CHECK MATE
Luca's POV
He led me toward the back of the warehouse, where a narrow maintenance hallway branched off.
“We found this.” He lifted a small device, a signal disruptor. Bent. Cracked. It looked like someone stepped on it mid-run. “Whoever was here left in a hurry.”
Hurry?
No.
It wasn't in a hurry. The person seemed too much of a professional to leave here in a hurry.
It was dropped on purpose. Whoever did this either wanted me to know, or wanted to frame someone else.
My expression hardened as I bent down to pick the object up.
There was something found between it, a paper.
My brows creased.
Was this truly a frame up?
Slowly, I separated the paper from the device and oepend it.
CHECK MATE
Those words were written in capital letters. The feeling that I wasn't supposed to be here came back, my heart slowly increasing it's beats.
But I read on. There was something else at the button of the paper.
'You finally have a weakness Luca Morretti.'
Weakness...
Weakness!
Aria!
My eyes snapped opened.
Fuck! How didn't I see this earlier? This was just a plot to lure me away from Aria!
My head snapped toward the exit.
“Boss?” Carlo blinked.
“I need to go,” I said sharply.
“Now? But we haven’t...”
“Finish securing the place. Nobody enters, nobody leaves. If you find anything... anything, you call me directly.”
Carlo stiffened. “Yes, sir.”
I was already moving.
I ran out of the warehouse, my heart beating loudly in my chest. Numerous thoughts flowed in my head.
But I didn't dare waste a second thinking about them.
Fuck!
How didn't I see this?
It was obvious from the start, someone wanted me away from Aria.
This type of situation had never fazes me before, but this feeling?
This twisting, suffocating panic?
It wasn't about the shipment they stole or the thieves who did this, it was about Aria.
I practically threw myself into the car.
“Back to the mall, now!,” I barked.
The driver didn’t question it.
The car peeled off so fast the tires screeched against the pavement.
My heart was beating hard on my chest the entire ride. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if something happened to Aria.
She had warned me that me announcing how I felt about her to the world would only make her enemies. Cruel people who wanted to use her only to get to me.
I knew that too, yet i still showed her affection publicly.
Now I was about to pay the consequences.
If something happened to her, I... Wouldn't be able to forgive myself.
...
The ride back took ten minutes.
It felt like an hour.
It all made my pulse pound harder.
Why didn’t I tell a guard to stay with her? I should have left this guard with her.
Why did I leave her alone? I should have realized that it was a set up.
Why did I fucking assume she’d be fine?
Fuck! I shouldn't have left her vulnerable like that.
I told her I’d be back.
Whether or not she believed me, that was what I said. I was meant to protect her.
Stupid.
Stupid.
Stupid.
Finally, the car pulled into the mall’s underground level.
Relief hit me first.
Then confusion.
Then cold, brutal silence.
My door wasn’t even fully open before I jumped out.
People were standing around in a strange cluster near the jewelry wing.
Whispers.
Panic.
Security rushing around looking for something, or rather someone.
Something wasn't right.
I ran upstairs, straight into the corridor where I left her.
Her scent.
That faint trace of vanilla and something sweet I could pick out anywhere...it was fading.
Too faint.
My pulse spiked. Sweat formed on my forehead and my chest tightened.
“Aria?” I called sharply.
No answer.
Of course there wasn’t.
Her purse was on the floor.
The necklace box was still on the counter.
And her phone... her fucking phone, lay cracked against the tiles.
My lungs froze.
Not misplaced.
Dropped.
My heartbeat went wild, blood roaring in my ears.
No.
No.
NO!
I turned sharply to the nearest guard. “Where is she?!”
The guard looked terrified. “Sir.. we, we don’t know. We got reports that she was seen walking out, but then...”
“Walking out?” I snapped. “With who?!”
So she wanted to leave? Why? Was it on her own? Was she dragged out?
He swallowed hard. “We don’t know. The cameras on this floor shut down five minutes after you left. We didn’t even realize until...”
I didn’t let him finish.
I was already sprinting downstairs.
I reached the mall backwards exit in seconds.
My chest was tight.
My breathing harsh.
My vision narrowing.
Then...
A sound.
Tires screeching, rubber burning.
I burst out the doors so hard one of them slammed against the wall behind me.
Just in time to see a black SUV tearing out of the parking lot at full speed.
Windows tinted.
No plates.
Driving like a man possessed.
My heart dropped into my fucking stomach.
My vision tunneled.
Every instinct inside me screamed her name.
Aria!
She was in that car. I was sure of it.
“Get the car!” I roared. “GET MY FUCKING CAR NOW!”
My men bolted.
I didn’t blink, I didn't move..
I couldn't even breathe.
I stared at that disappearing black blur, feeling the air knocked out of me.
Because I knew.
I knew even before the panic hit.
That car wasn’t random.
That car wasn’t a coincidence.
That car wasn’t just… leaving.
It was leaving with her.
Aria.
Gone.
Taken.
My woman.
The one person I shouldn’t care about.
The one person I haven’t stopped thinking about.
The one person whose absence felt like a knife stabbing through my chest.
My fists curled so tightly my knuckles cracked.
Whoever touched her…
Whoever dared to take her…
They didn’t steal from Luca Morretti.
They signed their death sentence.
I stepped forward, voice low, deadly, trembling with rage I had never felt before.
“I’m coming for you, Aria.”
My car screeched up behind me.
“And God help whoever took you... because I won’t.”
Then I got in the car.
If they touched even a strand of her hair... They were going to pay.