Chapter 127
Luciano walked fast into the house, praying to God that the text he just got was a false alert and Arielle was in the house. After the hearing at the courthouse, he had gone back to his office. He had been in the middle of a meeting when the text had come in and he had ignored it until he was done. The meeting lasted for three whole hours, he wished he had checked the text immediately he had seen it. He prayed nothing bad had happened to her and that it was just a prank text.
“Arielle?”
He called as soon as he walked into the house, he ran to the room that they shared with his heart beating really fast, she wasn’t inside, he walked fast to the restroom but she wasn’t there either, she didn’t tell him that she had anywhere to go and he couldn’t even call her because her phone was with him. He felt a sense of dread creep into him when he looked in the other rooms and she wasn’t there. He got out of the house and practically ran for the elevator, he waited patiently as it slowly went down, he never hated the elevator so much. Once it opened, he ran to the security who was usually at the entrance.
“Have you seen my wife?”
He questioned.
“Yes, she left with the driver a while ago, about four hours ago,”
The security man informed him. Luciano’s first reaction was to call the driver. He prayed silently as he waited for him to take the call.
“Where are you? Where is my wife?” he questioned.
“Sir… I was about to call you, I brought her with me to the mall and stepped away to refill but when I got back, she wasn’t there, I looked around the whole mall but I can’t find her,”
He explained.
“What? Which mall are you in?”
He yelled out running to his car, he turned around and pointed at the security guard.
“If she shows up, please tell her to call me, she doesn’t have a phone with her so you have to give her yours,”
He told him.
“Yes, sir,” the guard responded and Luciano broke into a run, got in his car, and zoomed off towards the mall where the driver had told him they went, it was a pretty big and busy place, he just hoped it was busy enough for nothing to happen to Arielle, he had a bad feeling about the whole thing and his heart was beating so fast, he couldn’t even breath down properly.
She hurriedly parked when he drove into the mall parking lot and ran towards the driver who was already panicking.
“How long has she been gone?”
He questioned when he got to him.
“I left for only ten to fifteen minutes to refill and she told me she just had to pick something up really quick, when I got back, she wasn’t out yet so I stood waiting for her, but after waiting for her to come out for more than twenty minutes with her not showing up, I went inside to check and she was not there, the cashier said she paid and left about forty minutes ago, I thought she went home,”
The driver narrated.
“Have you checked the other complex around? Maybe she needed something else.
“Luciano inquired, already making a move.
“I checked all of them but she isn’t in, I have been looking and waiting for more than three hours,”
The driver informed him. Luciano turned to glare at him.
“You have been looking for her for that long and you didn’t bother to call me? Would you have called if I didn’t?”
He yelled at him. Losing control of his temper.
“I am sorry sir, I didn’t want to raise a false alarm.”
“Fuck off and don’t tell me sorry, where can I speak to the management? I need to see their CCTV footage.”
Luciano barked as he threw open the door to the mall, the people inside turned to look at him, he ignored them and walked to where the cashiers were.
“I am Siegel and I will like to speak to your manager,”
He told the young man that was closest to him.
‘Sir? Is there a problem? ”
The lad asked. Luciano knew the young man was only doing his job but he was in no mood to accommodate him right now, not when his woman was missing.
“We will have a problem if you don’t get your manager right now,”
He barked at the lad. He finally got the memo and went inside, a few moments later, he came with an older man.
“Luciano? What brings you here?”
The man, Raul, who had gotten this property from him seven years ago asked.
“MY wife was here earlier but now I can’t find her, I will like to see the CCTV footage of the mall for the past four to five hours,”
He stated. There was no going about the bush when Arielle was missing.
“Oh, the lady is your wife? Of course, please come with me, the control room is this way,”
Raul said and led him further into the mall. They checked the footage together with the operatives, it took a while but they finally spotted Arielle, she boarded a cab a couple of meeting after she came out of the mall, which was over four hours ago, she should have been home already, the fear from earlier crept back into his head and this time it was stronger.
