Trapped by Seven Mafia Wolves novel Chapter 134

The Devil

Matteo’s POV

My eyes burn. They’ve been burning for days, maybe weeks. I don’t remember the last time I really slept. The numbers all blur, the lines of code twist together, and I rub my temples just to keep upright. Coffee doesn’t help anymore. Nothing helps. But I can’t stop. Not when we’re this close. Not while she’s out there.Not when every second I close my eyes, I see hers–wide, scared, waiting.Not when I made a promise to be there for her.She’s standing in front of me, looking scared, but her eyes shining with a determination.

“You have to promise,” she says. Her hand lifts, small fingers curling, her pinkie jutting out. She doesn’t waver, just blink rapidly. Just stares at me like the world depends on this one moment.

I laugh–I can’t help it.

“A pinkie swear?”

“Yes.

“Her brows knit. “You have to promise.

“For a second, I hesitate. Promises are dangerous in our world. But she’s looking at me like I’m the only person who can make her believe in something good. And that… that’s enough.

I hook my pinkie with hers. Grip it tight. My mouth quirks despite myself.

“Promise,” I say, and for once, it’s not a lie.Her face softens, a little smile tugging at her lips. The kind of smile that lights up a dark room. She squeezes my pinkie once, as if sealing it. And then she

lets go.

The memory shatters, leaving me in the dark, the glow of the laptop screen burning into my eyes. My chest is too tight, my head too heavy, but sleep won’t touch me. Not when she’s out there. Not when I promised.

I scroll. Filters. Old feeds. Backups. Every scrap our men haul in, every doorbell cam, every traffic camera in a five–mile radius–nothing that mattered until tonight. My fingers move on muscle memory, hands colder than I feel. Sleep isn’t an option when there’s a chance to see her again.

There’s a folder I almost skipped, archived cams that are refreshed every half hour to prevent bugs in our system. Someone must have shoved off the pile recently. I open it more to be thorough than out of hope. The files load slow. One by one, static, empty streets, the same bridge at two in the morning, a closed storefront, the river glinting.

Then a clip blinks as if it’s been waiting.

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The timestamp is from the night she disappeared. My stomach drops before the image clears. Grainy at first, the camera’s low angle shows a side street, a curb. A dark sedan Idles at the frame’s edge. Two figures get out. One–tall, quick–reaches the back door. There’s a scuffle, a muffled thud. A body slumps into arms and is hauled out like useless luggage.

I pause the frame, blow air past my teeth without thinking. I zoom until the pixels swim and then, there–face turned away for a second, the line of a w I know like I know my own hands, the waves of her hair down her back, the way her shoulders slump when someone else lifts her. My heart kicks. into a sprint so violent I think the chair will tip. I scrub back, forward, back again. The clip is short

maybe forty seconds–but every second is an ache.She’s unconscious. Bruised already. A hood pulled low. They throw her into the trunk like weight. Someone who seems to have a slimmer

figure, perhaps a girl, slams the lid. The car pulls away slowly, carefully, like thieves.

I don’t let myself breathe. I watch her face again, clearer now as the feed stabilizes just enough. I

run the frame with the sound up–no voices, just tires and wind, but the way her cheek hits the

metal of the trunk for a second, the chipped corner of a necklace glinting–my chest splits open.She’s there.

It takes a second for the heat to climb my neck. My hands go white on the mouse. For a sliver of

stupid disbelief I imagine it’s a wrong angle, a lookalike. Aurora.

“Dio… mio Dio…”

I whisper, breath shuddering.My pulse thunders so loud it drowns everything else. I can’t think. I can barely stand. But my legs move anyway, forcing me up, forcing me forward.

The chair crashes back as I run, laptop still clutched in my grip. I shove through the hall, nearly colliding with one of our men. He stumbles back at the wild look in my eyes. I don’t stop.

The dining room explodes into motion before I reach the door. Andrei looks up, expression folding into a mask of contained violence. Nico freezes with a magazine half–in; Luka’s hand is already on

his rifle. Leon’s mouth is a thin line. Jace’s face is pale but steady. Raphael looks at me, his eyes

shining with hope.

1. is.

“I shove the laptop in front of him, tilt the screen so everyone leans in. He watches, slow, like a

predator cataloguing prey. The clip plays again. The room moves closer to the monitor as if proximity can make it truer.

“Luka spits a curse–short, sharp. “Where’s the van? Who was driving?”

“Commands fly in Italian, clipped and exact. Men move like clockwork. Gear snaps, boots are pulled on, weapons checked, silencers threaded. I feel dizzy and alive at once–an island of furious

motion.

“This is the bomb we place in the mill. We need to place it the second we get there to ensure it goes

off. That gives us….”

Andrei’s voice carries. I gulp, my hands shaking.

“Only 30 minutes.

“Luka’s eyes shine with barely contained fury.

“Then we make it in and out in those 30 minutes.

“Nico mutters something under his breath; I can’t tell if it’s a prayer or a curse.He wouldn’t be heartless enough to not help Aurora…Right? The engines start like beasts waking. We fall into formation without needing to speak–men climbing in, rifles cradled, faces set like carved stone. I climb into the back, laptop tucked against my side, the clip burned into my brain. Aurora’s blurred face will ride with me through the night until we get her.

As the convoy peels away, the city blurring past in a smear of streetlights and rain–slick concrete, my hands refuse to stop shaking. This is the way a man turns every sleepless, wasted hour into something with purpose: she’s alive, we know where she is, and we are going to take her back.

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I look out the window, the city lights whirling past us.Hate burning at my heart like an untamed

flame.

“I promised, sorellina–and I don’t give a damn if the devil himself comes knocking. I’ll keep it.”

Chapter 135