Page 122 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet
His eyes widened slightly before he nodded and beat it out of my office.
Then, I did what I hadn’t done in the history of my leadership of the Family.
I called the Commission.
“Accardi,” I said when Orazio, the head of the Accardi family, answered the phone with a staccato grunt. “A woman’s been taken. I need to mobilize the families to find out any info they can get on who might have taken Elena Lombardi.”
There was a long pause filled with heavy, choking silence.
“Dante,” he finally said in his nasal voice, disrespecting me by addressing a Don by his first name. “You misplaced your hotfigaof a lawyer, ugh?”
The case on my phone creaked and then cracked sharply in my hand as I squeezed it in my fury. “No, Accardi, she’s been goddamn taken. She was snatched by the Irish. If they torture her, we’re all in hot shit. So, mobilize your goddamnsoldatiand get me some information.”
“This sounds like a personal problem,bimbo,” Accardi drawled, having the balls to call me the Italian equivalent of kiddo. “Deal with your own shit like a real man.”
And then, thestronzohung up on me.
Within thirty minutes, every single one of the other Dons had done the same thing.
Frankie was in my office to report at the end of the last call with Maglione, and he watched dispassionately as I ripped a Picasso painting from the wall and broke the frame over my knee.
“Got a call back from Thumper Ricci,” he said while I stood there panting, trying to control the fury rolling through me like the waves off Napoli in the stormy winter months. “Said one of his men saw Elena over in the Bronx by Madison Ave Bridge this afternoon. Said she was watching two men talk at a gas station.”
“Cazzo, Francesco, I need information now,” I barked.
“I know, boss,” he said, completely unthreatened even though I felt one second from breaking someone’s neck.
Elena was taken.
After I’d fucking promised her I’d keep her safe, after she’d finally given in to this simmering, fucking sensational pull between us, and I’d already betrayed her.
Just like the otherbastardiin her life.
“D, I know you’re angry enough to power a nuclear bomb right now, but you gotta get your shit tight. We need to use our brains here, not our brawn, and you are not doing that by trashing your office.”
I glared at him for a long moment, blowing hot air through my mouth, irritated with both of us because he was right.
I had to channel Elena’s interminable cool.
This wasn’t the time to rip things to shreds. I could do that when I found the motherfucker Irishmen holding her.
Without saying a word to Frankie, I grabbed my cell and made two calls.
Caelian Accardi and then Santo Belcante.
They both agreed to help with limited soldiers. We didn’t want to blow our long game before it had even begun. But I was grateful for their help, and it wasn’t something I’d ever forget.
This was why I’d met with them.
Because the Old Guard was stuck in the past, antiquated and close enough to death to merit a little push in the right direction.
The Dons, all of them, would die for this one day.
“We’ve got everyone looking,” Frankie told me. “Liliana and her crew even went out. We’ll find her. I got an algorithm searching through traffic cam and security footage right now.”
I raked a hand through my hair, almost pulling out the strands.
There was no way I could stay in this goddamn cage while Elena was out there waiting for me to get to her.