“Maybe she went somewhere else and she would be home already,”
Raul said but Luciano was barely listening to him, he got the plate number of the cab she had bothered and tried to look for the company it works under but he didn’t find any which made the sick feeling he was feeling increase. Something happened and it was bad. He thanked Raul and walked out of the mall after telling him he was going to leave one of his cars in the mall, he was in no position to drive with how he was feeling so he had the driver take him back to the penthouse with the car he had brought Arielle in, he knew she wasn’t home yet because the security man would have called. He sent the car plate number to Dreg and asked him to track the car down.
He got back to the penthouse and as he had expected she wasn’t there, he was slowly losing his mind, he should have had the bodyguard around here but he hadn’t even known she would leave the house, she has been in the house the past couple of days and she didn’t tell him she needed anything, he would have helped her pick it up, his situation got worse when Dreg called and told him he found the car but it had been abandoned on the highway and no one was inside. His heart sank and he didn’t know what to do, which way did he go from there? He couldn’t even involve the authorities just yet. it was too early for them to give him listening ears.
“Can you find out who owns the car and get back to me?”
He asked.
‘I did. Apparently, the car was stolen from a garage and the owner listed it as missing.”
Dreg revealed. Well, it got worse. Luciano needed a moment to think so he hung up and sat in the living room, telling himself to calm the fuck down and think, there was only one person that came to mind, Lily.
He rushed to his bag and got out her phone, he searched for Lily’s contact and called her. She picked up on the first ring.
‘Are we connected or something because o was about to call you,”
Lily said in a voice that confirmed what he already knew, she had her.
“Where is my woman, Lily?”
He yelled at her and started pacing back and forth.
“Don’t shout at me, yes, I have her with me, with how you talk, one would think you will protect her well but it was so easy to get her,”
She mocked.Belongs to (N)ôvel/Drama.Org.
“Don’t you dare do anything to my woman, or it will be the end of you and everyone you hold dear,”
Luciano yelled at her through the phone. He stopped pacing and tried to calm himself down, he needed to think and he had to do it fast.
“Nothing will happen to her if you just do as I say, you know if she had done what I told her, I won’t have resulted to this, now that we are here, I need to do something for me, if you want your wife back alive,”
Lily threatened. Luciano felt like hitting someone or something, he hated the fact that he had stupidly played into Lily’s hands again when he would have avoided it by getting the bodyguards around Arielle.
“What do you want from me, Lily? Haven’t you done enough? You killed my grandfather, stole from him, what more do you want?”
Luciano fired at her.
“Everything, I want everything that belongs to the Siegel empire, every freaking thing, so if you want your wife back in one piece, sign the papers that I already faxed to your office, I know legal things take a lot of time so I am giving you one week, if after a week you don’t do as I say, I will send you the pieces of your wife’s body one at a time.”
Lily let on. Luciano couldn’t believe what the crazy woman was saying.
“There is no way in hell that I am giving anything that belongs to my family to you, Stop reaching,”
He yelled at her and got angrier when she started laughing.
“Does that mean you don’t care about your wife? I told you he doesn’t give a fuck about you but you were too busy enjoying his dick to figure it out, did you hear what he just said?”
Lily let out. Luciano knew she wasn’t talking to him. She was talking to Arielle. He could hear her sob but it was so faint.
“Lily, put my wife on the phone, what did you do to her? Don’t fucking hurt her,”
He called out to her.
“I haven’t done anything yet but if you keep delaying, I would do something, your time is already ticking,”
She said and before he could say something else, she hung up. He tried calling her back but she refused to take his calls. As much as he didn’t want to sign off what was remaining of the Siegel empire to her, he had to go back to the office and check what she sent. Arielle was much more important to him than anything else and he would do anything to save her and bring her back home even if it means temporarily giving up on the Siegel empire and everything that was left of it. He had to get his woman back. He called Yoey on his way back to the office and gave him some instructions. On impulse, he called his cousin Macko too and told him to meet him at the office. Macko was close to Dimitris and he knew a lot more about how Lily operated than him so he needed him around. He needed all the help he could get to bring his woman back home safely.