I sit forward, mildly alarmed. “How do you mean?”
“I don’t know, she didn’t tell me anything was wrong so maybe I’m misinterpreting. She did ask if you could call her, though. She said she needed to talk to you—asked if you could call right away.” She steps forward but I stand and meet her halfway to save time. She holds out a scrap of stationary with a phone number printed on it in Meg’s scrawl.
I draw my phone out of my jacket pocket and tap out the number. Unease crawls up and down my spine. I told Mia if anything felt off, to call Colin. I made sure she had his number. The number Meg just gave me is not Mia’s number. I’m not even supposed to have Mia’s number, but I obviously know it. She doesn’t have mine. Right now that feels like a mistake. She’s supposed to be at the bakery today. If something has happened, she wasted time talking to middle men when she should have called me or Adrian directly.
“When did she call?” I ask, as I bring the phone to my ear.
“Just now. It seemed important so I brought it right down.”
I nod my head. “Thank you.”
She flashes me a smile. “Of course.”
The rings take forever. An entire lifetime could fit into the pause between each of these goddamn rings. Three rings. Why isn’t she answering?
Answer the fucking phone, Mia.
Finally the ringing cuts off and the sound of Mia’s voice washes over me. I breathe a premature sigh of relief. “Hey,” she says, simply.
“What’s wrong?” I demand.
She hesitates. Hesitation means something is wrong. “I’m okay,” she says, after a second. The way she trails off fills me with dread. There’s no reason to lead with that unless there’s some reason you wouldn’t be okay to begin with. Then she adds, “But I’ve sort of… been taken?”
She sounds apologetic.
My heart stops.
I feel my pocket for keys, but they aren’t there. Of course they aren’t there. Fuck. “Taken?” I ask, going to my desk and ripping open the drawer with the keys to the Escalade.
She stumbles to explain herself. It sounds like she’s worried about aggravating someone—me, or whomever has her?
The thought of someone having Mia sends waves of sickness crashing through my gut.
“Um, some guy came to the bakery. A Castellanos guy, I think. He mentioned Antonio.”
I’ll fucking kill him. Every last one of the fuckers. I have the keys, so I check to make sure I have my gun. Definitely gonna be needing that.
I do, so I head out of the study and for the car.
“I’m not with him,” she tells me, her tone a little higher, like she thinks she’s delivering good news.
Good news, my ass. The only good news right now would be that her captors felt my fury from across the city and inexplicably combusted, splattering bits of flesh and blood all over the fucking walls.
“Mark from the bakery…”
The name gives me pause. Mark? The fucking baker Vince hates? I somewhat expect her to follow up with something like, “Mark tried to intervene and was killed, so someone needs to do clean-up at the bakery” but before she can explain why she’s bringing up the baker, the phone is taken from her and a man speaks.
A dead man. Just give me a few minutes.
“Mark here,” he says, with impressive cheer for a dead man.
“Who the fuck are you?” I ask.
“I work for Salvatore, not Antonio,” he tells me, like somehow this bit of news should make me less angry. “I don’t want to hurt Mia,” he adds, still on his mission to lessen my homicidal urged.
Doesn’t fucking work. I don’t care if he took her to drive her to a surprise party—he fucked up when he put his hands on her. If she has so much as a bruise, I’m going to kick his head in.
Probably not, actually, I’ll probably kill first and ask questions later. Well, I’ll at least fantasize about kick his head in. He’ll already be dead; Mia will already be safe in my arms.
In my arms?
Fuck it, yes, in my arms.
“But I need you to come get her,” Mark tells me, like I’m not already on my way.
“Give the phone back to Mia. I want to talk to her.”
He doesn’t. Instead, the bastard tries to handle me. “Like I said, I don’t want to hurt her; I just can’t have you bringing your goon squad along. I didn’t even intend to do this, but you guys hit our guys, and weirdly enough, nobody’s very happy about it.”
“I could give a fuck less what anyone is happy about,” I tell him. “If any one of you touches Mia—”
“I have no back up,” he interrupts. “I sort of went rogue to save Mia, so… I’d really like to leave this hotel room alive.”