My body hollowed.
No.
No.
It couldn't be him.
"Now how about that message? I'm a little busy here."
Around me, the crowd’s murmurs faded to nothing. Their stares invisible.
All I heard was the thundering in my head and the grating clink of champagne flutes. This didn't make sense. None of this made sense.
I clenched my fist. “Where is she?”
“Easy,” my brother taunted—but it wasn’t him, because that didn’t make sense. “She’s close. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
I couldn’t breathe, but what made me want to fall to my knees was the slight accent in his voice that confirmed that on the end of the line was my baby brother. My brows pulled inwards, cringing with the promise of tears. My hand covered my mouth, and for a moment I had to stop, and reel, and think back on the last nine months and how it had all been him.
When the thought settled, the room turned red, and I didn’t stop moving towards the exit. “I'm not gonna ask you again. Where is she?”
He chuckled to himself. “Where you broke her heart.”
For a second I could only hear my breaths. I could only picture her face. And then my mind spiralled. I got over the fact that I knew I’d broken her heart and thought about the exact moment it happened.
And then, everything clicked.
The rooftop.
Romano.
I didn’t wait for an answer. Didn’t want to. All I wanted was to see her safe, buckled up in my passenger seat and looking at me the way she did that made me fall in love with her.
I crushed the phone in my hand, muscles coiling tight like a predator ready to strike. No threats. No screaming. Just a quiet, lethal promise that I was coming. I tossed it to the ground and made headway for my car, and in no time I was breaking every speeding law in the state. And that wasn’t even half of what I’d do tonight.
If he knew me like I hoped he did, then he should know I wouldn’t stop until she was protected. And until then, if he thought he chose someone who’d go quietly, he picked the wrong fucking girl.
chapter forty three
think, baby, think
My whole world was dark.
It was mainly because of the blindfold tied too tightly around my head. My mask had been torn off the second Oscar delivered me to a van waiting in the alley behind the ballroom, and a part of me couldn’t help but mourn the loss of it.
The restraints keeping my hands pinned firmly behind my back didn’t help either. They’d gone numb a while back; not that having them free would help me figure out where I was going, but it felt like yet another part of me had been cut off.
Whatever was blinding me muffled every sound, too.
So, like I said—my entire world was dark.
I tried wiggling the blindfold loose and managed to spring one ear free before my neck cramped, but it was enough to feel a fraction less helpless. Not that Oscar and whoever was driving were saying much, but I’d heard them call Marcus about ten minutes after we set off.
Where you broke her heart.
That’s what they’d said to him. To Marcus. And that’s what made me think we were heading for the Romano headquarters. It was the only place that made sense. If Oscar had been the one stalking me, of course he’d know. Or maybe Marcus had told him. I didn’t know why we were going there, and every time I tried to think about it, my brain hurt from how little it made sense.
Marcus didn’t talk a lot about Oscar, but when he did, it was always good things. Kind things. Nothing that would convince me he’d betray him like this.
