Chapter 110 - ONE HUNDRED AND TEN

Chapter 110: Chapter ONE HUNDRED AND TEN

VINCENZO

Five fucking minutes.

That’s how long my men waited outside the bathroom before they started to panic.

They had been standing there like fucking idiots while my daughter disappeared into thin air.

I was watching the security footage now, my eyes fixed on the grainy screen while the mall’s head of security stammered apologies beside me. I wasn’t listening to him. I was watching her—my Angel—walk into that bathroom.

She walked in as a blonde.

A brunette walked out.

Different clothes and hair. But she was still very recognizable, how did these bastards miss her?

Familiar panic enclosed my heart like a harsh fist, shr had disguised herself and slipped out through a service entrance with an unknown man at her side, who the fuck was he? And why did she have to change her appearance? I wasn’t liking this one bit.

"Sir, we didn’t realize—"

I pulled out my gun and shot him.

The bodyguard dropped, his apologies dying with him, and the other staff in the room scrambled backwards with screams caught in their throats. My other men didn’t flinch. They knew better.

"Find the car," I said, my voice coming out steady and cold even though everything inside me was burning. "Run the plates. I want to know where she went."

"Already on it, sir. The vehicle is registered to—"

"I don’t care who it’s registered to. I want to know where it is right now."

They scrambled to obey. I stood there in the middle of the chaos, my gun still warm in my hand, and tried to breathe.

She was okay.

There were no real threats around her. She had to be.

It was all my fault, she had looked me in the eye this morning and smiled. She’d kissed my cheek and told me she just wanted to go shopping. I believed her because I wanted to prove a point to myself. That we were no longer haunted by Damien’s ghost and my daughter could have the freedom to go wherever she wanted.

And now she was gone.

Rage and fear coiled around my chest, squeezing tighter with every second she was out of my sight.

I couldn’t lose her again.

I wouldn’t survive it twice.

"Sir." One of my men approached, phone in hand. "We tracked the car. It’s parked outside a building downtown."

"What building?"

He hesitated. That hesitation told me everything I needed to know.

"The Scavenger’s Club."

*

*

The club looked the same as it always had—dark stone, blacked-out windows, the kind of place that swallowed people whole and spat out their secrets. I’d done business here once, after my ex-wife had fucking betrayed me.

I didn’t think I’d be returning any time soon.

Now I tore through it like a hurricane.

My men moved ahead of me, clearing the bio rooms and scattering the masked patrons who thought their identities would protect them. Nothing would protect them. Nothing would protect anyone if I didn’t find her. Why the hell did Angel come to such a place in the first place?

Fuck.

It better not be what I was thinking.

"She’s not here, sir." One of my men appeared at my side, his face grim. "We’ve checked every room. The car is still outside, but she’s gone."

Gone.

The word hit me like a bullet to the chest.

Gone. Again. Just like before. Just like when Damien took her and I spent weeks tearing the world apart trying to find her, not knowing what she was going through.

"We found someone." Another guard appeared, dragging a young man by the collar. "He was the one who left the mall with her,"

They threw him at my feet.

He was young—early twenties, maybe—with a forgettable face and nervous eyes that darted between me and my men like he was calculating his odds of survival. There was a scar on his forehead. Healed but still noticeable.

"Who are you?" I asked.

He straightened up, trying to find some dignity even though he was on his knees in front of a man who would kill him without hesitation.

"Kevin Grey."

The name meant nothing to me, it sounded a bit familiar, but I was in no mental state to pinpoint where I’d heard it.

"Where. is. She?"

"I don’t know. One minute she was right there, the next—"

"Where. Is. My. Daughter."

"I don’t know! She was right outside, I went back in to get our phones, and when I came out she was just gone—" His gaze was stark with worry now, "I think she might be in danger,"

Those words sent a chill crawling through my blood.

"Tell me everything," I crouched down so I was eye level with him, "Explain what the fuck happened here."

Kevin swallowed hard. "She was looking for a woman. She said—she said the woman helped someone hurt her. She wanted to find her."

Jillian

Fuck.

I didn’t think she still wanted to target Jillian, she’d never asked details about our divorce, so she had been planning this quietly and waiting for the moment I gave her an inch of freedom.

"We ran into some people she knew. From before."

The way he said it—before—made my stomach clench.

"Who?"

"I don’t know. Two women. They were talking about someone called Master, and Angel just... lost it. " Kevin looked up at me, and his next words made the air freeze in my lungs.

"She said he wasn’t dead." His hand drifted unconsciously to the scar on his forehead. "The man who did this to me. She said he’s alive.

The world stopped.

Everything stopped—the noise around me, the movement of my men, the beating of my own heart.

Damien.

Damien is alive.

I’d watched that building explode. I’d watched the flames consume everything inside. My men had confirmed he was in there when the charges went off. I’d walked away believing it was over, that that monster who’d stolen her she hurt her was nothing but ash and bone.

And he was alive.

He was alive this whole time. Watching. Waiting. And now—

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

I pulled it out. Unknown number.

Three words displayed on the screen: Let’s talk.

Then an address. A port on the south side of the city. One of Damien’s old operations—a place I’d burned to the ground during the war I’d waged to find her.

He wanted me to come to him, playing by his rules.