This was planned.
"Did you see anyone unusual today? Anyone who didn't belong?"
"I... no. Just the regular volunteers and staff. Mr. Sartori, please, what's happening? Is Antonella alright?"
I hang up without answering.
"They took her clean," I say to the room. "No witnesses. No scene. Professional job."
Pietro's expression darkens. "That narrows it down. This isn't some street crew looking for ransom. This is someone with resources. Someone who knows how we operate."
"I don't care who they are." I grip the armrests of my chair until my knuckles go white. "I care about getting her back."
Liam looks up from his tablet. "I've got the feeds. Pulling up the orphanage's back entrance now."
He connects to the screen on Pietro's wall. Grainy footage appears—the service entrance of St. Catherine's, timestamp from an hour ago.
And there she is.
Antonella.
Walking out the back door with a man's hand wrapped around her arm.
Antonella
I can't scream.
The duct tape across my mouth makes sure of that. It pulls at my skin, tastes like chemicals and adhesive. Every breath I take comes through my nose, shallow and controlled.
Don't panic.
I repeat the words in my head like a prayer. Don't panic. Don't panic. Don't panic.
My eyes drop to my dress.
White.
I wore white today because I felt like it. Because the morning sun was streaming through Bruno's bedroom window, and I woke up feeling light. Happy. I put on this simple white cotton dress with the small buttons down the front, and I thought about how my stomach would start showing soon. How I'd need new clothes. How Bruno would probably buy me an entire maternity wardrobe before I could even ask.
Now the white fabric is stained.
Dirt from the van floor. A smear of something dark near the hem—oil, maybe, or grease. And blood.
My blood.
I stare at the red spots on my skirt. They came from my finger. The left ring finger, where my wedding band used to sit. The man with the scar—the one who took me from the orphanage—he held my hand down on a table and cut the ring off.
Not carefully.
Not gently.
He sliced through skin to get to the metal, and I screamed behind the tape until my throat went raw.
The wound throbs now. They wrapped it in a dirty rag, more to stop the bleeding than out of any concern for me. The fabric is already soaked through.
I focus on my dress instead of the pain.
White cotton. Small buttons. The way the skirt falls just above my knees. The tiny embroidered flowers along the neckline that I noticed for the first time this morning.