Page 62 of Alessia
This is not a mission of vengeance, though vengeance may come. This is a mission of reclaiming what is mine. The love I fight for is fierce, relentless, and unyielding. Just like me. Just like us. Each of you has stood by my side in battles where we faced impossible odds. You’ve bled for me and I am forever grateful for your loyalty and guidance. We will bring her home. Not one of us will rest until she stands beside me again.”
My men look at me with a fire blazing in their eyes. Straightening my back and I walk to the open elevator doors, I turn around and see my men following me. Elio stands on my left, Lorenzo on my right and Alex and Vinnie behind me. I’m surrounded by loyalty from all sides.
“I will follow you anywhere, sis.” Lorenzo says and tears prick in the back of my eyes.
“We will find her, even if it’s the last thing I do on this godforsaken earth.” Elio fills in. The doors close, leaving Luca behind to be our eyes and ears.
Fourteen hours later we land at Ciampino airport in Rome. Two matt black SUVs are waiting for us on the tarmac. Elio is already calling with Luca to get an update and Alex and Vinnie are loading the bags into the backs of the SUV’s. It’s been more then fifteen years since I last set foot on Italian soil. Images of the cobble stone streets of Rome, the Saint Peter cathedral and enjoying gelato with my father flash in my mind.
“It’s different now.” Lorenzo stands beside me.
“What is?”
“Rome, it’s not the picture-perfect city you remember. It stinks and it’s filled with tourists nowadays.”
“And somehow you picked up Amelia in one of those streets.” I chuckle.
“Purecoincidence, she had gelato everywhere. I couldn’t just let her walk around like that.” He says faking innocence and wiggling his brows.
I laugh out loud now and pull him in for a hug.
“I love you, little brother. I couldn’t have pictured my life without you.”
“Don’t get all sappy on me now, save that for when we find Harper.”
It’s about a half hour drive to get to our family home near Rome’s city center. It’s nothing like the mansions we grew up in back in Los Angeles but the view of the Tiber River makes up for the lack of luxury. Alex, Vinnie and Elio unpack the cars and set up a second command center in my father’s old study. This way, we have a direct link to Luca back in LA. As soon as the monitors blink to life Luca’s face fills one of them.
“I found something boss.”
“Tell me.”
“I have a hit on the guy with the neck tattoo. Now that we know Harper’s in Italy I could concentrate my search near Rome.”
“Good, where did you spot him?”
“CCTV picked him up a few times around the Catacombe Domitilla.”
“Okay, keep looking. We’ll start our surveillance in that area. Anything else?”
“Only some chatter about Manchini being in Rome as well.”
“Okay,thank you. We’ll see if we can meet up with him.”
The next twenty-four hours are filled with surveillance footage and late-night snacks and espressos to stay awake during steak outs. Still no sign of the guy with the neck tattoo. Dread fills my stomach as this seems to be another dead-end breadcrumb. I tried calling Manchini multiple times but didn’t get in touch with him so far. He must be dealing with his own shit right now. I decide to call Luca again.
“Luca speaking.” I hear him typing away on his keyboard.
“Hi, any updates?”
“Nothing much, you did receive another black envelope about an hour ago.”
“You could have led with that, asshole. Hang on, I’ll switch on the video.”
I push the buttons and Luca appears on my screen.
“Show me.”
He holds up a tiny black envelope and breaks the seal. Slowly he holds out another picture of Harper. She’s wearing nothing but lingerie in this one. Even with the grainy quality of the video feed I can see she has lost a lot of weight in the past two weeks. Her eyes are hollow and all the light that once shone in her eyes has disappeared. Luca pulls another card from the envelope; I can’t read it properly.
