Unforgivable Ties

Chapter 33

Vincenzo

I was running late to pick up Stephanie, but I assumed she would be waiting for me in the medical office, perhaps taking a nap on the examination bed. However, when I opened the door, she was nowhere to be found. Weird.

I placed my ear to the door of the connecting room where Cesare kept critical patients to see if I could hear anything. There was only silence in response. To be sure, I quietly opened the door and confirmed there was no one in there.

She was probably in the bathroom. I sat in the chair for about ten minutes before I got concerned. Slamming the door behind me, I left the medical office and speed walked to the single restrooms. Each door was unlocked, and there was no one inside.

Where the fuck was she?

The old man would know. I speed walked down to the morgue and opened the door. Cesare had a dead man on the examination table and had split his torso open like a watermelon. His thick glasses were perched on the end of his nose, and he was thoroughly engrossed in his task, the scalpel making delicate cuts into an organ.

“Cesare,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady despite my panic over not being able to find Stephanie. “Have you seen Stephanie?”

“She left a few hours ago,” he responded, not looking up from his work. “She was very upset, although I think she was overreacting.”

My heart rate increased as panic gripped me. What had she been upset about? It was dangerous for her to walk down this street alone in the middle of the night.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I was completely inundated with bodies. There was nothing going on in the medical bay, and she’s been here long enough, so I figured it was time to have her help me back here,” he said nonchalantly, making his final snip in the organ and taking it out of the corpse.

I was furious. I clenched my fists at my side, using all the restraint I had to not grab Cesare by the neck and choke him out.

“I told you to leave her out of that.” My voice was more growl than human. “She’s only supposed to provide medical assistance, not help you harvest organs.”

Fuck. Stephanie was probably alone, scared, and terrified of what she’d seen. That wasn’t the kind of job I wanted her on. That was far from it.

“We’ve had this conversation,” he sighed, locking the organ into a cooler. “She sealed her fate when she agreed to work for us.”

My eyes bored holes into the man, but he merely shrugged off my anger as if it was an insect. His indifference stoked the flames within me even more.

“What did you say to her, Cesare?” I hissed. If I could, I’d take the scalpel and shove it through his eye. The only reason I wouldn’t was because I knew Ettore would be pissed if I did.

“The truth. That it was either this or death.” I hated the way he spoke. It was always a clinical, matter-of-fact tone, as if he was still at work dissecting a body. His flippant remark about Stephanie’s fate seemed to hang in the air, like a toxic cloud. “You know it, too. You’re letting your feelings for her impede your judgement.”

I hated he had been the one to tell her about the reality of our existence. I hated it even more that he was right about my feelings for her getting in the way of my judgement.

But I had meant what I said when the two of us were having sex. “Sei la mia vita.” You are my life.

And she was. At the core of this dark, twisted world, she was my beacon of light. The one who kept me human in a realm where humanity was all but forgotten. Cesare had no right to sully her innocence, to mar her with the grisly details of our operation.

Still, my feelings for Stephanie couldn’t, wouldn’t, change the harsh reality of our world. I glared at Cesare one last time before storming out of the room. I had to find her; had to make sure she was okay.

She must have gone home. I sprinted out of the warehouse and to the car, needing to get back to the penthouse immediately.

I weaved in and out of traffic, performing illegal maneuvers and ignoring the irritated honks from other drivers. The city whirred past in a blur of neon lights and shadow, the reflection of the sprawling metropolis mirrored in the slick wet pavement. The penthouse loomed ahead, a stark silhouette against the night sky.

Bursting through the penthouse doors, I called her name.

“Steph,” I said again. “Please come out.”

I was greeted only by silence. I started opening the closed bedroom doors one by one, looking for her but finding nothing. Desperation clawed at my chest, a primal fear seeping into my bones. Every dark corner, every empty room, was a chilling reminder of what I might have lost. The rooms echoed with her absence, casting a ghastly pall over the luxury and opulence surrounding me.

Our bedroom door was wide open, the light still on. Even though my heart knew she wasn’t inside, I still called her name as I walked in.

The drawers she kept her clothes in were wide open and mostly empty. My heart physically ached at the sight—when she had moved her things into my room out of hers, it had felt so right. Now, in an instant, it was gone.

I noticed the closet was half empty. In her frantic attempts to get all her clothes, she had knocked down hangers, and they were scattered on the floor alongside a few forgotten dresses. I picked up a dress she’d worn just a few days back, holding it to my chest as I sat on the bed.

I couldn’t bear the sight of it all, yet I couldn’t look away. Her scent still clung to the fabric, a soft mix of vanilla and peonies, the gentle whisper of her essence now all I had left. I clung to it; the cloth crumpled against my chest, inhaling deeply as though each breath could bring her back.

I pulled out my phone and sent her a series of texts.

I am so sorry.

Call me when you get this.

Talk to me.

All of them showed read, but went unanswered. Sighing, I sent her a final text for the night and hoped she’d get back to me. If not, I’d try again tomorrow.

Please just let me know you’re ok.

Again, the text was left on read. Giving up, I opened Find My on my iPhone. I had entered her information awhile back, just in case anything were to ever happen to her. Her phone pinged at Jessica’s apartment across town. At least she was safe, and not alone.

I rolled on to my stomach and buried my head into her pillow. I had been stabbed, shot, and even waterboarded in my line of work. But none of those pains could hold a candle to what I felt at that moment.

Closing my eyes, I prayed for her to respond or death to take me. All I received was sleep plagued with nightmares.