Page 275 of Untamed

I nod once, my hand curling into a fist so tight the leather of my gloves creaks. “Whoever took her, has Bianca too.”

I pull out my phone and call the guards at the villa. The first one answers on the second ring, groggy. “Boss?”

“Tell me when the fuck you last saw her,” I demand.

A beat of hesitation. “Boss, she said she was going to the manor to grab something. She’s not ba?—”

I hang up. No excuses. No second chances. They’re already dead.

“Anything on the traffic feed?” I ask Dante, my voice dead cold.

He nods, grim. “Two black SUVs. One came from the west road. Second intercepted from behind. Both unmarked. I’m cross-referencing plates now, but it looks clean. Pro.”

My jaw throbs. “Nicolai.” It has to be him.

“Cazzo. She was here,” I say under my breath. “Stopped less than five minutes ago.”

My eyes stay locked on the screen as I follow the signal, each step heavier than the last. I come to a halt when I see it—her phone, abandoned on the floor. I kneel, pick it up, and just stare, an ice-cold weight settling in my chest.

“Ares.” I look over at Dante, and he gestures to something on the ground. My boots crunch over broken twigs and gravel, heart thundering in a rhythm I don’t let show. I move past the edge of the road, into the ditch, and there, half-buried in the dirt, the metal catching the faintest edge of dawn, her bracelet.

I drop to a crouch, staring at it. The metal is scraped, and the clasp bent.

I pick it up slowly, holding it in my palm like it’s something holy.

She didn’t take it off. Someone tore it from her, or it broke off during a struggle.

Behind me, Dante approaches quietly. “That’s where the signal became static.”

I don’t speak. I fucking can’t bring myself to utter a word, out of sheer rage.

The bracelet sits there in my hand like a severed lifeline, warm from the sun, but cold in every other way.

I curl my fingers around the bracelet, slow and tight, until the metal bites into my palm.

“What the fuck was she doing out here, Dante?” My voice is low, barely a breath. “Why the airport?”

Dante doesn’t answer. Because he knows I already know the answer. My gaze shifts toward the car, Bianca’s, and something in me turns. I walk toward it, slow and silent. The passenger door hangs open, like she got out in a hurry. Like she tried to run.

Inside, her bag lies half-spilled across the floorboard.

I crouch, push aside a sweatshirt and a phone charger. And there it is. A white envelope. I know exactly what it is before I even open it.

Cash. A lot of it. More than she can get her hands on by herself.

A passport. New IDs. A plane ticket to London.

My chest turns to stone. She wasn’t just going for a drive somewhere.

She was leaving. She was leavingme.

“Fuck,” I whisper, breath barely catching on the word. “That’s why you begged me to marry her.”

Dante approaches behind me, silent, watching.

“She was running,” I murmur, thumb brushing over the fake name on the ID. “From all of this. Fromme.”

I clench the envelope in my fist until the paper crumples. I don’t blame her. I just don’t fucking accept it.

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