Honestly, that’s alright. I sit at the table across from Curse and close my eyes as well. I don’t fall asleep, but I do zone out, letting the train’s rhythmic movements and sounds roll through my head like my thoughts are on their own set of tracks. Each one packaged up inside its own little train car, disappearing into the distance until there is nothing left but silence.
Eventually, that silence is broken by buzzing.
Curse’s phone. I open my eyes. He doesn’t stir. I stand up and walk around to his side of the table. His phone has fallen out of his pocket and onto the bench beside him. The name on the screen sears into my brain.
Elio.
The one who ordered Curse to come and take me. The one who wants to get his hands on all of papà’s assets. The one who orchestrated all of this.
Not caring about how Curse is going to react, I snatch up the phone and smash my finger against the green call button.
“Elio,” I say. My voice is shaking.
There’s a pause. Like he’s recalibrating his expectations. Obviously, he never expected me to be the one to answer his brother’s phone.
“Aurora.” He’s recovered well from the surprise, His voice is deep but smooth. Not like mine was when I answered. “Good to speak with you.”
“Oh, is it?” I hiss. Its not my voice shaking now, but my whole body. I pace the train car, rage fuelling every tremor-like step.
“It is,” Elio confirms easily. “Where are you right now?”
“As if you don’t know,” I snap. “We’re on the train to Toronto. For the wedding.”
Another pause.
“Ah. So that’s what he decided, then?”
“What do you mean?”
“He decided to marry you.”
I stop pacing at once. My gaze slices to Curse where he’s sleeping.
“What?” I whisper.
“It’s what I would have done if I were him,” Elio says. “It was either that or hide you away in some dark and lonely corner for the rest of your life, where you’d constantly be looking over your shoulder. Or give you back to New York, of course. But he was never going to let that happen. Especially after the stunt he pulled on your wedding night.”
My thoughts spin so fast I’m nearly dizzy with them.
What the hell is Elio saying? That he never ordered Curse to kill Marco? That it was never his plan?
That Curse acted on his own? And never originally intended to use me?
None of this makes any fucking sense.
“I need to wake him up.”
I don’t realize that I’ve said the words out loud until Elio responds. All the blasé smoothness from his voice earlier vanishes.
“Wake,” he says dangerously, “him up?”
“He’s asleep!”
“Asleep.”
Elio repeats it in a tone of flat disbelief. Like I’ve just told him that Curse is currently standing on his head.
“Yes, asleep. That’s why he didn’t answer his phone. You know that he’s a crazy heavy sleeper!”
