MAD HEIR.

                                        

                                              
Chapter: 8

Castle. 
It had been three days since the ball. Three days since I left Adriana standing in the center of that ballroom, surrounded by people who were too bored or too drunk to care that the King of New York's underworld had slipped away for a night of anonymity and sin.
Three fucking days and still, no word about Dean Rosa.
Tomas had combed through every private and commercial flight manifest leaving the state, checked every alias Dean had ever used, and still nothing.
It didn't make sense. If Dean Rosa was dead, someone would've bragged by now. 
If he was hiding, he would've left some sort of trail. But there was radio silence, and that was more dangerous than noise.
I stood in my office at Enchante, staring out the two-way glass window that overlooked the club floor. 
It was too early for the crowd to be in yet, just the cleaning crew vacuuming beneath the chandeliers and the bar staff restocking shelves.
Behind me, my desk was buried in paperwork—contracts, invoices, inventory reports—bullshit that came with running a legitimate business while laundering the sins of half the city through it.
But all I could focus on was the meeting scheduled for 6 p.m with Dean Rosa's second-in-command, Luciano.
I didn't trust the bastard—never had. He smiled too much and spoke too little, and men like that were either hiding something or planning something.
Still, it was the only lead I had, and if there was anything left of Dean Rosa to recover, this man would know. Or at the very least, he'd be dumb enough to give something away.
"Still no hit on Rosa," Tomas said as he entered, holding a folder in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.
"I figured," I muttered without turning to face him. "Any new intel?"
He shook his head. "No sightings, no aliases flagged. Either the bastard's gone dark or someone helped him disappear."
"Someone like the Feds?"
Tomas didn't answer, but the slight twitch in his jaw told me he was thinking the same thing.
I closed my eyes and exhaled through my nose, willing myself to focus. "Let me know when Luciano gets here. I want him brought directly to the back room."
"You got it," Tomas said before leaving, and the silence returned with a vengeance that got my head spinning.
Thoughts filled my head but it wasn't thoughts of Rosa, and surprisingly, not thoughts of Angel either.
It was Adriana.
She'd been calling nonstop, texting, dropping by the club uninvited, all smiles in public but simmering with resentment beneath the surface. 
She wanted answers. She wanted commitment. And I didn't have the time—or the energy—for any of that.
It wasn't that I hated her. I didn't. But I couldn't breathe when she was around anymore. 
Her voice grated on me, and her perfume clogged my nostrils. Every time she spoke, it felt like someone was pressing a pillow over my face.
I had given her time, space, gifts, and respect—despite what I knew—but it was never enough. 
She wanted all of me, and unfortunately for her, someone else had already taken what's left of my heart and soul.
I slammed the drawer shut when I saw her name light up my phone again. That was the fifth missed call in two hours.