Chapter 19 Chapter 19
Enzo
The war room was controlled chaos; voices layered and low, screens alive with routes and timestamps, names pinned and circled like wounds you couldn’t stop touching. Marco’s name surfaced early and stayed there:
Ports.
Delays.
Inventory that hadn’t vanished so much as drifted, quietly rerouted, quietly bled.
A squeeze.
Enzo stood with his forearms braced on the table, listening without giving the room the satisfaction of a reaction. Every suggestion that floated up, move assets, tighten the Bangkok line, pull the chain inward, he let hang for half a beat longer than comfortable before he cut it down to what mattered: not yet, not like that, not until he saw the full shape. He didn’t speak often. He didn’t have to. When he did, the room adjusted around him like gravity had shifted. Lola sat beside him, too still, too attentive. Tea between her hands like a shield she didn’t know she was holding. He felt her tracking everything; screens, voices, the way men avoided the word war while building one anyway.
When she leaned in, it was calm, casual; like she was asking for a napkin. “I need to talk to Dottie,” she’d murmured.
He’d looked at her face, really looked and found no fear there. Just clarity.
“Take your time,” he’d told her quietly.
Then she stood, smooth as a thought, and slipped out. Enzo let her go because she’d asked like it was nothing because she’d been back two days and he was trying—trying—to give her room to breathe. Because Dottie was Dottie, and if Lola needed her, she needed her.
Minutes passed.
The room kept moving.
Enzo stayed locked on the screens, on the tightening routes, on Marco’s fingerprints on every problem that shouldn’t have existed. He kept his expression flat even as something inside him started to itch, an awareness that didn’t have a name yet.
Another minute.
Still nothing.
He didn’t look at the door. He refused to.
Because if he looked, he’d feel it and if he felt it, he’d lose his grip. He was mid-sentence, cutting down an idea that would’ve made them reactive, when the door opened. Dottie walked in; no tray this time, no gentleness, no performance. She didn’t scan the screens. Didn’t acknowledge the room.
Her eyes went straight to Enzo, “Clear the room.”
The air changed.
Men stilled. Someone swallowed. The hum of electronics suddenly felt too loud. Enzo didn’t ask why.
“Out,” he said.
Chairs scraped back. Screens dimmed. Bodies moved fast—trained to obey the tone more than the words. Within seconds, the war room emptied, the door sealing shut on the last one out.
Silence rushed in.
Enzo turned slowly.
Dottie stood exactly where she’d stopped, hands at her sides, shoulders relaxed in a way that meant she was bracing for impact. His voice came out low, not angry, not yet. “What did she do.”
Dottie held his gaze. “Enzo—”
“Where is she.”
A beat.
And then, clean as a blade: “She’s gone.”
For half a second, Enzo didn’t move. It wasn’t shock, it was containment, the razor-thin pause before something catastrophic decides whether it’s going to stay inside the blast radius or level the city around it. “Gone,” he repeated quietly.
Dottie didn’t flinch. She didn’t soften it. She knew better.
“Yes.”
His jaw locked, “Gone where.”
Dottie exhaled through her nose, slow. “I don’t know.”
The table shattered.
It happened so fast it barely registered as motion—his forearm sweeping across the surface, screens exploding into static and sparks as they slammed into the wall, glass raining down like ice. A chair went next, hurled hard enough to crack concrete, another followed, then the lamp. Then the tablet someone had left behind, reduced to plastic shards under his heel.
“FUCK.”
The sound tore out of him raw, furious, animal.
He turned, pacing like a caged thing too big for the space, hands raking through his hair, chest heaving. The war room that had just held strategy and restraint no longer resembled either. “She stood right there,” he snarled, gesturing toward the door she’d walked through. “She looked at me and told me she was going to talk to you.”
Dottie stayed exactly where she was. “She didn’t lie,” she said evenly.
He spun on her, eyes blazing. “Don’t.”
“She told you what she was doing,” Dottie continued, unshaken. “She didn’t tell you everything. That’s not the same thing.”
Enzo laughed—sharp, humorless. “That’s a hell of a distinction when my wife disappears two days after I get her back.”
Two days.
Two fucking days since he’d watched her sleep like she didn’t trust the world to keep turning without her eyes open. Since the monitors had finally gone quiet. Since her heart rate had stopped spiking at every sudden sound. Since he’d let himself believe—just for a breath—that the worst was behind them. He dragged a hand down his face. “I watched her die on a screen for a month,” he said hoarsely. “I watched her body learn pain it didn’t ask for. I listened to her scream when she thought I couldn’t hear it.”
His voice broke then, just slightly, enough to hurt. “And she leaves without saying goodbye.”
Dottie stepped closer. “She didn’t leave you,” she said firmly. “She stepped out to handle something she believes will end this.”
Enzo shook his head, a dark, disbelieving sound leaving his throat. “You don’t walk into wars to end them alone.”
“No,” Dottie agreed. “You walk into them when waiting costs more than the risk.”
That got his attention. He looked at her then, really looked, and saw the truth sitting heavy behind her eyes: not panic, not surprise, certainty. “You knew,” he said quietly.
Dottie didn’t deny it. “I suspected.”
“And you let her go.”
“I didn’t stop her.”
A beat.
“She’s not a child,” Dottie continued. “And she’s not reckless. Whatever she’s doing, Enzo, she calculated it was faster than letting you bleed men across oceans for months.”
