Chapter Seven

False Front

Rafe

An empty space fills the rumpled bedclothes where my wife should be. I place the breakfast tray aside that I whisked away from Luca minutes earlier, grinning like a fucking loon as I walked up the stairs, ready to surprise her. That smile slips from my face the moment I enter the room devoid of life.

Not a single sound emanates from the en suite, every trace of her presence is cold.

She's gone.

I had a feeling the night before that something deep changed between us. Maybe it's the family pressure, the flights, the funeral. Maybe it's my anger.

Maybe it's me.

An excruciating pain fills my chest. My breath lodges there, stuck. Where the hell would she go? Willow has no family, except for the brother I sent away—for his own good, for fuck's sake. The kid's so traumatized he's nonverbal. But separating them was a mistake. I know that now.

What the hell else did I miss?

Everything, apparently.

I thought she loved me, that what we have borders on perfection in this fucked-up life.

My breath hangs heavy in my chest with no exit strategy. Adrenaline spikes my bloodstream with the need to do something. The tray leaves my hands, the coffeepot the first thing to shatter against the pristine snowy wall opposite me. Its blackened innards drip onto slivered fragments beneath, a broken picture of the whole it was a moment before.

"Luca!" I roar, loud enough to rouse the house. "Dom!"

Footsteps thunder along the stairs. Dom's dark head pokes through the door first, his hair rumpled. We finished with business for the night an hour before, and he looks more than worse for wear.

Jet lag doesn't help.

"What?" He peers around the room. "Luca's coffee was shit, huh?"

"She's gone."

"Fucking what?' Dom has the grace to look at me, annoyed. "Did she go for a run?"

"She hates running," I snap. "And I know, Dom. She's not on the premises."

"But you haven't checked." His brow dips, and I know his methodical ass is about to rip me a new one.

"No." I pivot on my heel. "I'll make some calls."

Muttering under his breath, Dom heads back to the stairs and runs into Luca. The two of them mutter, casting sideways glances in my direction as I stride around them and slam the door to my office. The walls rattle, the sound settling something inside me.

A list. I run through names in my head, discarding the first three and pausing. There's no one Willow connected to in Cyprus, and she hasn't clicked with Thalia. But she has made a friend of my sister.

"Regina," I yell, starting down the hall. My mentality was halfway between a rampaging herd of mafia beasts and a brewing toddler tantrum over misplacing his favorite toy.

"Rafe?" Regina sticks her head out her bedroom door, looking worse than Dom. Dark circles hang beneath her eyes. Her hand covers her mouth, and her skin turns a fascinating shade of green. "One … I'll be right back."

She flees into her bathroom, and with the door ajar I can hear her emptying her stomach into the toilet. A quick flush ‘n brush later, she's back in front of me where I lean against the opposite wall, my hands in my pants pockets.

"Are you okay?" I tilt my head to one side, watching her. A familiar breed of paranoia slithers along my spine.

"Fine. Just travel and lack of sleep and grief. It's all fucked-up."

She waves my concern away. "What's up?"

"Willow's gone."

"Huh?" Her mouth falls open.

I watch her reaction carefully, but her shock is as genuine as mine. "Yes."

Regina blinks and rubs her eyes. "You mean she went out at this hour? What the hell for?"

"No, I mean she's gone for good."

My sister's eyes narrow. "Did you fucking kill her? Because if you did, Rafe, I'll bury you alive only to dig you up, cut off your cock, and stuff it in your mouth to do it all again."

Any other day I would smile. "No."

My lack of response stalls her. "She's gone. Really?" Her eyes flutter closed and her hand covers her mouth a second time. "Shit. Fuck. Taken?"

"Voluntarily, I believe." The corner of my mouth turns up in a smile I don't feel. My entire face is numb.

"Where would she go?" Regina drops her hand to her stomach. Whatever happens there, she manages to steel back, though her face greens up again. "Where, Rafe?"

"Fuck if I know. Apparently, she's not the wife I thought she was." Let's play the blame game.

Regina stalks forward and slaps my chest hard enough for the blow to sting. "You're a shitty husband if your fucking wife runs from you. What the fuck, Rafe? It's Willow!" she yells in my face. "She's fucking perfect for you, for all of us. And you lost her? Where's Luca," she mutters, backing off a step. "I need a knife."

My smile turns genuine. "You sound like her."

My sister glares at me. "Don't you even … Dom!" she screeches. "Luca!"

I snort, watching her do exactly the same thing I did minutes before. Then my humor drops. Because the house is listless without Willow in it. I'm lost. I don't even know where to fucking start.

With the worst.

My eyes fall shut as my head tips back. I stare at the shadows lingering in the high ceiling above me. I checked my friends list, and she's simply nowhere I expected her to be.

It's time to call my enemies, and a favor owed.

****

Door-knocking is not my style. I knew that when I started my rounds of Rhode Island's west coast, touring the dockyards and having a quiet word. Dom walks at my side while Thalia trails us, disappearing at random intervals. My healer has her own agenda that usually involves freeing up women who were stuck in the same vicious cycle of trafficking that kept her under lock and key for so many years. The trauma she went through is what she's intent on fixing in others like her. Dom freed her alongside me and she frequently limpets to his side like a barrier between her and the world.

