Chapter 4 - The Discovery
Roman Vascari stepped through the front entrance of his estate at precisely 12:05 AM.
His coat was flecked with dry snow. His head throbbed from four hours of high-stakes negotiations with the Armand family’s attorneys—a brutal, venomous corporate dispute involving port logistics that Celeste’s father had threatened to leak to federal prosecutors unless Roman ceded thirty percent of his shipping terminals. Celeste had played the intermediary, teasing, angling, demanding Roman’s physical presence as leverage.
Roman had handled it the way he handled everything: with cold, ruthless precision. He had signed the revised pact, made the necessary threats, and walked away without giving Celeste an inch of personal satisfaction. When she had draped her arms around him on the terrace, whispering promises of what could happen if he stayed the night, he had extracted her hands from his coat, told her plainly that her family’s leverage expired at dawn, and walked out to the car.
He was exhausted. His shoulders were knotted with tension. But as he crossed the threshold, the only thought driving him had been Savannah.
He had promised to be home before midnight. He was five minutes late. He would apologize, draw her a warm bath, rub her swollen feet, and let her yell at him until the tension dissolved. He was used to her patience, but tonight he knew he had pushed her too far.
"Savannah?" he called out, unbuttoning his coat.
The house was pitch-black. No fire burned in the hearth. The silence that answered him was not the peaceful slumber of a sleeping home; it was hollow. Dead.
"Savannah?"
He dropped his coat onto the foyer bench. He walked into the kitchen. The spread of Christmas Eve food sat cold on the counters, untouched, covered in plastic wrap. On the granite island, right next to a pristine plate set for him, lay Savannah’s phone.
Roman frowned. Savannah never left her phone anywhere; she kept it close in case the obstetrician called.
He picked it up. The screen was powered off.
"Marcus!" Roman’s voice cut through the house like a whip.
Within twenty seconds, Marcus, his head of security, hurried in through the rear entrance, his tactical radio hissing with static. "Sir? You're back."
"Where is she?" Roman asked, his voice low, deceptively calm. "Why isn't she in bed?"
Marcus blinked, looking toward the dark stairs. "She went up hours ago, Mr. Vascari. Sophia left around seven. Tommy said Mrs. Vascari was resting."
Roman didn't wait. He took the stairs three at a time, taking the hallway to the master suite. He shoved the door open.
The king-sized bed was made. Smooth. Cold.
He turned toward the nursery across the hall. The door stood wide open. The soft pink light from the streetlamp outside illuminated the empty white crib. The small knitted blanket was gone. The closet in the nursery hung half-empty.
A cold fist seized Roman’s heart, squeezing until the blood roared in his ears.
He walked back down the stairs, his strides long and frantic. In the great room, the silver ribbons on the tree caught the beam of Marcus’s flashlight. Roman’s gaze dropped to the floor.
There, resting on the velvet skirt beneath an ornament shaped like an angel, lay Savannah’s platinum wedding band and diamond engagement ring.
Beside the ring was no note. No tear-stained letter. Just the metal.
Roman dropped to one knee. He reached out with a trembling hand, picking up the ring. It was freezing to the touch.
"Tommy!" Roman roared, a sound so primal, so terrifying that Marcus stepped back and immediately unholstered his radio. "Get Tommy in this house right now!"
Five minutes later, the young gate guard was trembling on the Persian rug in the great room. Outside, wind howled against the reinforced glass windows.
"She... she said she was running to the 24-hour pharmacy in Barrington, sir," Tommy stammered, his face white as paper. "She took the old Subaru. She said... she said you sent her."
"You let an eight-and-a-half-month pregnant woman drive into a blizzard at nine o'clock at night?" Roman’s voice wasn't loud. It was a razor-thin whisper, terrifying in its absolute stillness. He stepped until his face was inches from Tommy’s. "You let my wife leave alone?"
"Sir, she—"
"If a single hair on her head is harmed," Roman whispered, his dark eyes burning with madness, "there is no corner of this earth where you will be safe. Get out of my sight."
Tommy fled. Roman turned to Marcus, his hands shaking so violently he had to ball them into fists to maintain control. The cold mask of the Chicago underworld’s most feared businessman completely shattered.
"Every car. Every man. Every camera between here and Wisconsin," Roman ordered, his voice breaking with sheer terror. "Call the state police. Call the city commissioner. Wake up every precinct captain on our payroll. Ping the transponders. Track every hospital, every clinic, every motel within a hundred-mile radius."
"Roman," Marcus said carefully. "The storm is a level-three blizzard. Visibility is zero on the interstate. If she took the Subaru, it doesn't have a modern satellite tracker."
May you like
Roman gripped Marcus by the lapels of his heavy jacket, pulling him down until their eyes met.
"She is thirty-seven weeks pregnant with my daughter," Roman choked out, a raw, strangled sob tearing from his chest. "Find her. Beg anyone who knows anything. Pay whatever it takes. If I lose them... there will be nothing left of this city."
