Chapter 110

Layla

They’d taken my son.

The words kept repeating themselves over and over in my mind. My thoughts tripped over the possibilities, through every connection we had, every Rossetti asset Aldo might be able to squeeze for information.

Surely, there was some way to get what I needed from what we had. Surely, we’d overlooked something, some clue or detail, that would get me answers.

The Rossettis wanted war? I’d serve them one on a silver fucking platter.

“Layla.” Aldo’s fingers wove their way between mine. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to find him.”

He squeezed my hand. And I squeezed back.

“I know.” I forced a stream of air through my nose in a long, slow exhale, trying to find some semblance of calm. But how could I be calm when my son was gone, when they’d taken him?

How could I possibly be fucking calm?

“If they took him,” Aldo said, “it’s because they want something from us. They won’t hurt him, at the very least until they tell us what that is.”

Great. That was so very reassuring.

“I know.” But that didn’t mean I wanted to sit around and wait for them to contact me. “But if we’re going to win this, we need to get the upper hand.”

Aldo tilted his head up towards me, his expression unreadable. “We’ll find him. We always knew this war would come to our doorstep. Now, we take it to theirs.”

“We keep saying that.” But finding that doorstep had always been the challenge, hadn’t it? We were missing some critical piece of this puzzle, and without it, it left us shaking our fists at the sky and yelling vague threats into the void.

I hated that. I hated feeling so fucking helpless. It was like an elephant trying to find an ant. We were so big, so obvious and clumsy, and they were so very small. So very good at hiding.

How could we possibly find them?

The fire in my chest burned hotter as I recalled the battle that had just unfolded. The fight had been brutal. Bloody. I’d taken lives, watched men die. Too many to count.

My mind flashed back to the chaos of the battle. The sharp crack of gunfire, the screams of the wounded, the scent of burning wood and flesh. I had fought like a woman possessed, taking down enemy after enemy. I had felt the rush of battle, the sharp clarity that came with knowing every move was life or death. At some point, I had stopped thinking and started surviving.

And I hadn’t even begun to process anything that had happened, any of the horrors I’d caused or witnessed, because …

Because it wasn’t over. Not yet.

Because it had all been a diversion.

All of the gunfire and bombs, the wounds and pain and death … it had all been so we’d be looking out onto the battlefield while inside, the real fight had been taking place. Without any bullets or blood or gunshots at all.

No violence.

Nothing had been touched.

Not one single thing out of place.

No struggles.

No fights.

Just Eli and Vanessa, vanished. But how?

“Carlo.” My voice sounded strangely hollow in the still night. “Did anyone leave the manor during the fight?”

A few feet away, half obscured in the darkness, Carlo turned towards me. I couldn’t read the expression on his face. He still held his phone to his ear, but he slowly lowered it as he processed my meaning. “Let me find out.”

In a few long, purposeful strides, he’d vanished into the night. Carlo, the man with answers … I hoped.

I paced. And thought. And in the end, I could really only come up with one conclusion. A conclusion that didn’t feel particularly conclusive at all.

“Vanessa took Eli,” I said, and those three words, lined up like that, didn’t make any sense. I mean, logically, that was the only thing that made sense.

But Vanessa was my friend.

My confidante.

My closest ally in this crazy-ass messed-up world.

So … how could she have taken Eli?

A minute later, Carlo returned, his expression grim. “Security cameras show a car leaving about halfway through the battle.”

“And?” My heart sat lodged in my throat, preventing me from breathing, swallowing, thinking.

“It was Vanessa’s car.”

“No.” I shook my head, even though I’d known. The world tilted, and my knees buckled—but suddenly Aldo was at my side. Holding me up.

My anchor.

“She must have … she must have taken him somewhere she thought was safe,” I murmured, and my voice sounded far away, like I was listening to someone else speak. “Maybe she panicked.”

“Layla.” Aldo’s fingers wove comforting circles against my shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”

My jaw clenched, nails biting into my palms. So much. I’d lost so much these past years. I’d had so much taken from me. And finally, I thought I’d found someone who understood that—who understood me.

“We’ll find him,” Aldo repeated, his voice a low, soothing murmur. But somehow, neither his tone nor his words soothed me.

“How could she do this?” Because that, really, was the bottom line, wasn’t it? She’d betrayed me, and I didn’t even know why.

“Boss!” One of Aldo’s men rushed up to us, and on instinct, my fingers curled around the gun in its holster. But it was just Luca, streaked with blood and slightly out of breath. “There’s someone at the gate!”

“Who?” Aldo’s brow furrowed in concern. “A messenger from Rossetti already?”

“No.” Luca shook his head. “Someone else—”

“Layla!” A voice ripped through the night, and a moment later, a broad-shouldered figure raced up the driveway towards the house. A guard hot on his heels. “Layla!”

“Ethan?” I hopped down the front steps to meet him halfway. “What are you doing here?”

Ethan’s brows had lifted into perfect arches of shock at the sight of the ruins around us. “The hell happened here?”

“You missed the big battle.” My hands clenched tight into fists. My relief at seeing him vanished at the sight of the storm in his eyes. He wasn’t here because he’d heard about the fight.

Something else was wrong.

“Why are you here, Ethan?”

His eyes flicked once more over the ruined grounds before returning to my face. “We need to talk.”

“Talk.” I crossed my arms. I was tired, panicking, angry. Done with bullshit. “Right here.”

“It’s …” Ethan raked a hand through his disheveled hair, and his eyes once again left my face—to find Carlo. Luca. Aldo.

“Here,” I commanded.

He sighed. “It’s about Vanessa.”

“Vanessa.” My heartbeat was suddenly too loud, or maybe the very earth around me had shrunk. “What about her?”

Ethan’s throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. “She’s not who you think she is.”

Sudden warmth at my back told me that Aldo had followed me down the stairs. The way Ethan’s eyes flickered slightly sideways told me Luca had followed Aldo. And probably Carlo had, too.

God knew the men were Aldo’s shadows.

“Tell me, Ethan,” I said, and I almost didn’t recognize my own icy voice.

“Her real name …” Ethan exhaled sharply. “Is Vanessa Rossetti.”

The words hung in the air like a gunshot, the weight of them pressing against my chest.