I open her door, and for one brief moment in time, my heart stops.
This place is fucking trashed. Someone ransacked it. Tables upturned, pillows everywhere. The balcony door’s wide open.
“Mia!” I scream.
I don’t give a shit if the assailant’s still here.
Come at me, motherfucker.
“Mia!”
There’s no sign of struggle. No blood, no evidence that she was hurt. Has she even come home yet? I look to the left and see her bag on the ground, the contents scattered on the floor. My stomach twists. She saw it. She came home, she saw this, and she ran. Either that, or they took her.
I draw my gun, cock it, and walk from room to room. I shove open closets, yank the shower curtain open, throw the blankets off the bed.
Nothing.
“Mia!” I continue to yell her name, hoping for an answer even though I know there isn’t a chance. She’s gone.
I do one final sweep around her apartment, toss the contents in her bag, and go to my place. I have to find her, and to do that, I need to arm myself.
If she wasn’t taken...she wouldn’t go to the police. She’s smart enough not to do that.
She doesn’t have her phone, so she can’t call her father.
I run to my place, only to find she’s huddled in a ball on the top step just outside my front door, her knees tucked up to her chest, shivering with cold, or fear, or both.
My heart squeezes, relief flooding through me so hard and fast I drop to one knee beside her. She’s okay. Thank fuck, she’s okay.
“Mia,” I whisper.
She bursts into tears.
I lift her to my chest and open the door, holding her as tightly as I can without hurting her. She needs to feel safe. My relief at finding her safe is so intense, I forgive everything.
I slam the door behind me, walk her up the stairs, and lock the deadbolt. Everything’s untouched. Either the person who ransacked her apartment didn’t know I was next door, or they thought better of fucking with me.
I sit on the sofa, and draw her to my chest, rocking her.
“Shh, bella,” I say. My anger at her has gone, and in its place, blessed relief. I will find whoever did this, and they will pay. She’s crying softly, soaking my shirt.
“I’m so sorry,” she sobs. “It was stupid of me.”
My body stills. “What was, Mia?”
“I left my phone in the classroom on purpose. I didn’t want you tracking me. I hated the idea of you watching me when I was so angry at you, and then when I came home—and I saw—” Her voice shakes, then she takes in a deep breath and carries on. Brave girl. Sweet, brave, girl. “I saw someone’d been in there, I couldn’t call you. So I came here.”
“You did the right thing. Well. You shouldn’t have left your phone, but you did the right thing coming here.”
All thoughts of distance between us flee. She needs to know she’s safe, and I’m going to do my best to show her that.
She nods into my chest. “Who did it?”
I shake my head. “No idea. Does anyone have a grudge against you?”
“No,” she says. “No one.”
“Even Davo?”
She shakes her head again. “Not at all. Today he asked if I wanted to make a purchase, but he was just as friendly as ever.”
I growl, and she actually giggles. “He’s fine,” she says. “Trust me.”
“I trust no one.”
She sits quietly on my lap. I brush the tears off her cheek and hold her. Thinking. Planning.
“We’ll have to call your father,” I say.
She sighs. “Right. Yes, I know.”
The next decision is much harder. “And you can’t go back there.”
She shakes her head. “No. But where will I go?”
She looks at me with eyes so wide and expectant, I want to give her anything she wants. The obvious answer is for her to stay with me, but it’s lighting a stick of dynamite.
I can’t send her to a hotel. None of our equipment’s in place, and she’ll be further away from me than she is now.
“First, we call your father.”
I take out my phone and dial Piero. It’s cocktail time in Calabria, just after dinner.
“Everything okay, Enzo?” he asks, skipping the greeting altogether.
“Yes and no,” I tell him. “Mia’s fine.”
I can hear him exhale on the other side of the phone.
“Her apartment was broken into. Looks like a robbery of sorts. But she’s unharmed, and she’s here with me.”
“Cavalo,” he curses. “You can’t see who it was on the feed?”
“No, sir. Whoever it was disabled the cameras.”
“Who would know to do that?”
“It would have to be someone who knew they were there,” I say. I turn to Mia, who’s giving me a sheepish look.
I mute the phone. “What?”
“I…may have told a few friends when I was high last week,” she whispers.