Aria's POV
I read the message three times.
Sofia's words do not change.
NICO IS MISSING.
The phone shakes in my hand or maybe my hand shakes around the phone. I cannot tell anymore. Everything in the room has gone sharp and too bright and too loud all at once and three seconds ago I was sitting close enough to Dante to feel his heartbeat under my palm and now I cannot feel anything except cold.
"Aria."
His voice.
I turn the phone toward him.
He reads it.
One second.
Two.
His whole face changes.
Not dramatically. Not in any way most people would catch. But I have been watching this man's face for four days and I see the shift. The way everything goes flat and focused. The warmth that was in his eyes thirty seconds ago going somewhere else. Getting locked behind the other thing. The thing that runs this city.
"When did she send this?" he says.
"Just now." My voice comes out thin. "She called seven times. I did not hear it. We were—" I stop.
"How long has she been trying to reach you?"
I look at the timestamps.
"Two hours," I say.
Two hours.
Nico has been missing for two hours and I was sitting on a bed kissing a man and feeling things in my chest while my brother was—
I stand up.
"I need to call her," I say.
"Call her." He is already on his feet. Already pulling out his own phone.
I dial Sofia.
She answers before it finishes the first ring.
"Aria." Her voice is completely different from how it always sounds. No warmth. No volume. Just tight and controlled and scared in the specific way that Sofia never gets scared. "Where are you. Tell me right now."
"I am safe. Sofia what happened. Tell me everything."
"He was supposed to come fix my bakery oven this afternoon. He texted me at two saying he was on his way. He never showed up." Her voice drops. "I called him twelve times. I went to the garage. His car is still there Aria. His car is still there but he is not and nobody saw him leave and his phone goes straight to voicemail and I am standing outside his apartment right now and the lights are off and he does not answer the door."
My throat closes.
"Sofia listen to me." I press my free hand to my chest. "Go home. Right now. Lock your door. Do not go back to the garage and do not go back to his apartment."
"Aria what is happening—"
"Please. Trust me. Go home and lock your door and I will call you the moment I know something. I promise."
A long silence.
"You already know something," she says quietly.
I close my eyes.
"Sofia. Please."
She exhales.
"Calling me in one hour," she says. "If I do not hear from you in one hour I am calling the police."
She hangs up.
I lower the phone.
Dante is already across the room talking to Marco in a low hard voice that I can hear but cannot follow. His back is to me and his shoulders are set and his free hand is pressed flat on the wall and I watch the controlled precision of him and feel something split open in my chest.
This is my brother.
My loud stubborn wonderful infuriating brother who checks my door lock when he visits and calls me every Sunday and would walk into any danger in the world for me without a second thought.
And someone took him.
Because of me.
Because of the man standing across this room.
Dante ends the call.
He turns around.
He looks at my face and stops.
"Aria—"
"This is your fault." My voice comes out quiet. Not shouting. Worse than shouting. "He is in danger because of me. Because I pulled you out of that alley. Because I let you stay. Because I came here instead of going somewhere they could not connect to you." I look at him. "Nico has nothing to do with any of this and someone has him because of me."
Dante crosses the room.
He stops in front of me and looks down at my face and I watch him take everything I just said and not flinch from a single word of it.
"You are right," he says.
I stare at him.
"You are right," he says again. "All of it. And I am going to find him."
"How."
"Because I know who has him and I know why and I know exactly what they want." His eyes hold mine. "They want me to come out. They want me to move and make a mistake. They are using him to get to you to get to me."
"Then give them what they want," I say. "Go out there. Do whatever you have to do. Just bring him back."
"That is not how this works."
"Dante—"
"If I walk out there on their terms your brother does not come home. I come home in pieces." He holds my gaze.
"This has to be done right."
I press my hands over my face.
I breathe.
In.
Out.
He waits.
He does not touch me. Does not move closer. Just stands there and waits with the patience of someone who understands that some things need a moment and cannot be rushed.
I drop my hands.
"Find him," I say. "Whatever it takes. Find him."
"I will."
"I am not staying in this room while you do it."
His jaw tightens.
"Aria."
"I am not. He is my brother. I am not sitting in a room with marble floors and high ceilings waiting while you handle my family like a problem."
"You cannot come with—"
"I am not asking to come with you." I hold his gaze. "I am telling you I am not being put somewhere and told to wait. I want to know everything as it happens. I want to be in the room where the decisions are made. Do you understand me."
He looks at me for a long moment.
The room is quiet.
Something moves in his expression. Something that is not agreement exactly but is close to it.
"The security room," he says finally. "You sit with Marco. You hear everything. But you do not move without me. Not one step."
"Fine."
"I mean it Aria."
"So do I."
He holds my gaze for one more second.
Then he does something that completely undoes me.
He reaches up and takes my face in both hands. Warm and certain. His thumbs at my cheekbones and his eyes on mine and the whole room falls away.
"I will bring him back," he says. Low and direct and leaving absolutely no room for doubt. "That is a promise."
My eyes sting.
I do not let them do anything else.
"Then stop standing here," I say.
Something fierce and warm moves through his expression.
He leans down and presses his lips to my forehead.
Slow.
Certain.
Like a seal on the promise.
My hands find his wrists and hold them and I feel his pulse under my fingers. Fast. Steady. Real.
He pulls back.
His eyes find mine one more time.
Then he turns and walks toward the door and I follow and the palazzo moves around us with the specific energy of a house that has shifted into war mode. Men appearing in hallways. Low voices. Marco at the bottom of the staircase with his phone and his unreadable face and his eyes that go to me and read everything and say nothing.
"She stays with you," Dante says to Marco.
"Understood," Marco says.
Dante looks at me one last time.
Then he is gone down the corridor and the cold and the fear and the fury are all still in my chest but underneath all of it.
Underneath everything.
His lips on my forehead.
Warm and real and certain.
And I hold onto that the way you hold onto the only solid thing available when the ground is moving under your feet.