Ruthless Mafia Daddy (Alpha Mafia Daddies)

“We’re wasting time.”

I pace the living room of the penthouse as Marco, Dez, and Sloan load up The Vault’s security footage on the TV.

Marco rolls his eyes. “We have to make sure we’ve covered all possible scenarios, Andre⁠—”

“He knows we’re watching him.”

“Perhaps,” Marco muses, pressing a few buttons on the remote. “But he’s one to get sloppy when he thinks he’s got the upper hand. He’ll want us to get bored and move on to another location, and that’s when he’ll strike.”

“You better be right, Marco.”

My phone buzzes in my pocket, and one glance at the screen has my blood running cold. “I want this up and running by the time I finish this call.”

Marco offers me a mock salute, and I shoot him a glare as I turn my back on him and swipe my phone screen.

“Rosa? It’s one a.m..”

“Andre,” Rosa sobs. “It’s Lila. She’s missing.”

My stomach revolts and my eyes flutter closed as I try to digest Rosa’s words.

“She snuck out to try and help me, a-and she’s not here. She said twenty minutes, It’s been an hour. Andre, please, you have to help⁠—”

“Stop.” I turn around to face Marco.

He glances up at me, and the look on my face has him straightening, signaling to Dez and Sloan to pay attention.

“Calm the fuck down, Rosa, and tell me everything.”

I pull my phone away from my ear and put it on speaker, setting it down on the glass coffee table.

“I snuck out to meet Emilia at Vision.”

Marco and I both curse, glancing at one another at the realization that our fifteen-year-old sister is at some shady club in White Plains. “But she left, and then some guy was harassing me⁠—”

“Fuck,” Marco hisses.

I hold up a hand to silence him. “How the hell did Xander let this happen?”

“It’s not his fault, Andre. I climbed out the window.”

“It is his fucking fault, he’s meant to be watching you at all times!”

“Please, Andre. Don’t blame Xander. This is all on me. I’m the one who put myself in this situation.”

“What the hell does this have to do with Lila?”

“After this guy refused to leave me alone, I hid in the bathroom and called Lila,” Rosa’s voice is thick with tears. “She texted me and said she was in an uber and would be here in twenty minutes, but that was over an hour ago. So, I went outside to try and see if she was waiting for me, and the guy who had been harassing me comes over and tells me that Lorenzo thanks me for all my help.”

I sink down into a leather armchair and run my shaking hands through my hair.

“He took her, Andre, and it’s all my fault,” Rosa cries.

“Send me your exact location, and we’ll come and get you.”

“I’m so sorry, Andre. I didn’t mean⁠—”

“We’ll discuss this later. Right now, finding Lila is my priority.”

Rosa sniffs on the other end of the phone before hanging up.

I glance at Marco, whose face has gone pale.

“He has her.” I ball my hands into fists. My entire body is shaking, but I try to push the rage down so I can think rationally.

I can’t afford to make any mistakes here, otherwise it may just cost Lila her life, if it hasn’t already.

Dez moves. “Let us go and collect Rosa.”

I shake my head.

“No, we all go. I need to see with my own eyes that she’s safe.”

Knowing that Xander let Rosa slip past him has severed all trust in my men when it comes to my sister.

“Andre…” Marco starts, but I shoot him a glare.

“It’s not up for discussion. We need to leave now.”

Every second that passes is a second too long that Lorenzo has Lila in his clutches. My stomach churns, and I fight the urge to vomit at the thought of what he might be doing to her.

As if Marco can sense where my thoughts are going, he places a hand on my shoulder and squeezes it hard.

“We’ll get her back.”

“I can’t lose her too,” I choke out.

“You won’t.” He nods. A promise. One he has no way of guaranteeing he can keep. “Dez, go get the car ready, we leave in five.”

“Yes, sir.” Dez disappears out of the room.

I punch the wall closest to me. “Fuck! How did he slip through like this?”

“We can worry about that later. Right now, we need to focus on making sure Rosa is safe and finding a lead on Lila. Only then can you let yourself focus on Lorenzo.”

Marco’s right. I’m wasting precious time.

I open up the hidden safe in the living room behind the TV and pull out enough weapons for all four of us. I don’t plan on playing any other way but dirty.

“Let’s go.” I tuck another handgun into the waistband of my pants as I head toward the elevator. I pull out my phone as we step inside and try to track Lila’s phone.

I look at Marco. “Rosa said Lila called an uber, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Her location is saying she’s on the side of route 26, but she’s not moving.”

