that to the previous Alessandro, but he had gone softer over the years, preferring to avoid conflict instead.I had been incredibly prepared to threaten her out of