Sufferable Acceptance

Forty-Four

Amelia

I could tell Theo hardly slept last night. I pretended to be asleep next to him, but I heard him getting out of bed every once in a while, or turning and shuffling all night. I didn't force him to talk about last night. It was a big win for the Romano's, but for Theo he was feeling the weight of the decisions he had to make.

I woke up early to go spend some time with Theresa, and left him to sleep. Theo missed breakfast, and when I hadn't seen him all morning I went to check in on him. I found him still sleeping. I went over to the bed and shook him softly trying to wake him.

"Theo..." I whispered. "It's time to get up. Your dad wants to have a meeting. It's almost noon."

He groaned, and complained but eventually got up and started to get ready. I had to drag him down stairs, and force him to eat some breakfast. We barely made it to Lorenzo's office in time for the meeting.

"The attack was a success, but it's driven Dominic and Nikolas to go into hiding. No one has seen them in the past few hours. They aren't at any of the usual safe houses, the bookstore or other hideouts. Charlie sent a few guys out to try and find them, but they're gone. We can't get distracted with our win last night. They are most definitely pissed, and will look to attack. I need everyone on high alert until we know more about where they went." He ordered.

"Amelia, you know Dominic the best. I want you trying to track them. I don't want anyone going anywhere alone. Anyone in the family has to have an escort. I don't want to risk someone getting hurt." He said.

"After what we did last night what will your dad do?" He asked me.

"I'm not 100% sure, but I Imagine he'll respond quickly. Dominic will want to wait and leave us in the dark for a little bit, but my dad won't want to. I don't know if Nikolas will take his brother or my dad's advice." I told him.

"No matter what they decide to do, at least we hurt their resources. I'm hopeful some of the men working last night were Barboza's men, and we slow him down. Even if they want to hurt us back right away they would need time to reorganize and find more resources." Lorenzo said.

"Marcus is that entire block destroyed?" Theo asked.

"Yeah, a few of us drove back around there this morning and the whole thing has turned to dust. There wasn't any movement." He said.

"Alright, Amelia and Charlie will keep working on locating Dominic. I want him found, and I don't want him to disappear again. I want everyone else working as protection for Theresa and the kids." Lorenzo ordered before he ended the meeting.

Charlie and I drove our usual route and stopped at all of the places we remembered seeing Dominic. He really was gone. Even Nikolas' close circle was missing.

"Well if they aren't at the places we've looked where would they go?" Charlie asked me.

"I bet Dad has them stashed away at one of his locations. A bonus to working with Dad is all of the property and land he owns. Even if we wanted to waste our time hunting down every location by the time we found where they were they would be gone. It would be an endless game of cat and mouse, a total waste of our time." I told him.

"So, what do we do now? I'm not going home and telling Dad we couldn't find them." Charlie said.

"It's a long shot, but I still remember a few of Dominic's old friends or business partners. Even if we don't find them it might be good for Dominic to know we're looking for him." I suggested.

"Alright fine, I'm down for anything that doesn't involve going back home empty handed." He said.

Before we continued our search we headed to dinner. It was going to be a long night, and Charlie was cranky when he was hungry.