Sold to Mr. Giordano

Antonio

I hate being in New York. I hate this city but not as much as I hate the people here. Fucking Ricci’s with their corrupt and psychopathic ways.

The only person I hate more than Luca is Marco and sitting with both of them at their main headquarters made me want to pull out my pistol and waste both of them right here, right now.

We are discussing strategy plans regarding the Bratva. They have been interfering with drug and guns shipment we’ve been receiving from the cartel down in Mexico. Men are turning up dead at shipment checkpoints. The Outfit is low with men and even with the last batch of New York soldiers it’s still not enough. We’re losing more and more every week.

Just the other day the Bratva raided one of our warehouses, we lost a shit ton of money and some good men. Since ties with New York have been good since Luca got his bride and Marco shipped his daughter off to marry me, they’ve been pretty lenient with sending me more soldiers.

As grateful as I am, I don’t trust this willingness to hand me over men. They’re going to want something and I haven’t figured it out yet—but I will.

My mind wanders off to thoughts of my wife. I left her peacefully sleeping in bed this morning. She didn’t even stir she was so exhausted. Arielle cried most of the night as I held her and let her. She was distraught over what her father said to her and distraught at the treatment Arabella is receiving from her brother. I hate seeing her so stressed and it worries me regarding the baby. I read on some website for pregnant parents stress is horrible and can cause miscarriages and, in some cases, even affect the child’s development in their early or even later life.

I thought it was better for her to let it all out. She seemed relieved after. I can tell when something is worrying her by the way she bites at her bottom lip, fidgets with her hands and has a strong crease between her eyebrows. Her body usually stays tense like that until she purged her feelings. So, I’d rather her cry at night to me then hold it in.

Luca’s cell phone ringing causes me to lose train of my thought and thrusts me back into reality.

“Yeah?” Luca answers with annoyance. “Are you sure?… Okay… I’ll tell him.” He slams his phone down and looks me in the eyes. Arielle is missing.”

I stand up abruptly. “What do you mean she’s missing!?”

“Arabella says she can’t find her anywhere in the apartment. She’s been looking for over an hour.”

I take out my phone ready to call her seeing if maybe she just left to go into the city and forgot to tell anyone.

Luca shakes his head. “She said she called Ary, her phone is still in the guest room.”

“She wouldn’t leave without her phone. She was taken!” I run my hands through my hair. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. “How the hell did this happen? Don’t you have security? Who could’ve gotten in without setting off alarms or getting past your bodyguard—who is supposed to be watching them!”

“Antonio, calm down,” Marco says in a calm voice. “We will find her. This isn’t the first kidnapping in the mafia and this isn’t the first time Ary has been taken.”

I wanted to ring his neck because I know at least one of those times she was kidnapped it was because her father was trying to teach his sons a lesson about not caring.

“Don’t you have security cameras?” I ask Luca.

He silently grabs his laptop, opens it and turns the screen toward me. He hits the play button and we see the hallways where the guest room is. I watch as the video play me exiting the room in my suit and heading down to the main lobby where I met with Luca. We don’t see any sign of Arielle, she must have still been sleeping at this time. He fast forwards until static shows.

“Tampered with,” Marco grumbles under his breath.

I grab my suit jacket and put it on as I race out of the room. I tell one of Luca’s men waiting outside to pull the car around front. Luca and Marco catch up to me and it’s Luca who looks most annoyed.

“We still have business to finish,” he reminds me.

“My wife is missing. I think this is more important,” I growl through clenched teeth.

“I thought you were the type of man to put the Famiglia before anyone else,” Marco replied snidely.

“How stupid of me to actually think either of you would care that your sister—your daughter, was taken by our enemies,”

“It looks like the great Antonio Giordano finally has a weakness,” Marco says as I push past him as I see my car has arrived. “And it’s blinding him!”

When I pile into the backseat, I’m agitated by the fact that Luca follows suit. Luca flashes me an untrustworthy grin that makes me uneasy and as soon as possible I’m leaving this fucking city. “We’re going to the same place, aren’t we? No need to waste another car.” I don’t trust the Ricci’s and I don’t trust their reaction to Arielle’s disappearance.

At Luca’s penthouse Arabella is a wreck. Her eyes are bloodshot and her hands trembling. Luca looks annoyed with his wife and by the clenching of his fist I can tell he wants to hit her.

“I need you to tell me everything,” I say calmly to my cousin. I touch her shoulder and lead her over to the couch to sit as I take the seat next to her.

