Page 52 of His Queen

“Bullshit. If you want to start throwing blame around, blame yourself, Nicoli. You’re the one who let her go in the first place.”

Caelian’s words slice through me like sharpened blades, and I’m almost knocked off my feet. The silence is heavy as the weight of his accusation sinks in. I’m the one who let her go. Me. I told him to take her.

My fists unclench as guilt washes over me, and tears fill my eyes. Maximo steps forward then, his face streaked with blood from where I punched him mercilessly only moments before. “I swear to you, I will find her or die trying.”

“What do we know?” Alexius asks, leveling Maximo with a pointed stare.

“She went out the back of the hotel with one of the florists to get more flowers. Neither of them returned.”

“Video footage?”

Maximo shakes his head. “Someone cut the feed. The entire hotel’s security cameras were offline for twelve minutes before they could get them back on. By then, she was already gone.”

“Jesus Christ!” I kick at the gravel, clenching my fists. “Where is she?”

“It has to be Nunzio,” Isaia remarks. He’s crouched down, arms resting on his knees, his expression laced with concern. “I bet my life that fucker is behind this.”

I snap my glare to Alexius. “I told you this would happen,” I grit out. “We should have acted sooner. But no, you wouldn’t fucking listen to me!”

My phone rings, and I jerk it out of my pants pocket. Ice shatters in my veins when I see the number.

“Nunzio, you motherfucker!”

“Is he alive? The brother I mean?”

I quickly glance over at Maximo.

“He’s the one who lost her in the first place, isn’t he?” Nunzio continues.

“Where the fuck is she?”

“She’s…somewhere,” he says, and I can hear him smirking.

My fists are clenched tight, and I feel heat radiating from my face. My heart is pounding furiously in my chest, and I fight back the urge to hurl my mobile phone across the gravel driveway. “If you hurt one hair on her head—”

“What then? You’ll fight me? You’ll kill me?”

“I swear to God, I will—”

“Wait,” he pauses. “That’s exactly what I asked her earlier when she said I’m not allowed to touch her.”

“Motherfucker!” Rage explodes, my veins molten lava. “Nunzio, I will fucking bury you.”

“You and your family lied,” he says, unfazed by my threat. “You all fucking lied the night you killed my cousin.”

“All I want to hear out of your fucking mouth right now is where my wife is.”

“You’ll get her back sooner or later. I just can’t guarantee in what condition she’ll be in.”

An unearthly, primal wail erupts from me as fire scorches through my muscles. My entire body feels like it is being ripped in two, and I can barely form a coherent thought as fury tears my spine from my back.

Nunzio’s laughter rings through the phone. “Wow!” he exclaims. “You sound just like her when you scream.”

“Fuck you!” I yell. “Fuck you, you motherfucker!”

“Now, now. Is that any way to speak to the man who has your wife?”

I pace, my heart thudding in my chest like a piledriver. “What the fuck do you want?”

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