Chapter 3 - The Night Elena Disappeared
Ronan increased security.
Elena became furious.
Their arguments grew shorter and colder.
“Stop following me.”
“No.”
“Stop sending cars.”
“No.”
“Stop deciding where I can go.”
“No.”
Finally Elena stared across his study.
“Do you hear yourself?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And you are alive.”
She laughed once without humor.
“That’s your standard?”
“It is the first requirement.”
“No, Ronan. That’s survival. I want a life.”
“You cannot have a life if you are dead.”
“And I cannot have one if you put me in a cage.”
He flinched.
Elena saw it.
“You’re doing this because of Matteo.”
“Do not use his name against me.”
“I’m not.”
Her anger softened.
“You couldn’t save him, so now you’re trying to control every second of my life.”
Ronan’s voice turned quiet.
“I will not bury you.”
Elena stepped closer.
“Then trust me enough to let me live.”
He couldn’t.
Three nights later, Elena disappeared.
Ronan learned at 11:17 p.m.
Luca entered his study.
“Elena isn’t at the restaurant.”
Ronan looked up.
“What?”
“She left at nine forty.”
“Where are the men?”
“They lost her.”
The room became deadly quiet.
“Explain.”
“She entered a market street. Cameras lost sight of her. Her phone stopped transmitting seven minutes later.”
Ronan stood.
“Find her.”
“We are.”
“No.”
He grabbed his coat.
“I said find her.”
Within twenty minutes, Palermo seemed to belong to Ronan.
Cars moved.
Phones rang.
Doors opened.
Names were questioned.
At midnight, Elena’s apartment was empty.
At one, Ronan received the first call.
Nothing.
At two, another.
Nothing.
At three, Luca found him standing outside Osteria della Luna.
“Ronan.”
“What?”
“We found one of our men.”
Ronan turned.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Near the harbor.”
“And Elena?”
“Gone.”
Ronan’s face emptied.
For one terrible moment he was no longer fifty.
He was a father standing beside a hospital bed three years earlier.
“No,” he whispered.
Luca stepped closer.
“This is not Matteo.”
Ronan looked at him.
“We don’t know that.”
“We know Elena is smart.”
“She is alone.”
“She knows you’re looking.”
Ronan stared toward the empty restaurant.
Then Marco opened the door.
“Signor Vale?”
Ronan turned.
Marco looked nervous.
“She left something.”
“What?”
Marco handed him an envelope.
Inside was a note.
You keep saying you’re protecting me. But protection I cannot refuse is another kind of prison. I need space. Don’t follow me. — Elena
Ronan read it twice.
Then a third time.
Luca exhaled.
“She left voluntarily.”
Ronan’s relief lasted perhaps two seconds.
Then his phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
“Elena?”
A man laughed softly.
“No.”
Ronan went completely still.
The voice continued.
“You should have kept better control of your American.”
Ronan looked at Luca.
Luca immediately began tracing the call.
“What do you want?”
“Nothing tonight.”
“Where is she?”
“Safe enough.”
Ronan’s hand tightened around the phone.
“If you hurt her—”
“You’ll do what? Start a war?”
The caller laughed again.
“That’s what we’re hoping.”
The line disconnected.
Ronan stared at the screen.
Luca spoke first.
“They intercepted her after she left.”
Ronan looked down at Elena’s note.
She had tried to escape his protection.
And his enemies had been waiting.
Every instinct inside him demanded retaliation.
Cars.
Men.
Weapons.
Blood.
But then he remembered Elena’s words.
You don’t get to turn fear into permission.
Ronan looked at Luca.
“Find out who took her.”
“And then?”
Ronan folded the note carefully.
“Then we bring her home.”
Luca studied him.
“And the men responsible?”
Ronan’s expression hardened.
“We end the threat.”
May you like
But for the first time in Ronan Vale’s life, ending the threat and controlling the woman he loved would have to become two different things.
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