Keeping his bride

Nicholas

ARIA HAS BEEN missing for weeks. The FBI hasn’t even seen a trace of her, and our family has grown desperate for answers. Every interrogation the authorities do with Constantine turns up nothing. He’s not talking, not giving up one fucking inch to help us. Not that any of us thought he would.

I’m still angry with the fact that we got the police and FBI involved instead of taking matters into our own hands. Had we known that Aria was missing, we would have never asked for their help. We thought we were doing the right thing, to get Constantine Carbone locked away forever and for justice to be served for all of his victims. We wanted them to have the chance to testify against the bastard, to somehow right all the wrongs.

But if I could go back in time, I would have tortured him until he gave up Aria’s location. He’s essentially under protection now, locked up in prison. I can’t lay a finger on him, and that fucking infuriates me.

“Whoa!” Renato calls out as I narrowly miss his face with my fist.

“Sorry, man.”

He throws down the punch mitts that were on his hands and says, “Maybe we should take a break.”

I nod in agreement and walk over to a bench on the other side of the gym and take a seat. I grab my bottle and squeeze some water into my mouth. We’ve been training for hours, and my muscles are trembling from the exertion. Sometimes working out is the only way I can get my frustration out. And I definitely don’t want to accidentally snap on Selina. She’s been through more than enough shit in one lifetime. She doesn’t need me taking my internal shit out on her.

My cell phone rings, and I retrieve it out of my black gym bag. “Unknown number,” I announce with a frown. “Hello?”

“Nico. It’s me.” I hear Aria’s eerily calm voice on the other end of the line.

My heartbeat instantly doubles in speed. “Aria? Where are you?” I demand. Thinking quickly, I open an app that Aldo installed on my phone for just this kind of situation. It will trace the phone number while simultaneously sending out an alert to Aldo’s computer so that he can try to garner as much information as he can.

At the mention of her name, Renato comes rushing over. His eyes are wide and glued to me.

“I’m safe,” she says, but I don’t believe it. She sounds…strange. Something is very wrong.

“What happened? How can I find you?”

“I’m okay,” she says vaguely, not giving me much, and I know deep down she’s hoping that I’m tracking the call and able to find her. “How are mom and dad doing?” she asks.

“No one is going to be okay until you’re home,” I tell her adamantly. “Please, give me any information you can, but only do it if you’re going to be safe,” I carefully instruct her.

“Remember how I always wanted to go to Mexico?” she asks. “It’s really beautiful here.”

She’s in…Mexico. What the fuck? I take a mental note of every single fucking word she’s telling me…and not telling me, for that matter.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“No,” she says, her voice breaking on a sob, and it feels like my heart is sinking like a stone down into my stomach.

I get a text from Aldo, and I pull the phone away from my ear to glance at it.

It reads: Tracing the call now. Try to keep her on the phone. So the app is working. Good.

When I put the phone back to my ear, I ask her, “Describe where you are. Are you in a house or an apartment?” I need her to give me something, anything.

“It’s big, secluded. Lots of men with weapons,” she whispers.

“What else can you tell me, Aria?” I prompt.

“I…” Her voice fades away as I hear something in the background. Fast, heavy footsteps. Then I hear someone talking in a deep voice, demanding the phone, and a sliver of fear runs up my spine.

“I was sold to a man,” Aria blurts out, the true panic in her voice evident now. “Please, help me, Nico!” she cries into the phone. “His name is Mateo, and he’s -.” Her voice cuts off abruptly before she can give me any other information.

“We’re going to find you, Aria. We’re not going to stop looking for you! Do you understand me?” I practically scream into the phone.

She doesn’t answer. I hear a rustling noise, and it sounds like she’s struggling with someone. And then the line goes dead.

“Fuck!” I yell, gripping the phone so tightly in my hand that I hear an audible crack.

“Is she okay? Where is she? Did they hurt her?” Renato fires off the questions frantically.

Quickly, I type a short text to my father while I tell my friend, “She was sold to a man and is being held captive in Mexico.”

“Mexico?” Renato repeats while running a hand through his hair. “Holy shit.”

My father instantly responds, telling me to meet him in the computer room. “We need to go see Aldo. Maybe he was able to trace the call somehow or can find out more information on this guy.”

Renato nods before running out of the room. I grab my stuff and chase after him. I just hope Aldo can help us somehow.

I watch Aldo’s fingers move across the keyboard in a blur as he types in all the information I was able to give him. Behind him, my father paces impatiently.

“I wonder how she was able to get to a phone,” Renato wonders aloud.

“My baby girl is smart,” my father answers in a gruff. “I just hope she’s not suffering for her bravery.” He grimaces and stops pacing, gripping the edge of a desk in a white-knuckle grip. “We need to find her as soon as possible.”

Aldo’s fingers finally stop moving, and he moves his right hand to the mouse, clicking on a few things. “I think I have a hit.”

We all gather around the huge monitor screens as a grainy picture of a man appears. He looks to be in his late twenties, early thirties with black hair and dark eyes.

“This is Mateo Navarro,” Aldo announces.

“This is the bastard who bought my daughter?” my father asks, fuming.

“I’m not a hundred percent sure just yet, but I would say this is the man. He’s almost a ghost on the internet. He’s really good at hiding his tracks.”

“That doesn’t bode well for us,” I mutter.

Aldo’s expression sours. “I’ll get as much information on him as I can, try to figure out what we’re dealing with.”

My father scrubs a hand down his face. “Looks like we’re not going to get Aria back anytime soon if this guy is a goddamn ghost.”

“I’ll work night and day on this, sir,” Aldo promises. “I won’t stop until we know everything we can on this asshole.”

Dad gives him a nod. “Keep working. I’m going to go tell my wife that Aria called. It might lift her spirits a little. I want everyone to keep her in the dark about everything else, however. She’s been suffering enough. She doesn’t need to know that the odds are stacked against us right now.”

We all agree to that. My mom has been worried sick about my sister. The last thing I want to do is break her heart even more.