Finding Beauty in the Darkness - Nikki Ash Page 0,88
water. I make a left and start jogging up the quiet beach. I come across a few couples taking a stroll and stop to ask if they’ve seen a brown-haired woman walking alone down the beach. Nobody has seen her. I jog for what seems like miles until I hit a restaurant. It’s closed down, but I walk up to it, looking for her. She’s nowhere. It’s like she’s disappeared.
I turn around and walk slower back toward the hotel. As I’m pulling my phone out of my pocket to check back in with Johnny, I spot bright pink flip-flops in the sand. Aria’s. I would recognize these anywhere. They match the sweatpants with the writing on her ass. I pick them up and look around. There’s no way she would have gone into the water. I look behind me and see a wooden walkway, so I head that way. Once I get to the end of it, there’s a small park with some restrooms and a parking lot. It’s after two in the morning so the place is deserted. I walk into both restrooms to see if she’s in there, but she’s not.
I dial Johnny’s number. “I found her flip-flops about a mile down. I’ve checked everywhere, Johnny. She’s not here.” Even I can hear the sheer panic in my voice conveying the thoughts I don’t want to speak out loud.
“All right, Boss. Meet me back here and we’ll regroup and make some calls. We’ll find her.”
I don’t respond, but the words are said in my silence. But what if it’s too late?
It’s been twenty-four hours since Aria has disappeared. The thing about having money and connections is that when you need strings to be pulled, they get pulled. I have law enforcement checking into the cameras near the park. Rome and Caesar have flown out and are making calls. I’m calling in every favor owed to me.
“We found her!” Johnny pulls an image up on the computer. “Miami PD was able to confirm with facial recognition, this is Aria.” I lean in closer to the zoomed-in photo and see her. She’s being carried by a man, her head hanging back like she’s passed out, her bare feet dangling.
“Who the fuck is carrying her?”
“He’s wearing a mask.”
“Zoom in here.” I point to his forearm, which is wrapped around Aria’s thigh as he carries her bridal style down the sidewalk toward the parking lot. Johnny hits a few buttons and the picture, blurry as fuck, appears closer. The word is in black against his white skin: Lorenzo.
“Fuck, Boss.”
“Sebastian has her.” I pick up my phone and call the one man who can help me get her back. “Dad, I need you. Sebastian Lorenzo has Aria.”
“We’ll get her back, Son. But once we do…”
He doesn’t need to finish the sentence. I let her go.
“Yeah, I got it.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
ARIA
The only drug I’ve taken in the last six months has been my anti-anxiety meds, and even those, thanks to my psychiatrist, have been lowered to a mild dose and are only taken when needed. Sebastian Lorenzo has shot me up with enough heroin in the time he’s had me, that I’m not even sure if I’m awake or asleep, alive or dead, but I’m not complaining because as I lie in the bed he has me tied to, as he spreads my legs for the fifth maybe sixth time since I woke up here, I’m grateful that the drugs are running through my system to numb the pain. I can feel the tears running down the sides of my face, hitting my ears.
“Open your fucking eyes, bitch!” A slap against my sex has me jumping up slightly and opening my eyes. With the two black eyes he’s given me, his face is blurry but I can see the anger and disgust in his glare. “The senator made me a promise of twenty million dollars and since he’s dead thanks to your fucking boyfriend, you’re going to pay me.” I don’t bother responding. I’ve already tried to explain to Sebastian I don’t have access to that sort of money. The sale of the shares was close to five million dollars. I offered that to him for him to let me go and he spat in my face. My eyes roll back in my head as my mind fights to escape.
When Weston used to rape me, I’d use my mom as well as my childhood memories as an escape, but now that Gio has become a