Which is what I thought I did for Willow, and the horrors she suffered at her family's hands.

Am I just like them?

My doubts grow until my head is full of white noise roaring at me from every direction. I clear my throat as we head for the end of the docks with no extra leads. Salty air assails my skin until I'm sticky all over. My shoulders roll beneath my shirt, but my tension remains. I only have one name left on my list, and turning it over yet again, I wince internally.

We just garnered a truce.

Why not fuck that right up on my first day back in the country I call home, and as true head of the Gallo family?

"I'm going to see Konnor."

Dom stops walking and rocks back onto his heels. Thalia runs into his back and swears, sidestepping and tangling her feet together. "Are you sure? After…" He wraps an arm around the tiny woman, steadying her. And doesn't release her.

I eye them speculatively. "May as well go on a snipe hunt around the Hennie's place. If she's there, maybe I can bring her home."

"Good luck," Dom mutters.

"Why don't you ask her why first, when you find her?" Thalia pipes up at Dom's side. "Why she left, I mean."

A muscle ticks in Dom's jaw, but he doesn't say anything.

"Might do." I nod to them both when Dom's feet stay planted. "Are you coming with me?" I curse inside my head the moment the words leave my mouth.

Dom's eyes harden. "You can do better than that," he scoffs.

"You're right. Stay with Thalia. Help her with whatever she needs."

"Yes, sir."

Thalia's eyes brighten, though my best man's do not. Am I losing him too?

I stride away, locking that thought behind a wall with the rest of my fears and bring the one to the forefront of my mind that needs addressing now. My flight risk of a sexy little wife, and bringing her home.

****

"Is she here?" I take the seat Konnor waves me into across his desk without preamble. His office smells like whiskey and cigars, with a hint of something sweet I can't quite place.

"Who have you lost this time? Or has your sanity finally deserted you, my friend?" Konnor pours me a double finger of unlabeled whiskey I suspect he bootlegs.

"Old habits, huh?" I rub my hand over my mouth. "How safe am I to drive after this?"

Konnor laughs. "I'd take a long walk after. Maybe all the way home."

I snort and message Dom with one hand, sipping the whiskey with the other. The mellow liquid swirls around my tongue like an opium dream, but the kick in the back of my throat wakes me the fuck up in seconds.

"Christ, Konnor. What do I have to do to collect a pallet from you?"

Konnor's mouth hardens. "Look out for those you love," he says softly.

"She is here, you fucker," I growl, half-standing.

The glass nearly shatters as I slam it onto his desk. Liquid sloshes over the side. Konnor tsks, raising the fury raging within me.

"Sit down, Rafe. Nothing will be managed by you throwing a tantrum in my home," Konnor orders. When I sit, still seething, he nods. "I'm not one to break a confidence and my home is my sanctuary. As is yours," he murmurs as though I didn't just threaten him.

Would I do less in his position? My favorite way to fuck with others when I hold all the cards is to throw them off balance.

"What do you suggest?" I ask, throwing the facade of calm over myself like the cloak I wore around my father all those years as a form of defense.

He's fucking dead and he's still haunting me.

Freedom is a myth. The more I push for control and run the family my way, the less I garner of both, rolling myself into a field of knots and ties in a trap others made for me.

"Look to your family, Rafe. We just made an agreement. Neither of us want a war that will hurt too many we love."

"Is that what it comes down to?" I toss back the whiskey, enjoying the burn far too much. "Love and war?"

"Doesn't it always?" Konnor runs a hand through his neat hair, spiking it at the top. His face is all angular lines, a bit of stubble, an easy smile, and twinkling eyes.

Until he loses his shit. Then he's a terror, one I wouldn't want anyone to stand against from my house.

"The last time I saw you, my healer was fixing your knee where my wife shot you."

"But is she still your wife?" Konnor doesn't smile or push on that barb. He doesn't need to. That blade sinks spine deep and severs the belief I have in her.

My mouth dries. "What?"

"Our families are interlinked. They always have been. A marriage here, a fling there…" he trails off, spinning his glass on the desk. "Maybe we need a few more ties to … cement our friendship."

"Are you holding my wife hostage for your own gain?"

Am I wrong? Had Konnor slipped men into my home and taken her? My stomach says she left on her own. My heart burns at either thought.

"Wherever Willow is, Rafe, I'm sure she made her own choices. It's up to you to understand those choices, and why she might make them."

I rise, pushing my chair back. "You're talking in riddles. If Willow is here, and you are holding her against her will, I will rip your world apart and kill everyone you love. Slowly."

Konnor nods, accepting my threat. His gaze flicks over my shoulder for a fraction of a second, and his smile afterward is strange. "I understand, and I would do the same for the ones I love. But Rafe, for her, would you kneel?"

I still. "I will do whatever it takes to claim my wife and bring her home."

By some unknown blessing my voice doesn't crack.

I hold Konnor's gaze a moment longer and stride out of his office, inhaling a fresh breath though my lungs constrict.

Whiskey, cigars, and a hint of night jasmine.