That landed like a punch because it rang true. Because Lola had always been like that, five steps ahead, already finished with the problem while everyone else was still naming it. Because she hated drawn-out suffering. Because she loved decisiveness. Because she loved him.
Enzo turned away, hands braced on the edge of the ruined table, shoulders tight. His breathing slowed by force, each inhale dragged in like he was wrestling himself back under control.
“She promised me,” he said quietly. “She promised she wouldn’t disappear again.”
Dottie’s voice softened, not weak, but careful. “She promised she’d come back.”
Silence filled the room, heavy, loaded.
The difference mattered.
Enzo closed his eyes.
For one terrible, selfish moment, he wanted to burn the world for daring to take her from him again. Wanted to put every plane in the air. Wanted blood, noise, devastation. But beneath the rage, older, steadier, was something worse.
Fear.
Not of losing control.
Of losing her.
Enzo straightened, rolling his shoulders back, rage compressing into something colder, sharper. The kind that didn’t burn out—it honed.
“Jake,” he said flatly.
Dottie didn’t hesitate. She turned toward the door. “He’ll be where he always is.”
Of course he would be.
He dragged a hand down his face, breath finally leveling, not because the feeling had passed, but because he forced it into order. “She didn’t run,” he said quietly. He exhaled once,"She left knowing exactly where she was going."
Dottie turned back to him fully this time.
“Then we find Jake,” she said. “And we bring her home.”
Enzo’s jaw locked.
“Then I need to know where she went.”
Enzo didn't answer. He was already moving.
Dottie didn’t argue, didn’t soften it, didn’t pretend this wasn’t going to hurt. She just opened the door, and followed him into the fallout.
Jake didn’t know yet.
Enzo could tell the second he stepped into the room; too calm, too normal. Screens humming along in their usual quiet rhythm, Jake mid-scroll like nothing in the world had shifted off its axis.
Enzo didn’t announce himself. He just said, “Pull up Lola.”
Jake looked up sharply. “What?”
“Now.” Something in Enzo’s voice finally landed. Jake swiveled, fingers already moving, posture snapping into focus.
“Okay—okay. She left the floor about two hours ago,” Jake said as data populated the screen. “Tracker never dropped. She’s clean.”
Of course it never dropped.
She wasn’t hiding.
That alone set Enzo’s teeth on edge. A map bloomed across the main screen. A single dot. A thin blue line stretching west, already crossing black. Enzo stepped closer. “She’s not down,” he said.
“No,” Jake replied. “Private jet. Altitude steady. She’s over open water.”
Two hours.
Two fucking hours since she’d smiled at him over breakfast and said she needed to talk to Dottie.
Two days since they’d lost Dom and nothing had settled since.
The thought hit harder than he expected, sharp, sour. They hadn’t even had time to breathe yet. To bury the shock. To settle the blood still clinging to everything, and she was already gone.
“Flight path,” Enzo said. Jake pulled it up. The line sharpened, direction locked. The arc was long, deliberate, expensive.
Enzo stared at it.
Asia.
Not vague. Not accidental.
My wife doesn’t do accidents.
His jaw flexed. He forced himself to slow down, to think instead of tearing the room apart, though the urge sat hot and restless under his skin. “Who’s plane?” he asked.
Jake hesitated half a second too long. “That’s Rafael’s,” he said.
The name landed like a punch. Enzo turned away from the screen, a sharp laugh breaking out of him — humorless, ugly. “Of course it is.”
Of all the people.
Of all the goddamn options.
She called him.
Anger flared bright and fast, but Enzo forced it down, compressing it into something usable. Rage didn’t help her, strategy did. “What do we have on Marco?” Enzo asked.
Jake straightened. “Limited. He’s been moving off-port. Deeper into the city. Blending. Less oversight, more insulation. We lost consistent eyes on him after the Academy fallout.”
Enzo went still.
Off-port meant nervous.
Nervous meant reactive.
Reactive men made stupid decisions, especially when they thought the danger had passed.
Enzo dragged a hand down his face, breath slow and controlled. She didn’t leave to disappear. She left because something still needed ending.
The flight path.
Marco pulling inward.
The timing.
Pieces slid together whether he liked it or not.
“She’s not wandering,” Enzo said quietly.
Jake glanced at him. “No.”
Enzo nodded once, jaw tightening. He didn't finish the thought. He didn't need to. Enzo looked back at the screen, at the long stretch of water separating him from the one place he wanted her, home. Every instinct in him screamed to move. To send men. To flood the board and drag her back by force if he had to.
But every scenario ended the same way.
If he moved, Marco would feel it.
If Marco felt it, he’d vanish.
If Marco vanished, Lola would follow.
And that was a road Enzo couldn’t protect her on.
“She left me here,” Enzo muttered, more to himself than to Jake. “On purpose.”
Jake didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. Enzo straightened, shoulders rolling back as he locked the anger down where it belonged. Cold. Focused. Waiting. “Keep eyes on her,” he said. “No alerts. No shadows. No moves that tip the board.”
Jake nodded. “And if she goes dark?”
Enzo’s mouth tightened. “She won’t,” he said.
Because Lola didn't move without accepting the consequences of being seen.
Because that was the cruelest part.
She hadn’t vanished.
She’d trusted him to see what she was doing and to understand why stopping her wasn't an option.
Enzo stared at the blue line cutting across the ocean.
I swear to God, Lola, if you get hurt—
He cut the thought off before it finished.
Work mode.
That was all he had right now.