missing

Aurora is missing.

The words slam into me like a freight train, cold and brutal.

My world tilts, splinters.

I force myself to breathe, but it feels like trying to inhale through broken glass. A sharp pang of longing lances through my chest as I picture her—the way she laughs, the softness in her eyes when she thinks no one is looking. The way she tilts her head when she’s deep in thought, lost in a world I desperately want to understand.

And now she’s gone.

“She was right there.” Gabriele's voice is hoarse, as if he’s already screaming at himself inside his own head. "One second, she was looking at something on the shelf. The next—" He swallows thickly. "I turned for one damn moment, Lucian. And she was just... gone."

The office door slams open with a bang.

Nico barrels in, eyes wild, chest heaving like he ran the whole way here. His hands rake through his unruly curls, his face ashen.

My gut knots.

“What’s happened?” My voice is tight, already dreading the answer.

Nico hesitates for only a second before the words spill out, like he can’t bear to hold them in. “It’s Aurora.” He looks me straight in the eye. “She’s missing.”

Sour dread curdles in my stomach.

There are only two reasons she would disappear like this.

Either she chose to leave me.

Or someone took her.

My jaw clenches so tightly I taste copper. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know,” Gabriele croaks, his eyes darting everywhere but at me. “I—I swear, boss, she was just there—”

That’s all I need to hear.

I move before I think. My hands slam into Gabriele’s collar, yanking him forward. His feet barely touch the ground before my fist connects with his jaw.

He stumbles back, dazed, but I don’t let him fall. I hit him again. And again.

“Where the fuck is she?” I roar, punctuating each word with another blow.

Blood smears across his lip, but he barely fights back. Just takes it, eyes dull with guilt.

“Dario, stop!”

Nico grabs my arm, pulling me back before I can land another hit. “We need him.” His voice is tight, urgent. “We can’t lose any more men.”

I breathe hard through my nose, my pulse a violent, erratic drum in my ears.

This isn’t enough. Beating Gabriele to a pulp won’t bring Aurora back.

I let go, shoving him away like he disgusts me. “Get Lorenzo on surveillance,” I growl. “Now.”

The room explodes into motion.

Nico barks orders. Capos scramble. Gabriele wipes his bloody mouth and stumbles to his feet, shame thick in his gaze.

But Giulia—she’s still standing there, frozen.

Then, all at once, she crumbles.

“It’s my fault!” she sobs, collapsing to her knees in front of me. Her hands clutch at the fabric of my pants. “I should’ve insisted on more guards! I should’ve—”

I grab her wrists and yank her upright.

“You should have done a lot of things,” I snarl. “You should have never let her out of your sight.”

Her lips tremble, but she lifts her chin, a flicker of defiance in her tear-streaked eyes. “You were suffocating her,” she whispers. “You knew it.”

I flinch.

A mistake. I never should’ve let her see that land.

I release her with a sharp exhale, stepping back. “This isn’t helping,” Nico interjects, voice low. “We need to move.”

Giulia wipes her face, nodding.

I don’t look back as I turn and head for the basement.

My fury needs a target.

And if Lorenzo doesn’t give me one soon, I will burn this city to the ground.

---

Down in the security room, the air is thick with tension.

Lorenzo is hunched over the keyboard, fingers flying across the keys. The monitors flicker, shifting from feed to feed—grainy black-and-white images of crowded streets, endless storefronts, and blurred faces.

Somewhere in that sea of pixels is Aurora.

I pace the room, jaw locked, arms crossed so tightly my muscles scream in protest.

“Anything?” I snap.

“Almost,” Lorenzo mutters, never looking away from the screens. “Just give me a—”

Then he stops.

“There.” Nico jabs a finger at the monitor. “Zoom in on that guy.”

A man, half-shadowed in the frame. His stance is too rigid, his focus too sharp.

He’s watching her.

A slow, deadly calm washes over me.

Found you.

And God help you if you took what’s mine.

I squint at the blurry image on the screen, my breath held tight in my chest as the figure moves closer to the door. The low hum of the monitors is the only sound in the room, but it does nothing to drown out the pounding in my ears.

Lorenzo is already typing furiously, the glow of the screens reflecting off his tense expression. “He’s forcing her to move,” I say, my voice coming out sharper than I intended. “Get me another angle.”

He nods once, his fingers flying over the keys. A few seconds later, the image shifts. My pulse stutters.

Aurora.

She’s pressed against the man, her posture stiff, the kind of fear she rarely lets show now flickering across her face. I don’t need a closer look to know—he’s threatening her.

Lorenzo curses under his breath. “He’s got a weapon.”

The room turns ice-cold.

My fingers tighten into fists as the footage zooms in, confirming the unmistakable outline of a gun pressed to her back. My stomach knots with a fury so visceral it nearly blinds me.

“That has to be an exit,” Nico mutters beside me, his eyes locked on the screen. “Pull up the external feed.”

Lorenzo doesn’t hesitate. The image splits into four, showing different angles of the store’s exterior. My jaw clenches as I watch my wife being pushed toward a waiting car.

My wife.

She stumbles into frame, her eyes wide with horror as she’s shoved toward the vehicle. The back door swings open. A gun nudges her forward. She disappears inside.

The door slams shut.

My lungs feel too tight, my body thrumming with a rage I can barely contain. I stare at the screen as the taillights flash and the car speeds off into the night.

Then, the feed flickers. The next camera picks up the car again, showing it turning down a narrow alley.

“I’ll follow them as far as I can,” Lorenzo says, his voice strained as he enters another line of code. “I’ve got a partial plate. If they took her somewhere in the city, I should be able to stay on them.”

“And if they took her somewhere else?” I bite out, my jaw aching from the force of my clenched teeth.

He hesitates. “Then I’ll check the vicinity of every known Agosti property farther out. If we lose them on CCTV…” He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t need to.

My fists curl so tight that my nails dig into my palms.

That’s not an option.

Just as I turn, ready to put my fist through the nearest wall, something on the screen stops me cold.

The drugstore’s interior feed.

My gaze locks onto the top-left monitor, where Aurora had been standing just minutes ago, scanning the shelves with intense focus. The same shelves she had reached toward before her world shifted in the blink of an eye.

A sick feeling creeps into my chest.

Nico mutters something under his breath, but I barely hear him. My focus is on what Aurora had been looking at before she was taken.

Rows of pregnancy tests.

For a moment, I don’t breathe.

The silence in the room is deafening.

The rage inside me shifts, twisting into something heavier, something darker. My vision sharpens, and my heart slams against my ribs with brutal force.

She could be carrying my child.

My child.

A growl tears through my throat, low and dangerous, the kind of sound that sends men running. My head snaps toward Nico. He barely has time to react before I snatch his wrist in a bruising grip.

“Call Andrea,” I order, my voice like steel. “Call every family who owes us favors. Every ally who will pick up a gun for me.”

His eyes widen at the sheer fury I know is written across my face.

“There’s no time for planning,” I continue, my voice dropping to a lethal whisper. “No time for strategy.”

I let go of him and take a step back, my hands shaking at my sides as I turn toward the door.

“Riccardo Agosti will be nothing but blood and shattered bones by morning.”

Because if I don’t get Aurora back, I can no longer call myself Lucian Boncini.