Dive In

Chapter 31

•Giovanni•

"What?" I bark into the phone angrily as I stomp around the empty house.

I run a hand down my face and sigh. This trip isn't going how I had originally planned, not that I expected things to be easy but damn.

"G-Giovanni?" Alessia stutters and then sniffles. "She's gone, the Russians took her, G" she cries.

My stomach drops and my heart goes numb as my brain prepares my body for what's coming. She could be talking about anyone, if anything happened to Nolani Riot would've called me.

"Who?" I ask calmly. Alessia starts blubbering loudly, her words unintelligible but there's one thing I do catch and a blanket of rage envelopes my body. "What happened, Alessia? I need you to calm down and tell me what's going on right now, damn it!"

I feel Nico and Angelo's eyes on me but I don't meet them.

"You called him? I told you I have it handled, Alessia!" Riot shouts in the background.

My fingers twitch at my side. He was keeping this from me. Keeping it from me when I explicitly told him if anything happened, if there were any issues, to immediately call me.

I grit my teeth. "Alessia put me on speakerphone, now."

She says something that resembles okay and I take that as my cue to talk.

"Lorenzo I swear to god if anything happens to her it will be your life on the line. You were supposed to be protecting her and then you decide not to call me and tell me what's going on because you have it handled." My voice is even and calm but my head feels like it's going to explode. "Tell me what happened right now."

There's a brief pause until finally he replies. "Polina Ivanov distracted us, she screwed with the electrical system, shut the fence off and pulled our focus to finding her while fucking Alexei snuck into your house. He took Matteo by surprise and shot him, he used Matteo's thumb print to open the safe room and he took her."

I pinch my eyes closed, my heart racing in my chest. "Alexei. You let Alexei into the community. You let him take Nolani?"

Alexei Ivanov. You've got to be fucking kidding me. I cannot deal with this right now. Mikhails fucked up nephew has Nolani, the same man who's had three separate sexual assault charges filed against him. All of which were dropped due to the women conveniently disappearing.

"He knows the twins are Rafael's." His words are quiet and calm but I easily detect the panic lacing his tone.

He should panic, he should be terrified because when I get my hands on him I swear to god he'll never look the same.

My eyes pop open and I grab the dirty tumbler from the coffee table and sling it against the wall as my temper explodes. Nico and Angelo don't even flinch as glass shards scatter across the ceramic tile floor and whiskey splatters the wall. I pace back and forth across the floor, glass crunching under the soles of my Italian loafers, my fist clenching and unclenching at my side repeatedly.

I try not to panic at what he's allowed to happen but it's hard. Damn it, it's hard because Mikhail will show her no mercy since he thinks Rafe and Rome are Raf's. I will slaughter anyone that dares to lay a hand on her and my boys.

"You fucking let those sadistic Russian bastards take her! You know they won't let her live! They're going to kill her and the twins!" I shout.

"I'm handling it, damn it!" Riot shouts back.

I run my fingers through my hair and grip the strands trying to think. Think of some way to get her away from the Russians while I'm thousands of miles away.