Page 16 of Diary from an Inked Throne

I didn’t know how. One half of my heart screamed to run out the door and search the streets for our son.

But the other half, the bigger half, was owned by the woman lying here on the floor, needing me, even if her words said otherwise.

Luca stared at Nyah, shock written all over his face, and then sharply spun on his heel. “Viktor! Bruno! You get every man we have, every person who has ever owed us a favor, every cop we have on the books. Fuck, get your damn grandmothers. Someone find my uncle, and bring me back my son.”

Luca’s gaze met mine.

“Thank you,” I mouthed at him.

He nodded.

The four of us knew the truth, but the Guerra army wouldn’t hunt down one of their own for a random baby.

But for Luca’s son?

They’d go to the ends of the earth.

Luca’s gaze slid to Nyah’s. “I’ll find him. No matter what, I’ll find him.”

“You’re alive,” she whispered and then looked at Lynx. “And free.” Then up at me. “And here.”

I stroked her hair back off her face. “None of us would have left if we’d had the choice.”

She closed her eyes, but tears still fell from beneath her lashes. “I didn’t want to believe it. But then you didn’t come back. And everyone else was so sure Luca was dead. And Lynx was the last straw.” She clenched her fingers into my shirt and sobbed. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I should have done more. I should have protected him better…”

Lynx’s expression was so tortured it looked like he was being ripped in half. He stalked across the room and dropped to his knees at her side. “You have nothing to be sorry for. Not a fucking thing.” His fingers clenched around hers.

“But I—”

Luca held himself tightly, his gaze fierce. “We all do what we have to do to survive. You were just doing what you had to. Nobody blames you.”

She stared up at me, her bottom lip trembling. “I only got to hold him for a minute.”

The pain of that separation speared through me, and I held her tighter to my chest, gathering her up in my arms, hugging her fiercely. “We’ll get him back.”

She pushed me away, trying to get to her feet. “I can help. We have to leave now. They haven’t been gone for long.” She managed to get onto her knees and grasped at the bars, trying to pull herself up.

Her legs wobbled when she tried to put weight on them, and she crashed back down, her knees hitting the stone floor hard. She cried out, and I shot Luca a look.

“We need to get her to a hospital.”

“No! No hospitals. I’m going to find my son!”

Luca glared at her. “Stop being stubborn. I’m going to find your son. You’re going to go upstairs with Dax and rest. You just had a fucking baby, Nyah. I’ve already got a hundred men out searching for him. Enzo won’t get far. We’ll have that baby back in your arms before morning.”

I looked over at him, scared he was making promises he couldn’t keep.

And yet even if he was, he was saying exactly what Nyah needed to hear. She was in no condition to go driving all over the city, searching all the places Enzo might be hiding. She needed medical attention, food, and sleep.

She stared at him and then eventually nodded. “Please, Luca. Please…”

She didn’t need to say the rest. We all knew the words that hung in the silence.

Please don’t let Enzo hurt him.

They were promises Luca couldn’t make, but he made them anyway. He knelt in front of her and grasped her chin. “I will turn over every inch of this city, of this country, of this entire fucking world until I find him for you, Nyah. I promise, my men will bring him home.”

He leaned through the bars of the cage and kissed her forehead tenderly.