The café seemed to tilt.
"What do you mean she didn't come in?" His voice dropped. "She... she's not at home either."
Sara said nothing. There was nothing to say.
Xavier's confidence, that ironclad certainty he wore like armor, began to crack. Each second of silence widened the fissure. He stood from the table, his chair scraping against the tile floor, and that was when his gaze caught the television mounted above the café bar.
The broadcast had shifted to a breaking news bulletin. Red banners scrolled across the bottom of the screen. The anchor's face was grave.
The headline filled the screen in bold white letters:
VALDUCCI HEIRESS IN CRITICAL CONDITION AFTER DEVASTATING CRASH
Xavier's blood turned to ice.
His phone buzzed. A conference call. He answered on reflex, his eyes still locked on the screen.
Vanessa's voice came first, thick with tears, her words tumbling over each other in a performance of distress. Then his mother's voice, Jane Salvatore, sharp and commanding even as she attempted to soothe.