“It’s likely they tossed her phone out of the window if the car was intercepted.” Marco frowns. “They would know you’re tracking her.”

“I say we head there once we collect Rosa.”

“They’ll be long gone, Andre.”

“Do you have any better ideas?” The elevator doors open onto the underground garage. “For all we know she could be lying on the side of the fucking road!”

I slam my fist into the side of the elevator, my blood thumping in my ears as I try to ignore the images of Lila lying in a pool of her own blood.

My knuckles sting, and I rub them absentmindedly as I storm across the garage to where Dez waits in the driver’s seat of the Hummer.

I climb into the passenger seat. “Marco, call your cop guy, and see if we can get a lead on the uber driver.”

“On it.” Marco climbs into the back alongside Sloan.

Dez taps a few buttons on the central screen. “I have your sister’s location up now.”

I groan. “Fuck, that’ll take over thirty minutes to get to her.”

Dez puts the car into reverse. “I can get us there in fifteen,”

As Dez races out of the garage and out into the open air, I turn in my seat to look at Marco. He has his phone propped between his cheek and shoulder, loading his weapons as he talks hurriedly into it.

I try to ignore the way his jaw is set and his eyes are filled with anger, which can only mean the information he’s found out isn’t what we were hoping for.

After he ends the call, he looks at me with regret in his eyes.

“Carlo traced the uber driver to route 26 also. There’s been no activity on his phone for the past ninety minutes. It’s not looking good, Andre.”

Sloan looks at me. “You think they were run off the road?”

“It’s possible.” I try to sort through all the information we have.

“But I have no doubt that Lorenzo knows about Lila,” and maybe even the fact she’s pregnant, but I don’t divulge that information. “He’s using her as bait, just like he was planning to do with Rosa.”

Marco nods. “Then we can only hope that he wants to keep her alive.”

I turn back around in my seat, not wanting to see the look of sympathy on Marco’s face.

Lila can’t be dead. I refuse to believe that.

“Fucking step on it Dez.” I grip the door handle so tightly my knuckles turn white.

Ten minutes later, Dez is swerving through a sea of ubers as we approach Vision.

The sight of my little sister standing outside in a black dress that leaves very little to the imagination has me seeing red. “Pull over.”

Dez slams his foot on the brakes, and I throw open the car door, my body shaking as I storm over to Rosa.

“Get in the fucking car, now.” I take her arm and drag her over to the Hummer.

For once, she doesn’t fight me as Marco opens his door and Rosa climbs across to sit between him and Sloan. Her eyes are red and her cheeks are wet with tears, but I don’t have the capacity to reassure her right now. Especially when none of this would have happened if she had never disobeyed me in the first place.

“Route 26,” I order Dez.

He nods, pulling away from the curb and speeding through the sea of cabs.

I connect my phone to the central screen and load my tracking app so Dez can follow the directions to where Lila’s phone is supposed to be. It’s only ten minutes away, and I know Dez can get us there faster.

Part of me hopes she’s not there, because if she is, it’s likely that we won’t find her alive. But the alternative may be so much worse.

It’s happening again…

I screw my eyes shut, trying to ignore the feeling of dread building in the pit of my stomach. Images of Lila turn to images of Valentina, and then Rosa, and then my parents. So much death, and there’s nothing I can seem to do to stop it.

Everyone I love is going to be taken from me.

“Oh fuck,” Marco curses under his breath.

My eyes fly open to the freeway in front of us, and up ahead is a mangled silver car. Smoke is billowing out of the front radiator, and glass covers the ground around it from the smashed windscreen.

“Pull over!” I yell at Dez.

He swerves, slamming his foot on the brakes.

“Rosa, stay in the fucking car,” I order as I throw open my door and start running toward the wreckage, reaching for my gun as I scan the surroundings.

Glass crunches beneath my feet as I slow my pace, pointing my gun at the car in case Lorenzo’s planted a guy inside.

Tire marks cover the ground leading away from the car, so it seems whoever the uber crashed into managed to get away.

Sloan appears at my side. “Check the driver.”

He nods, pulling a knife from his back pocket as he approaches the wreck. He leans into the driver’s side and shakes his head. “Dead.”

“Fuck. And Lila?”

I hold my breath as Sloan walks around to the passenger door and peers inside.

“No sign of her, sir.” He shakes his head, bending down to pick up a cracked device. “But her phone is here.”

“Lila,” I breathe.

I sink to my knees among the shattered glass as my heart cracks in two.

Lorenzo has taken Lila and my unborn child right out from under my nose.

I thought I had already lived through my worst nightmare.

But it turns out I was wrong.