End of the Innocence

Chapter 65

The inability to do anything was paralyzing, wrapping a fist around Brad’s heart and squeezing the life out of it. He had bribed, threatened, and begged every contact he knew, questioned Julia’s roommates, friends, and neighbors, searching for anything, any observation or piece of information that might bring her back to him. Late afternoon he had finally spoken to the chief, had gotten them to place a trace on the last signal her phone had sent out. The location had come back on the north side of town, in a residential area that had no connections to anything. They searched and found the phone crushed and tossed on the side of the road, no prints on it. Brad had lost it at the news, punching the closest wall repeatedly until his hand was a mess of blood. He should have overpowered her request, put the damn tracker on her SUV. He had bought the BMW for her; it wouldn’t have been that ridiculous to insist that it be traceable. But she had refused, her face strong, eyes fiery, a stubbornness to her posture that he found irresistible. So he had yielded, letting her have her way, a decision that might cost her life.

Their family had too many enemies, the possibilities for who had taken her too great. But the logic behind it was questionable. He had assumed she was safe as his fiancée; he had been slack in protection coverage because it made no sense for another family to cause her harm. Once married to him, as time progressed and different families warred with the Magianos, there would be times when their life would be at greater risk than others. Diminished risk, since he was estranged from the family, but risk all the same. But right now was a time of peace, everyone coloring inside the lines and minding their own business. For a family to make waves and take a woman, a woman on her wedding day, one who was marrying an estranged member of the most powerful crime family in the city ... the elements were all wrong.

It could be a random crime, one of thousands that occurred each week in the city. Young, attractive women disappeared every day, most never to resurface, sold in the sex trade or killed and disposed of. Another possibility, one he had fought with, defended against entry to his mind, was that his family was involved. The shepherd eliminating new sheep from entrance to the flock. That should not be a possibility. His father had promised to leave her alone, and had never broken a promise before. In their family, their word was everything. That was why he typically despised the words coming out of his father’s mouth. Because they were ugly in their truth, indicative of his father’s real and rotten nature. Now, with that history of truth, he refused to believe that his father threw away a lifetime of ‘honor’ over one twenty-two year old girl.

Then again, Julia had disrespected him. Stood her ground and spoke to him in a manner no one else had dared in over three decades. Anyone who had was now dead. She had been a slap in his face from the moment she had entered his life. They had, with this marriage, forced his acceptance of her. And Dom Magiano didn’t like to be forced into anything. So, with all that considered, maybe he had acted. Maybe he had thrown his honor aside for a slice of vengeance. Brad sent a silent prayer upward, making promises he couldn’t keep, trying to bribe The One who couldn’t be bribed. Anything to get her back. Anything.