‘I’m pretty sure it was Fausto Calogero.’
‘What?’ Cesare’s his eyes bulged. ‘She’d never go back to him. Not after what he’s done.’ Cesare had witnessed her distress as she’d described life with Calogero and knew there was more she hadn’t shared. His heart had gone out to her.
‘Dorotea said it was an older man.’
‘Even so—’
‘I’m looking at the security film from the gate.’
‘And?’
‘She wasn’t abducted. She typed the code into the keypad.’
Cesare’s breath backed up in his lungs. Ida had left of her own volition? Without a word? There had to be more to this.
‘She took a car from the garage?’
Maybe Ida was driving to the office, planning to surprise him. He imagined taking her out for a meal. Or locking the door and taking her on the desk.
That had to be it, she was coming here. The sultry look she’d given him earlier had been a clear promise.
‘No, boss. She walked through the gates and got into a waiting car.’ Lorenzo paused. ‘I can send you the film, but I recognise the man. He works for Calogero. He’s the one who was looking for her in London.’
Fear ghosted down Cesare’s spine.
Bruno. Calogero’s enforcer. The man who’d so terrified Ida that she’d leapt at the chance to fly to Tuscany, not even daring to collect her things.
‘Send me the film.’ He yanked his tie loose and strode to his desk, checking his computer. ‘Did you follow them?’
‘I didn’t know she’d gone until it was too late. But I’ve got everyone onto it now. And I’ve put through a call to someone in the police. I hope to have news soon.’
Soon? That wasn’t good enough.
But there was no point berating Lorenzo. His team’s orders weren’t to keep Ida prisoner.
Where had she gone? Above all, why leave with Bruno? Surely Lorenzo was wrong.
Cesare opened the security camera footage.
There was Ida, keying in the code to the gates. They swung wide and she stepped out, skirt fluttering around her legs. His heart hammered. It was the dress with velvet ribbons over her shoulders and beneath her breasts. She looked dainty and alluring, and she showed no hesitation as she walked, not once looking back.
She stopped. Her shoulders rose as if she took a deep breath. But she only paused a second before approaching a car with tinted windows. The door was open, held by a burly man with a wrestler’s physique. Even from a distance Cesare recognised him. The smashed nose, thick neck and impassive face. Not impassive now. The way he looked at Ida churned nausea through Cesare’s gut.
But she hadn’t baulked.
Ida walked out of the safety of Cesare’s home straight to the men she feared. Of her own free will. If Bruno was there, so was Calogero, in the car or waiting elsewhere.
Cesare’s head spun.
There was no reason for Ida to do this. He could protect her from her grandfather. Hehadprotected her. She was happy with Cesare. She’d told him so and he’d seen it for himself. The way she smiled more, the sound of her laughter, the joy in her eyes.
What had changed?
Maybe nothing had changed.
The insidious voice wove through his thoughts, but he refused to listen.
Cesare hit replay on the security film.