He could have just tracked me down. He had the means and the time, even his own airline, but that wasn’t his style.
I’d left him.
He wasn’t going to run behind me.
He’d get me exactly where he wanted me—where my love of all things Fausti had begun.
I’d go to him to stop this madness.
After Kirill, though, the list of men I trusted slimmed to almost nothing.
Lilo.
Neil and Andrea.
I could never forgive myself if something happened to any of them. I was having a hard enough time with Kirill.
I would have called Aren, Tigran’s brother, to give me a ride from the airport in his cab, but one, I didn’t want to involve him, and two, he’d gone to Florida to be with Lucila and Lilo.
I flagged a cab from the airport and had him bring me straight to the rent-controlled apartment Neil and Andrea had wanted me to take. It was late, and I didn’t want to find a hotel at this time of the night. Neil had showed me where the hideaway key was when we’d visited once. Neil and Andrea were taking care of his aunt’s plants while she’d been out of town. She had a habit of losing them and kept one underneath the welcome rug.
The only problem was whether Neil and Andrea had let the apartment go to someone else. I didn’t think they would have, though. Andrea had fond memories there, even if it wasn’t their style. I was willing to bet they were going to keep it, maybe still hoping I’d take it when I got back.
I knocked on the door and waited.
No one answered.
I knocked a little louder.
Nothing.
The door peeked open from across the hall. It was a little old elderly lady in a robe and curlers, holding Sweets, the small little dog who needed her anal glands expressed from time to time.
“No one is home,” she croaked at me.
“I was just making sure. Neil and Andrea are letting me crash here tonight.” I was hoping if Neil and Andrea had decided to let it go, she would give me a hint.
She looked me up and down. “It’s been quiet without Lucia. I miss the shit out of her, but at least Neil and Andrea are holding out for someone good. A girl who went to Italy for a while. They think she’ll want it when she gets back.”
I pointed. “Neil and Andrea gave you Sweets to keep you company?”
She seemed to relax when I’d said the dog’s name. “She’s quiet, the old girl, but she’ll do as company, even if she forgot how to yap. Happens to the best of us, I guess.”
I reached out and petted Sweet’s head. “How you doing, Sweets? Besides the forgetting how to yap issue.”
The woman bounced her a bit and said in a kiddie voice, “Fine, now that I had my anal glands squeezed. How about you, Missy?” She waved her paw at me.
“Fine,” I lied. “Now that I have a place to sleep.” I lifted the key. “Goodnight.”
The place was the same as when I’d last visited it, which was kind of creepy since all the lights were out and Andrea’s aunt had died in her bed. I made my bed on the sofa, still covered in plastic, and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, but it wasn’t a restful sleep. I kept having bad dreams, but the weird part was, I kept dreaming of emptiness. It swallowed me whole, and like solid, impenetrable darkness, I couldn’t find my way out of it.
A smell brought me out of it. It was so fucking unpleasant, like raw fish and old blood, but it had been strong enough to bring me out of the dream, and I reached out for whatever it was.
“First the apartment,” a familiar voice said. “Now Sweets!”
My eyes popped open.
Neil was sitting on the edge of the sofa, forcing my feet to the side, and Sweets was on my chest, licking my face. I was hugging her to me.
