[Aldo]
I’m just pulling up to the house when I check my phone again to see if Dawn has replied. I missed her call before, and all mine returning it have gone to voicemail since.
It’s stupid because I’m just about to see her, and I’ve been telling myself not to overreact, but I can’t help but be on edge.
I may have been overzealous in my responses during the last hour with a few panicked messages. All things considered, I hope she’s just napping.
Which brings me back to why I’ve returned home.
I kill the engine and grip the wheel with tender hands. We’ve got our first scan today.
It’s huge. I’m still blown away by being a dad. I can’t wait. I can’t-
My gut clenches up, and suddenly the temperature drops all around me.
The door is wide open. What I’ve been fearing kicks in.
“Dawn?!” I scream, getting out of the car. I know I’m probably being stupid.
It’s just an open door… but I run into the house, screaming again and again. No one’s here. They’re not here. They’re-
I hear a groan as I crunch on broken glass. I come to a stop.
It all but confirms my worst fear.
“Dawn?” I call again.
I hear another groan.”Aldo?”
“Isabella!” I tear through the house looking for her, every room is dark and hiding only the furniture.
I come to her room and find her tipped over. “Isabella!” I turn to look, and Dawn’s mother looks exhausted. “What happened?”
“Two big men came,” she says. “I’ve been lying down there for an hour.”
“What?” My eyes burst from my head, and I start untying her.
“How? When? Where’s-”
But the words are barking out of me short and half mad. I can’t even get a sentence out.
“I’m so sorry,” she says. “I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t stop them.”
“Isabella, no.” I finish untying her, and she can finally rub her sore wrists. “But how are you here? Why were you left?”
She looks like she’s going to break down. In the dark light, she looks at me with so much hurt in her eyes.
But another thought flashes through my mind, and I realize how much Dawn and her look alike.
“They meant to take both of us,” she begins. “They were saying as much before she came. But I thought, well, I was so afraid, but I thought if I faked a heart attack or something, maybe they’d leave me…”
She breaks down and begins wailing. “I’m horrible.”
“No,” I say, taking her hand. “You’re alive, but they think you’re dead. They don’t know we know about them yet.”
“But I abandoned my baby girl.”
“You might’ve saved her.” I rub her hands in mine. “Okay. These men, were they Eastern European? Russian?”
She nods. “Yes. How did you know?”
“It’s a long story, but it only confirms everything that’s been going on.”
Isabella looks at me now with concern mixed with frustration. She purses her lips finally. “But what do we do?”
“What happened? Start to finish, while they were here?” I squat now and continue holding her hands.
She’s gnawing on her lip and looking around the room, reliving the horror. “They came for me while she was gone. She’d only gone out for a few moments too. They just exploded in and grabbed me. They threatened me and made me tell them where she was going and what was happening, but it wasn’t even anything important.
They dragged me in here and tied me up. Dawn was home really soon after. She’d only gone to the store…”
She pauses and pulls her hands away. “It was so scary. They just-they were angry. But they gave away no reason. Just kept referring to Andre. Aldo, what has Andre done?”
Now I retract my hands. “I don’t know what he’s fully done.”
Isabella frowns. “My boy has always been foolish.”
The sense of urgency hasn’t left me though. “After Dawn returned?”
“Well, she thought she could pay them. She went to give them her life savings, and there must’ve been a fight. I heard Dawn screaming. It was horrible. It was the worst. That was the worst part of it all. I couldn’t tell what was happening.”
I take Isabella’s hand again.
“Then they were back, and that’s when I had the idea of the seizure.”
“Not a heart attack?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No, I just-I guess I just did what came to me. I started convulsing, and Dawn, oh, Dawn, was perfect.
She thought I was actually having one from all the stress, and I had to wink at her to tell her, you know. Then, once she realized, she figured out the perfect way to trick them, but-”
She pauses again and looks at me with pure anger. “They’re vile men.”
“Why?”
“They were going to let me die. Dawn said that I could choke on my tongue, so they put me on my back to do so.”
I feel sick at the move. It serves as an example of the bratvas’ brutality.
Which makes me all the more afraid for Dawn.
I get up and go around to the back of Isabella’s chair and begin wheeling her out.
“What are you doing? Where are we going?”
“We need help,” I say. “And I’m getting you out of here. If they’re still watching, or if they return to make sure you’re dead…” I don’t finish, and Isabella only gasps.
We leave the safety of the house, and I load Isabella in the car, I desperately want to take her home to my mombut I can’t, it’s too fucking risky at this point.
I’m calling Luca by the time I’m at the end of the street. When he doesn’t pick up, I try for Sophie and make for the highway. In less than twenty minutes,
I’m barely slowing down for the gate to the mansion and screeching to a stop in the driveway. I’m out of the car and loading Isabella into her seat. I push her into the house through the side entrance and park her in the kitchen.
“I’ll be back,” I tell her. She nods and just watches the family through the glass doors with curiosity.
I burst out onto the patio, and everyone jumps. Luca moves instinctively between me and Sophie, and Michael. He’s at the pool’s edge while they’re still at the pool edge. “What are you-”
“Dawn is gone!” I scream. Anger has boiled up in my chest, and I can’t help but blame Luca for it.
Luca and Sophie’s eyes bulge, and Michael begins crying. Sophie picks Michael up to comfort him, and the energy changes immediately.
Luca wades to the edge of the pool and gets out. “What happened?”
“I just found the house destroyed and Dawn’s mother tied up and on her back. She had to pretend to have a seizure to escape.”
I point at the house with a shaking hand. “I’ve brought her here but I dunno, she might need help…”
Sophie’s eyes explode even further out, and she wraps Michael in a towel and heads inside to see Isabella. Luca comes around to me. “Okay, slow down, Aldo-”
“She’s fucking gone!” I scream again. I’m losing it.
“Calm, my friend. You need to calm-”
“I can’t. She’s been kidnapped!” My head throbs and it feels like I’m losing my fucking mind!