Chapter 75 The second day.
Alessandro didn’t sleep.
Not for a second.
The night passed around him, unnoticed, like something happening to someone else. He stayed in the same place for hours — sometimes standing, sometimes sitting, sometimes moving without remembering deciding to.
The house never changed.
That was the worst part.
The flowers were still on the counter.
The small teddy bear leaned against them, its soft face tilted toward the empty room like it was waiting for laughter that never came.
By morning, the petals had started to open.
He hadn’t touched them.
Rafael found him in the kitchen.
Same clothes.
Same position.
Different eyes.
“You should sit,” Rafael said carefully.
Alessandro didn’t respond.
“Any update?” he asked instead.
Rafael shook his head once.
“Nothing new. We’ve checked every hospital within a hundred kilometers. Private and public. No admissions. No incidents. No unidentified—”
“She’s not in a hospital.”
Rafael stopped.
“No,” he agreed quietly. “She’s not.”
The house had turned into something else overnight.
Not a home.
A place of evidence.
Alessandro moved through it differently now.
He didn’t look.
He studied.
The notebook.
The glass.
The door.
Every detail that had seemed normal yesterday now felt like it was hiding something.
“She left on foot,” he said, more to himself than to Rafael.
“Yes.”
“No car. No bag. No call.”
“No.”
Alessandro’s jaw tightened.
“She didn’t leave.”
The words landed heavy.
Final.
By mid-morning, the house was no longer empty.
Men came and went in silence.
Phones rang.
Names were spoken in low voices.
Cameras were pulled from surrounding streets. Footage rewound, analyzed, sent, resent.
Every route mapped.
Every minute accounted for.
Still—
Nothing.
Alessandro stood in front of one of the screens as footage played again.
There.
Isabella.
Walking.
Calm.
Unaware.
She turned the corner.
And then—
Gone.
No car stopping.
No struggle.
No visible contact.
Just absence.
“Replay it,” Alessandro said.
It played again.
And again.
And again.
Rafael watched him carefully.
“There’s no pickup,” he said. “No forced entry into a vehicle. No one approaching her within visible range.”
Alessandro didn’t answer.
Because that didn’t make sense.
And things that didn’t make sense—
Were planned.
By early afternoon, the search had expanded.
Not quietly anymore.
Names that hadn’t been spoken in weeks were being called.
Favors activated.
Old alliances tested.
The city was beginning to feel it.
The shift.
The pressure.
Alessandro stood outside for the first time since the night before.
The air felt wrong.
Too normal.
People walked.
Cars passed.
Someone laughed in the distance.
He wanted to break something.
“Where are we going?” Rafael asked as the car pulled away.
Alessandro stared ahead.
“Romano,” Rafael said.
“No.”
That answer came too quickly.
Too certain.
“If this was Marco,” Alessandro continued, voice low, controlled, “I would already know.”
Rafael didn’t argue.
Because he understood what that meant.
If Marco had taken her—
It wouldn’t be silent.
Alessandro leaned back slightly.
Thinking.
Fast.
Precise.
Dangerous.
“Her fiancé,” he said suddenly.
Rafael looked at him.
“You think—?”
“I think he had a reason,” Alessandro replied. “Humiliation. Loss. Public damage.”
“And access?” Rafael asked.
Alessandro’s eyes darkened.
“We’re going to find out.”
The house they arrived at was too clean.
Too quiet.
The kind of quiet that tried to look like peace.
Alessandro didn’t knock.
He walked in.
The man inside froze the second he saw him.
Fear hit immediately.
Real.
Unfiltered.
“I didn’t—” the man started.
Alessandro grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the wall.
“Where is she.”
The words weren’t loud.
They didn’t need to be.
“I don’t know!” the man choked. “I swear— I haven’t seen her— I haven’t—”
Alessandro’s grip tightened.
“Think carefully.”
“I am! I am! I swear to you— I haven’t touched her, I haven’t gone near her since—”
He stopped himself.
Too late
“Since what,” Alessandro said.
The man swallowed hard.
“Since the wedding,” he whispered.
Rafael stepped closer.
“He’s telling the truth,” he said quietly.
Alessandro didn’t release him immediately.
He studied his face.
Eyes.
Breathing.
Fear.
Real fear.
Not guilt.
Alessandro let go.
The man collapsed slightly, gasping.
“Check him,” Alessandro said.
Already done.
Already clean.
They left without another word.
Back in the car, the silence was heavier.
“Not him,” Rafael said.
“No.”
Alessandro stared out the window.
Then—
“What about ransom?” Rafael asked.
“There is none.”
“Not yet.”
Alessandro shook his head.
“No.”
Because this wasn’t that.
This wasn’t money.
They drove in silence for a while.
Then—
“She wouldn’t leave,” Alessandro said.
Rafael didn’t answer.
“She wouldn’t disappear like that.”
“I know.”
By the time they returned to the house, the sun was setting again.
Second day.
Already gone.
Nothing had changed.
The flowers were still there.
More open now.
Closer to blooming.
Closer to dying.
Alessandro stood in the kitchen.
Looking at them.
Too long.
“She had something to tell me,” he said quietly.
Rafael stood behind him.
Silent.
Alessandro picked up the small teddy bear.
Turned it in his hands.
Set it back down exactly where it had been.
“This isn’t a mistake,” he said.
“No.”
“This isn’t random.”
“No.”
Alessandro’s eyes darkened.
Completely now.
No softness left.
No patience.
“This is controlled.”
A pause.
Then—
“Which means someone is controlling it.”
Rafael nodded slowly.
“Yes.”
Alessandro turned.
Finally.
Fully.
“Then we start breaking things.”
Because this wasn’t a disappearance anymore.
It wasn’t confusion.
It wasn’t delay.
It was something else.
Something precise.
Something quiet.
Something that had taken her—
without leaving a single trace behind.