The Lions Den

Chapter Thirty-One: When the Lion Tends the Scars of the Lioness

(TW//Explanations of abuse in this chapter)

Matteo

Waking up this particular morning to an empty bed set off warning bells in my head. After Kashera told me about what happened with her parents yesterday evening she started to become astoundingly distant by the hour. I guess because she pulled back in stagnant time increments she thought I wouldn't notice, but I knew from the moment she started explaining to me what happened that a lot more was said than what she'd disclosed. Though she didn't have to tell me every word, I hoped that she'd tell me the things that mattered to her the most, and somewhere in her story she left that out for one reason or another.

Taking a deep sigh, I rolled out of the bed and saw the clock reading seven a.m. The sunlight was just barely peeking through the curtains along the walls, and the room was cold. I couldn't decide just yet if the chill was from the thermostat or from the sorrowful feeling looming around in the space of this house. I went into the bathroom and ran through the motions of getting in the shower, brushing my teeth, and doing any of my hygiene I needed to do before going downstairs where she'd disappeared off to.

We'd only been back for two days, but things didn't stop because I did. Once Kashera went to check in with her family and run errands, I was thrown into meetings around the city with Clem, Papa, and Enzo over everything that needed to be handled now that I was firmly back into my role. Although things were settled legally, Anfernee was still a looming threat we'd been keeping surveillance on. Since the chief was gone it got easier to start mapping Anfernee's movements seeing he'd lost a vital element of his protection. His movements were becoming frantic as his paranoia grew. He knew I was coming, and we were about to enter into an interesting game of cat and mouse to see who'd strike first.

I was set to go work out and attend meetings this morning, but that was going to have to wait until I found a certain woman of mine who was going through some turmoil that she refused to tell me about for one reason or another.

Walking downstairs to the dim space with no sounds coming from anywhere admittedly threw me off. I swept the first floor to see if she was in the office, the kitchen, or maybe lying down on the couch, but she was nowhere to be found. I backtracked upstairs, and upon checking every room in the house I began getting worried. It was one thing for her to disappear, but Kashera didn't just up and leave without trace. She knew her safety was too reliant on my knowing of her relative locations. To sit here knowing nothing was putting me on edge because I knew how left things could go in a blink of eye.

Rubbing the bridge of my nose between my fingers, I grabbed my phone and made a call to the head of her security detail.

"Where in the hell are you all?" I asked as calmly as I could manage. Receiving radio silence, I pulled the phone back from my ear and looked to ensure that the call hadn't been disconnected. Once I saw that it wasn't, but instead it was that no one had bothered to speak, I laughed darkly before shooting off in Italian as I placed the phone on speaker.