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.

Chapter 134

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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?”

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