Chapter 66 He did it
Carlino's POV
The hallway felt too small, its narrow walls pressing in on me like the anger coiling in my chest. Beside me, Dr. Valenti hurried to keep pace, the rattle of his medical bag a domestic rhythm that felt absurd here, in the house of the Lacentra Don.
“She collapsed, you said. Can you tell me what happened?” Valenti asked, voice tight, careful.
“I don’t pay you for a history lesson, Valenti. I pay you for a diagnosis.” My eyes didn’t leave the oak door at the corridor’s end.
Lina was chaos in human form. Every time I thought I’d smoothed the edges of her defiance, she found another way to wound me. But this—the nausea, lack of eating, and now, fainting in front of a masked enemy I know nothing about—was different, strange.
That can't be just defiance. It was a crack in my foundation.
I pushed the door open. Valenti standing behind me.
“Lina?” I called out, but no response.
The word should have carried authority, but in the emptiness of the room, it sounded fragile, almost desperate.
The bed was empty. Silk sheets lay rumpled, but she was gone. My eyes caught the only other figure in the room, Bella, pale and rigid, clutching a perfume bottle like it was a lifeline.
“Where is she?” I asked, low, vibrating with a control that usually made men kneel.
Bella wouldn’t meet my gaze. “Signor… the Donna… she said she needed time alone, Signor. She asked me to wait here for the doctor.”
“Alone?” I stepped fully into the room. “I left her in this bed. She was too weak to stand.”
Her lie didn’t even form. I followed the trail of her scent—cedar and something sharp, like adrenaline. My gaze snapped to the linen closet. The door was ajar. Darkness peeked through the gap.
Three strides and I ripped it open. The service lift was gone. A distant mechanical groan echoed from deep inside the walls.
She’d used my own house against me.
Red fog clouded my vision. Betrayal wasn’t new, but the timing was personal, vicious. I swung my fist at the vanity mirror.
“She tried to escape yesterday, and today she does same thing.”
Glass shattered, diamonds of splintered reflection scattering across the floor. One drop of blood welled on my knuckle.
“Signor!” Valenti gasped, stumbling back.
I ignored him. My hand found my radio, voice hard, precise. “Lock the gates. Seal every exit. Nobody moves without my permission.”
“Valenti leave!” I dismissed him.
“But, Signor…” he began.
One look was all it took to get him out.
“Signor, please—” Bella’s voice trembled.
I didn’t glance at her. “If she’s off this property, Bella, your life pays for every second you just bought her.”
I moved toward the command center. Neil met me halfway, his face grim, phone already out.
“The perimeter’s being swept, Don. Guards are at the main gates and along the forest line.”
“She won’t go for the forest,” I spat. “She’s smarter than that. She’s looking for a hole. This time around, she planned it.”
My phone buzzed. Unknown internal extension. I snapped it open. “Speak.”
“Don—” The voice was frantic. Then a thud, a curse, and the line died.
“She’s heading east side! Toward the outer road!” A voice said into the comms.
“The service gate!” I roared, turning to the stairs. “Now!”
The courtyard had transformed into a controlled chaos. Engines roared as SUVs tore across the gravel. I climbed into the lead vehicle; Neil at the wheel.
“Report,” I demanded.
“She tried making the laundry van driver to take her out, Don. He refused to, so she ran on foot. Heading east toward the outer road.”
East. Bordered by stone walls, drainage sectors. Rough terrain. Desperate terrain. “She’s desperate. She might hurt herself….” The thought hit like a punch.
“There! By the hedges!” Neil shouted.
White fabric flashed. She moved jaggedly, violently, over obstacles that should have stopped her. She didn’t run like a scared woman—she moved like a soldier breaking out of captivity.
“Don’t shoot!” I barked into the radio as a guard raised his rifle. “Not a hair on her head or you'll be wipped out.”
We skidded around the bend, tires spitting gravel. She reached the old stone wall.
“She can’t clear that,” Neil muttered.
But she didn’t even try. She slipped into shadow, vanished into the stones.
“Stop the car!”
I leapt from the SUV before it fully halted. Damp earth, crushed grass, the smell heavy in the air. Neil pointed to a narrow fissure at the base.
“The drainage gap,” he whispered. “We can’t fit through. We’ll have to go around to the secondary gate.”
“Then let's go!” I screamed.
“But, Don that would take a bit time, considering we don't have that to waste.”
“Niel, let's go. Outer road! Now!”
Palm against stone, I heard her footsteps beyond—the rhythmic slap of her foot against dirt. She was gone. Off the grounds. Completely.
Back in the SUV, my heart hammered, rage carving its rhythm. We tore through the secondary gate, metal screamed against steel. The outer road stretched before us, headlights cutting through black.
“There,” Neil said, voice low.
A black SUV idled ahead, unmarked, no plates. “Not ours,” I said.
I saw her, from afar. Lina, wild halo of hair, torn dress, trembling yet unbroken. The passenger window rolled down. They were speaking.
“Accelerate!”
Two hundred yards. One hundred.
A man emerged behind her, silent, lethal. A cloth. A struggle. She fought. Elbows, teeth—her defiance wasn’t gone. Even through chemical fog, she fought like a Lacentra Donna to the last breath.
Fuck!
“They’re taking her!” Neil yelled.
The rear door slammed, engine screamed, and the black SUV vanished into the shadows.
“Follow! Don’t lose them!”
We chased, tires screeching, streets twisting, but the black SUV was engineered for escape, cutting corners impossible for my convoy. A decoy van forced Neil to swerve. By the time we corrected it, it was gone. Disappeared.
“Search every exit!” I roared into the radio, voice raw. “Every black SUV stopped!”
Neil slowed. Hands shook. “Don… they were waiting for her. This wasn't a chance.”
I leaned back, adrenaline curdling into icy precision. He was right. Someone knew. Someone was baiting.
Enemies flickered through my mind. Russians silent. Sicilians fractured. One man remained—arrogant, audacious, capable of snatching a Donna from under my nose, capable of predicting every move to make her run.
I saw a stranger in the window—my reflection, a man who let his Donna slip.
“Neil,” my voice razor edge calm.
“Yes, Don?”
“Call the sectors. Stop the search for the 'missing' Donna.”
Neil blinked, confused.
I looked at my blood-streaked knuckle. The game had shifted. This wasn’t a runaway Donna or a missing Donna. This was war declared in the boldest terms.
“She didn’t run to freedom,” I whispered. “She ran into a trap. And I know who set it.”
Eyes closed, I saw him, smug, calculating, still thinking he could outplay me.
“Kailen.” I voiced out.