Page 101 of The Don's Secret Heir

We hurry into his car and Giovanni takes off, making it to Beth’s place twenty minutes away in about ten minutes.

I only knock on the door three times before I curse and break it down with my foot, kicking the deadbolt open.

I burst into the house with my gun drawn, and look around, finding nothing. No one. Beth’s things are gone, the walls bare, the only thing left her furniture.

I stalk to her room, and all her clothes are gone. Everything.

“She took her,” I say through gritted teeth. “I fucking knew it.”

This is my fault. If I hadn’t gone out drinking last night like a fucking teenager who got his heart broken, if I hadn’t been sleeping it off when she texted me...

“Don,”Giovanni calls. “Keep it together, yeah? We’ll find her.”

But we don’t. We don’t find her at any of the three places I can think of to look for them: Beth’s father’s house, which is empty since he passed, looking more like a storage area than a home. Then Beth’s old apartment, one she shared with Liana. Nothing.

There’s only one more place that she might be, and it’s a long shot.

“What are you thinking, boss?”

“There’s one more place. This property Beth’s dad used to own. He built Beth and Liana a playhouse there, with electricity... maybe... maybe she’d go there?”

“Where is it?”

I groan. “An hour out of town. Near the bay.”

“Let’s go now. Hurry.”

We hurry back into the car, and Giovanni lets me drive since I know the way to Beth’s playhouse.

I take off, running every red light, just praying that we make it there in time.

29

LIANA

Beth manages to get me into the playhouse but she takes Sonny away. He screams out “Mama!” and my chest aches as my arms reach out uselessly.

She slams the door. I head to the window but it’s the window of a child’s playhouse. It doesn’t really open, and even if it did, it’d be too small.

There’s no air conditioning and it’s stuffy in here.

I’m really in the playhouse that we played in as children. I can’t stand all the way up straight. Where has she taken Sonny?Please, let it be somewhere safe.

My breath starts to come shorter as I sit down on the floor, crosslegged. I feel like I might be having a panic attack.

I put my head between my knees, wrapping my arms around them and breathing in slowly, calmly.

“Beth, I need water,” I plead, hoping she can hear me. In a few moments, she walks into the room, ducking down just the way I am.

She brings me a bottle of water and I chug it almost all the way down before I speak.

“We can’t stay here forever, Beth.”

“Of course not, not forever,” she says easily. “We’re just going to hide out here until Dario stops looking for you. I think he had a tracker in your car, on your phone. I ditched them. He won’t be able to find us now.”

My phone?I go stiff. Did she see the message I sent to Dario? Is she angry with me?

But her hand falls on my shoulder.