Bad Medicine (Underworld Kings)

“Negative. Says he’s been busy. Too busy to worry about his own wife’s whereabouts when he was entrusted with her life. And as such, one of the stipulations of the betrothal contract was to keep her safe at all times, and if not, punishments would be doled out by The Ruin.” My stare never wavers while I say this, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen an olive-complected man turn so pale and still have a heartbeat before.

“You got it. Should I look into his records and whereabouts as well?” Seth asks, and I tilt my head as my eyes narrow. My thoughts had been too overwhelmed with Arabella’s disappearance that I hadn’t pondered that far ahead yet.

“That’s a very good idea,” I reply, letting Ferro stew on what Seth could’ve suggested on the other end of the line he isn’t privy to.

“Consider it done. I’ll be in touch,” he says, and we hang up without farewells.

“You better speak now or forever hold your peace if you know anything,” I warn Ferro, sliding my phone back into my pocket.

Finally, he straightens his shoulders and lifts his chin, but the pose does nothing to camouflage the fear still in his expression. “The guards informed me she never came home the night before last. She went shopping, and her driver said he dropped her off in her usual spot, but she never made it upstairs. She either snuck away or was taken.”

I feel steam rising out of the collar of my shirt with his every word. “And you didn’t think to call me, inform me my daughter never showed up, so I could immediately help locate her?” I roar, taking a step toward him, my hands curling into fists.

He takes a step back, his hands lifting in defense. “I have all of our people on it. You put me in charge, and I have the same resources you do, so I didn’t want to unnecessarily worry you if she just went off galivanting. I was going to call you in the morning if she hadn’t shown up by tonight.”

He’s lying. I know it in my very soul. I don’t know what about, exactly, whether it’s the part about how he was going to call me tomorrow of that he has our people on it. But what I do know is he doesn’t have all the resources I do. I made sure to keep the very best for myself in case something like this were to ever happen and I needed someone to help me usurp my successor. And that very best was Seth Owens—child prodigy, MIT graduate at age seventeen, and the technological genius behind Imperium Security down south in North Carolina. And while he might be a thousand miles away, if anyone on this planet could find my baby for me, it’s him, using everything from ATM transactions to traffic cameras to sources I can’t even fathom. He once found a missing person through a facial recognition program he designed that tapped into all the elevators’ surveillance cameras in the state of New York.

“You better hope she turns up without a single scratch, stronzo. And even more so, you better pray it was her who gave everyone the slip. She’s my daughter, after all. If she wanted to escape, she could. It’s in her blood. But the fact that you hired guards that let her without even a trace….” I shake my head, letting the sentence hover between us. “Let’s just say you’ll be the one to go missing if it turns out she didn’t just sneak off.”

13

Arabella

“I'm going to get some work done in my office. Maxwell will be on watch, and if you need me, you know where to find me, Bella,” DeLuca says from the doorway of his home library.

We spoke casually over lunch, as if we weren’t strangers at all, let alone captor and captive. I don't know what's coming over me. Maybe it's the freedom from Ferro.

Ferro. He must be looking for me, right? He has to be worried… right? Must be out of his mind.

Right?

What a marriage we have if I’m questioning these things. Real love, I would assume, wouldn't have me wondering these simple questions. If he cared about me, he would have found me by now.

I give DeLuca a curt nod, a small smile at the corner of my lips. Stepping up to me, he leans down to the chair where I'm laid out, reading a Shakespearean romance. Giving me a kiss on my forehead, he then whispers in my ear, “Non corri, bella. Perché mi impazzirò senza di te. Ti darò la caccia, principessa.”

I gulp, aroused yet again, but afraid, knowing—like he just said—that he wouldn't stop until he found me.

Something comes over me then, a single tear falling from my eye as he leaves me. No one has ever loved me. The only love I've ever known is my father’s, and I may never get a chance to tell him that ever again. Would DeLuca ever let me see my dad? Will he believe I won't run from him? Won't I want to run though? Will I?