Fashioned For Sin

Chapter 16

Leonardo

I was dead asleep, the kind where you’re so deep under that nothing short of a bomb could wake you up. LA nights always seemed to lull me into that kind of rest, where the chaos of the day finally let me go. But at 2:43 a.m., my phone started buzzing like crazy on the nightstand, cutting through the silence of my room. At first, I tried to ignore it, rolling over and burying my face into the pillow, hoping it would stop. But it didn’t. It just kept going, one buzz after another until it started ringing.

I groaned, reaching out blindly until I grabbed my phone. When I saw Karissa’s name on the screen, my heart skipped a beat. Karissa never called this late.

“Karissa?” I answered, my voice thick with sleep. “What’s going on?”

“Leonardo… I can’t find Blair,” she blurted out, her voice trembling with panic. That one sentence sent a jolt of adrenaline through my veins, and suddenly, I was wide awake.

“What do you mean you can’t find her? What happened?” I demanded, already feeling that cold knot of dread tightening in my gut.

“We were at a club,” she started, her words coming out in a rush. “Blair met this guy, and they went off to dance. I was surprised—she’s always so cautious about strangers. But she seemed okay, so I didn’t think much of it. But then… I lost track of her, Leo. I’ve been looking everywhere, and she’s just… gone.”

My heart dropped. Blair, the girl who was always so careful, always so aware of her surroundings, just vanished? It didn’t make sense. “Did you check everywhere? The bathrooms, outside? Maybe she went to get some air?”

“I’ve checked everywhere,” Karissa’s voice was shaky, almost breaking. “I’ve called her a hundred times. Her phone’s off. I even asked the staff—they haven’t seen her. Leo, I’m scared.”

My mind raced. Blair wasn’t the type to just disappear. Something was wrong. “I’ll be on the next flight out,” I said, already throwing off the covers and grabbing my laptop. “Go home, get some sleep, I'll be in town by afternoon. Contact the police, ask for Henry Thompson from NYPD he's an old friend, and tell him I sent you."

I hung up and immediately started searching for flights back to New York. My fingers were trembling as I booked the first one I could find—a 5 a.m. departure. It was cutting it close, but I didn’t care. I had to get home. Blair is most likely missing, and every second that passes makes the knot in my stomach tighten further.

By the time I landed in New York, the sun had barely risen. I rushed straight home, trying to piece together everything Karissa had told me. It had been 24 hours since Blair went missing. The club where she was last seen had already been shut down, the police combing through it for any clues, but they hadn’t found anything.

Henry and I went over the club’s surveillance footage, my heart pounding as we scanned every second of it. The cameras had caught her entering with Karissa, laughing, carefree. But then, just as she stepped into a VIP area with the guy she’d been dancing with, the footage cut out. For six minutes, from 2:26 a.m. to 2:32 a.m., there was nothing.

“What the hell…?” I muttered, frustration bubbling up inside me. “Why would the cameras cut out at that exact moment?”

My friend didn’t answer, but he kept digging, pulling up records of who had booked that VIP spot. But when Carlo Bravetti’s name popped up on that screen, it was like a punch to the gut, knocking the wind right out of me.

The name brought back memories I wished I could forget. Memories of a life I’d left behind or tried to, anyway. After high school, Carlo, Brian Caruso, Erik Deian, and I were inseparable. We were young, reckless, and hungry for money. We’d gotten into some bad stuff—smuggling, drug trafficking, selling anything we could get our hands on. It was fast cash and an even faster lifestyle. But it was never supposed to get as dark as it did.

Everything changed the day we got a different kind of offer. Someone approached us with a proposal that promised an obscene amount of money—more money than we’d ever seen on any drug deal or gun run. But there was a catch. They wanted us to get into human trafficking.

I remember the moment like it was yesterday. The look in Carlo's eyes—hungry, ambitious, willing to do whatever it took to get to the top. I’d felt my stomach turn at the thought. Drugs and guns were one thing. But people? Innocent lives? I couldn’t stomach it.

“I’m out,” I told them that day. “This is too far. I don’t want any part of this.”

Carlo laughed it off and said I was being soft. Brian and Erik just looked at me, trying to figure out if I was serious. But I meant every word. I wanted out. I didn’t want to go any deeper into the darkness. And when they made it clear they weren’t backing out, I knew what I had to do. I went to the police.

Turning them in was the hardest decision I’d ever made, but I couldn’t live with myself if I did nothing. They were caught in a sting operation not long after, and the three of them ended up doing five years in prison for trafficking—drugs, guns, and the works. But not me. I got away clean, started over. Or at least I tried to.

They never forgave me. In their eyes, I was a traitor, a snitch who’d turned his back on his brothers. And now, after all these years, Carlo had somehow found Blair. He’d found my weak spot.

I gritted my teeth, my grip on the phone tightening as I scrolled through my contacts, looking for anyone who might know where Carlo was now. Blair had no idea who he was, what he was capable of. She wouldn’t have seen the danger until it was too late. I needed to get to her before he did something terrible.

I thanked my friend for the help and hopped in a cab, my mind racing thinking of what he might do to her.

The cab screeched to a stop outside my apartment, and I tossed a handful of bills at the driver, not even bothering to count. I sprinted inside.

I grabbed a duffel bag, shoving in anything I thought I might need.

I took a deep breath and opened the bottom drawer of my desk, pulling out a small, black notebook. I hadn’t touched it in years, but it contained everything I knew about Carlo, Brian, and Erik—contacts, old hideouts, the places they’d lay low when things got hot.

If Carlo had Blair, he’d want to keep her somewhere off the grid, somewhere only a few people knew about. My gut told me he’d take her to one of the old spots we used back in the day, maybe even that old warehouse down by the docks. It was abandoned, discreet, the kind of place you could hold someone without being noticed.

I'm going to find Blair, no matter what it takes. And when I do, Carlo and the others would understand one thing—the biggest mistake they made was interfering with the things I care about. This isn't about settling old scores. It's about saving Blair