The Woman at the Docks (Grassi Framily)

My instinct was to go in her room, tell her that as far as my father and I were concerned, we believed her, that she wasn't in any danger.

But if she was down with a migraine, I had to leave her be to recover.

Antsy, unable to assuage my guilt over my family jumping the gun and saying shit they shouldn't have, I went into my room, got changed, and took off for another run, leaving a chastened Lucky in charge.

I thought it was a safe enough decision.

With Michael and Dario on the perimeter and Lucky in the house, it seemed like she was as safe as possible .

Then again, my concern had been about someone else getting in, trying to hurt her, take her.

I had never entertained for a moment that the biggest threat to her safety was Romy herself.

"What's going on?" I asked, stiffening when I got back to the house, finding Matteo's car there, spotting my father around the side of the house.

Something was wrong.

Something big.

My father, brother, and I were all rarely in the same place, for obvious reasons. Unless the shit had hit the fan.

"You forgot your phone," Lucky told me, voice tight. "She's gone."

"What the fuck do you mean she's gone? If she's gone, I want a reason why there aren't bullet holes riddling all of you, since you were supposed to be the ones standing between her and danger."

"No one came for her, Luca," Lucky told me, shaking my head.

"What are you talking about?"

"That possibly this woman was at the docks for nefarious reasons after all," my father chimed in, walking over, face grave. "She waited until you were gone, until she got everyone here to

think she was sick. And then she took off out her window when one of the guards walked around to the front to talk to Dario. Or so we assume. No one has any idea when she took off."

"Then no one knows if she was taken either," I insisted, my heart starting to slam against my ribcage.

"She left. She rearranged the furniture in her bedroom so that she could climb up, balance, then jump down," my father told me. "She even took a second to close the window again before she ran off so that no one would know until she was far enough away to be impossible to track."

No.

This couldn't be happening.

"How did you know she was gone?" I asked, looking to Lucky.

"My ma dropped by to give me some of her anti-nausea shit for her head. I went to see if she wanted some once Ma left. And she didn't answer. No growl even, so I went in and she was gone."

"Fuck," I hissed, gaze going to the woods behind the house, trying to remember what was on the other end, if there was a main road she could end up on, if she might be walking or running down the street.

"We already have men in cars looking," Lucky told me.

"Where are you going?" my father asked, but it was background noise to me as I shoved between him and Lucky, making a beeline for the corner of the house where two men were standing.

"This is your fucking fault," I growled, slamming my hands in my brother's back, making him stumble forward before catching himself, spinning around.

"Don't," he demanded, shaking his head.

We hadn't come to blows since we were teenagers. But when we used to, it was always ugly, only coming to an end when one of our father's men would pull us apart.

"I handle shit here, Matteo. You fuck around and spend money. Stay in your goddamn lane, do you fucking hear me?"