“It was around eleven that I was worried. I thought maybe she was jet-lagged and needed some sleep. I thought that she was just exhausted but she was gone. I swear I didn’t hear anyone enter. I had breakfast and then went back to my room to read a book. I didn’t hear anyone enter! I don’t know how it happened,” Arabella becomes hysterical. She plants her face into her hands and her shoulders shake with every sob.

I check my watch. “So she’s been missing for a few hours?” Arabella nods her head. “Fuck. I want men out looking for her and checking all of the Bratva’s warehouses.”

“Hang on just a minute. You may be Capo in the Outfit but here these men are for my father and I to control. We don’t even know if the Bratva took her so why risk my men on missions we aren’t certain of?” Luca says from the threshold of the kitchen holding a bottle of bourbon in one hand and a glass in the other.

“We can’t see here and do nothing! We need to send spies to see what they know or if they know anything already!” I shout my frustration.

“If this happened in Chicago it was your wife, I would send my men looking for her.”

Luca shrugs. “That just proves once again that you are weak and incompetent to be Capo. You rule with your heart. You’re too blinded by love to realize that you’re willing to risk too much of the Famiglia to get back some girl.”

“That girl is your sister,” my teeth are clenched.

“And if it were my wife, mother, or daughter I wouldn’t care either way. I’m not risking men to search our enemies warehouses when we aren’t sure she is there. There is no sign of forced entry, for all I know she left on her own accord to escape you and made it look like a kidnapping. It’s plausible that my bitch of sister would pull a stunt like that.”

“You May have known her all of her life but I know for a fact she wouldn’t do something like this.” Especially not while pregnant with my child.

“Antonio is right,” Arabella chimes in. “Arielle wouldn’t do something like that.”

“You’re dismissed, Arabella,” Luca shouts angrily. “We do not need your input in men’s business.”

“But she’s my friend too!”

Luca enters to kitchen and returns without the bottle of glass in his hand. As he storms toward Arabella she cowers when he raises his hand and slaps her across the face with a loud smack.

“Enough!” I shout and pull Arabella away from him. “She may be your property but I’m not going to watch you abuse my cousin in front of me. You can do it later when I’m not around. You’re going to sit here and figure out a way to get Arielle back.”

Luca’s jaw ticks. “I don’t have to anything you say.”

“Go upstairs, Arabella,” I murmur to her and she obliges.

I wait until I can no longer hear footsteps to grab Luca by his collar and slam him against the wall. “Listen to me,” I say inches away from his face. “This is my wife and as far as I’m concerned as guests from the Outfit we are under your protection and your sister has just been kidnapped in your apartment. You’ll help and if you don’t well then, I guess I’ll expect the worst.”

“That she left you?”

“No, that you’re responsible. And if you’re responsible then I am at liberty to kill you but it won’t be quick. I will take my time skinning you alive until you are begging for death. Even then I won’t grant you death, I will cut off every piece of you that I can while you are conscious and I am going to feed them to you—that includes your dick.”

Luca keeps his same furrowed eyebrows and dark eyes but it’s the hard swallow and the new sweat beading at his forehead that tells me he’s afraid.

“Fine. I’ll call my men and have them on the lookout. I’ll see if my spies know anything about a kidnapping from the Bratva. That’s the best I can do,” he shoves me off and pulls out his burner phone from his front pocket to make those calls.

I head upstairs and into the guest room to see if anything was taken or moved around from last I saw. It doesn’t look like a struggle and it doesn’t look like she changed into day clothes. There is no sign of the nightgown she wore last night which leads me to believe that she was taken before she woke up. I walk over to the bed and smell her pillow to get the scent of vanilla along with… I sniff again. Chloroform?

The kidnappers must’ve put the chemical on a cloth and put over her mouth while she was sleeping to render her unconscious. There wouldn’t have been a fight and it would make sense that Arabella didn’t hear anything.

Still questions about this scene of crime burn in my mind. How did they get in? Who has access to Luca’s penthouse? Why weren’t the bodyguards monitoring the girls or the hallways where they sleep?

When I make my way downstairs, I see Benedetto holding a box and talking to Luca. I hear Benedetto ask what to do with it and Luca whispers his response.

“What’s that?” I nod my head at the box.

“A box,” Luca grabs the box from his guard. “I was going to check it first in case whatever is inside is too disturbing for you to see.” I raise an eyebrow. “It’s addressed to you, Giordano.”

“Give it to me,” I walk down the last few steps of stairs and forcefully snatch the box out of his hands. I walk over to the kitchen to set the box down. Luca and Benedetto hover looking over my shoulder anticipating what is inside. “Do you both mind?”Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

“This box came to my house, I’d like to see what’s inside. Especially if it is pertaining to my sister.”

Now he cares, I roll my eyes.