One of my most loyal men. Always seen as part of the famiglia. I would kill him for that treason.
“What happened?!” Luca snapped from the other end of the line. “Don Camillo, what’s going on?!”
My voice was like a slithering snake, “Luca, Martino handed Daisy over to Cissio Accorinti.” I forced the words out.
Luca gasped. “No… “It’s not possible, Don Camillo. I had everything under surveillance, I—”
“SHE’S IN ACCORINTI’S HANDS, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!” I screamed, not caring if anyone heard me. Not caring about anything else. “SHE’S IN THE HANDS OF A HUMAN TRAFFICKER!” It was terror speaking through me, accompanied by tears overflowing from my wide eyes.
I opened my mouth, trying to breathe, trying to say something else, but instead, the phone slipped from my grasp and my body doubled over. My stomach lurched, and I heaved, everything coming up in a single, violent gush. I choked out a scream, spitting the bile onto the pavement, and when I scrambled to pick up the phone again, Luca was shouting on the other end. He was already barking orders at the soldati, mobilizing our people.
“I want everyone at the ports, at the airports, on the roads, at the stations… I want men searching warehouses. I want full access to every system.” I gasped, slumping onto the asphalt, reduced to nothing more than a ragged mess. “Luca, if we don’t find her in the next forty-eight hours, we never will.”
“Don Camillo.” Luca’s voice was a firm growl. “Even if I have to descend into hell myself, Signorina Parker will be recovered.”
I laughed, and the hatred and fear gave way to tears. I pulled the phone away from my ear, my face contorting as I tried to control a sob, but it was no use. A moan wrenched itself from deep inside me, and I gritted my teeth, letting the pain set in. Letting the tears fall.
I heard Luca’s voice calling my name. I raised the phone and pressed my free hand to my lips. “It’s my fault…” I sobbed. “It’s all my fault, Luca. She’s going to die because of me.”
“NO ONE IS GOING TO DIE.”
I hung up and buried my face between my knees.
I wasn’t so sure about that.
Chapter 50
Daisy Peonia Mary Parker
August, 2025
Unknown Location
The floor was cold and damp. I pressed my hands against the roughness of the concrete and sat up with difficulty, realizing how sore my throat was from crying. I slowly dragged myself to a corner and curled up, pulling my knees to my chest, trying to make myself small in the hole they'd thrown me into.
It was a small room, bare concrete, without a single coat of paint. There were pipes running up the walls, stained with rust and limescale, and fluorescent lights on the ceiling. The tightly locked door was made of iron and had a hatch like those on ships. But I wasn’t on the high seas, oh no.
I was almost certain they had dragged me into a basement or something of the sort. I had felt the steps as we descended,despite the burlap sack they’d stuffed over my head, and considering how cold and damp that space was, I couldn’t be above ground. I wouldn’t survive the heat of the Italian summer.
I didn’t know how many hours I’d been there. The only thing I knew for sure was that exhaustion had gotten the better of me.
I wrapped my arms tightly around my body, feeling my emotions come flooding back to me like an avalanche. I felt stupid and alone. I had believed Camillo, after all. Even after he’d promised to kill me and dragged me to Italy; even after he’d lashed out in a jealous rage for going out with Fabiano, or left me alone in the room after taking what he wanted from me… It took only a few hours for me to forgive him and let him deceive me.
I didn’t know why that surprised me so much, or why it hurt that way; after all, that was exactly why I was in that country. To die. He had never hidden that from me. But I had believed that…
That he had fallen in love? A man whose profession involved killing people?
I laughed scornfully, and the tears began to fall again. I looked at the ring heavy on my finger. Surely, he had given it to me because it meant nothing. It must have been something worthless, perhaps even just costume jewelry and nothing more. Maybe his mother had never liked it, which is why he had gotten rid of it so easily.
Martino had said it. Those two days were the farewell.
But despite everything that was happening, despite those walls screaming at me to accept it, part of me wanted to believeit was all a charade. I couldn’t accept that Camillo was so cruel or a liar. Yet how could I deny it?
He had been the one to guide me to the car. It had been his chauffeur who drove me there. I had heard the skull-faced man warn him over the phone that they were already taking me on the way to that place, and his voice on the other end of the line. What other proof did I need besides that? The evidence was undeniable.
I sobbed. Clutching my own body tightly, I felt the same spiral of emotions that had led to my hospitalization several years ago. All my thoughts became muddled, my emotions suffocated me, and I reached a breaking point that made me feel a deep, desperate urge to escape my own body. It was as if I wanted to tear the flesh from my bones.
I closed my eyes tightly, breathing in and out at a controlled pace. My nails dug into the skin of my arms, scratching it hard. I felt a burning sensation and continued to breathe steadily.