Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56771 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56771 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
“My phone doesn’t have a signal,” I told her at one point.
She glanced at me, sucking in air. “We’ve got a blocker for important meetings and stuff like that, Dad said.”
So I can’t call for help, not that I have anybody to call, and, really, should I want help?
If the Russians are really after me, it’s not as if I can snap my fingers and instantly be okay with this very not-okay situation.
“I’m sure,” I tell her after a long pause. “I just want to get some sleep.”
I can use the Wi-Fi on my phone, so they trust me to some extent. Once Rosa’s gone, I navigate through my friends list on social media. There’s nobody, really: old halfway friends from school, acquaintances, my stepdad, his new girlfriend, her daughter, who I got on with okay. There’s nobody who would come flying to my rescue. I could—maybe should—call the cops or get my stepdad to call the cops by messaging him online, but I can’t bring myself to do this.
I’m sitting here in the clothes I arrived in. They brought in my suitcase, but changing feels like calling this place home. I look down at my stepdad’s easy smile in his profile photo. He’s got his arm around his new girlfriend.
I drop my phone on the bed, wondering how I’m going to handle this situation. How long do I have to stay here? What am I going to do in the meantime? What happens if I try to leave?
Suddenly, I can’t take just sitting here. That’s what I had to do as Mom passed away in front of us. Six months of slow degradation and me just sitting there, forced to allow it to happen. I was powerless as her illness took her piece by piece and left only the outline of the whole, then nothing.
Leaving the bedroom, I walk down the narrow hallway and into the entertainment room. As expected, the basement door is locked, so I knock loudly.
“Yes?” a man says.
“The en suite is busted. I need to use the toilet.”
“Um—”
“I need to use the toilet right now, thank you. It’s a feminine issue.”
Mom once told me that the phrase feminine issue could disarm any man. The guard opens the door, frowning.
It’s Edoardo or “Eddie.” I recognize him from when I was a kid. He always bought us candy and asked about school politely and respectfully. I later learned he and his wife had lost a daughter. He’s short and wide, his shirt untucked, and his hair messy and wet, where he used some product to sweep it over. “Miss—”
“Eddie, you’ve got to remember me.”
A shadow of a smile. “Of course I do. Let me see if I can get somebody to fix the toilet.”
“It’s urgent. I can’t wait. Please don’t make me humiliate myself.”
He frowns, stepping back. “Okay, but you have to be quick.”
When he starts following me, I turn, flashing him a look. “I know the way, Eddie. I’ve only been here about a million times.”
He keeps following me to the door, so I walk inside and sit on the closed toilet lid.
Everything in here is so shiny, cared-for, expensive, and… I see it now. Maybe I was too close to see it before. It all screams mafia.
The window only opens a crack in here, way too narrow for my curvy figure. Maybe Rosa could slip out, but even she’d have to graze herself. Back in the hallway, I take the “wrong” turn, heading for the front door instead of the basement.
“Miss,” Eddie hisses, trailing after me.
I grab the front door and pull on it. It’s locked, so I spin and glare at Eddie. I’m saying I do this, and I do that, but it’s like I’m not even here anymore. Instead, it’s the girl who sat at Mom’s bedside, holding her hand, struggling to believe this hand was the same one as last week. It kept getting smaller. She kept getting smaller.
“Where’s the key?” I demand.
“Miss…”
“Eddie, where’s the fucki—”
The door starts to open. I turn, my mind racing into ridiculous places, like maybe I can hurry down the steps before the person entering can react. It will mean knocking them aside, but I can do it.
Where am I going to go after? The new apartment, surrounded by people I don’t know?
There’s no time to think that far ahead. I step forward, and Leo sweeps me into his arms, wrapping them around me, crushing me against his chest when I lash out. Only when I kick my legs do I realize he’s carrying me back into the house.
His body is solid against mine. Oh, heck, I’m panting now, and not just from anger.
I can feel his muscles pushing against me and something else brushing my tailbone as I shift around.
No way. That can’t be right. It must be a gun. There’s something hard pushing against me as he carries me farther down the hallway, then puts me down in front of Angelica’s shrine. No, he obviously wasn’t hard.