I pull away from her. “I know I was a terrible person when I was younger.” She gives me a pointed look and I sigh. “Fine. I may be a terrible person still. But I want to know who sent that hand too. They sent it to our house. Not Luca’s or Alek’s. That has to mean something.”
She furrows her brow. “You’re right. That is concerning. But most likely, it was a message sent to Alek or Luca.”
“Who don’t live here. So whoever sent it to our house knew they’d be here. Unless… unless that hand was for you or me.”
“We don’t know that. Let’s leave all of that to Alek and Luca. Ok? Now, we should at least have a bite of your birthday cake.”
My mind flashes back to the hand and I shudder. “Cake is the last thing I want right now.”
I’m too scared about the hand to be worried about my party being ruined. Something in my gut is telling me that I should be very,veryworried.
It’s the middle of the night when I wake up. My window is open, the curtain fluttering in the cool breeze. I’m a hot sleeper, so the coolness feels nice. Normally, I don’t wake up in the middle of the night. Nina always was jealous how I could sleep through anything whereas she would wake up to every little sound, frightening her.
The darkness makes things appear in my room that rationally, I know are not there but I can’t help the spike of fear in my chest. I sit up, looking around my room before my heart rake calms down and I lower myself back onto the bed. It’s just the sleep coming out of my head, I tell myself. It’s nothing. No reason to be afraid.
It’s just that stupid hand affecting me otherwise, I’d be fine. I would have had my birthday party. I wouldn’t be scared right now.
Whoever sent it can fuck off for ruining my big day. They’ll get what’s coming to them from Alek and Luca. I know it.
The moment I lay back down and close my eyes, I feel something hard clamp down on my mouth. A hand.
I jerk awake and try to scream but the hand muffles my cries. A face comes out of the darkness and meets my eyes. A face I recognize.
Gabriel. The man who kidnapped my sister two years ago. Who almost killed her. Who almost killed Luca.
He’s standing over me right now, his hand over my mouth, and a darkness in his eyes that sends a shiver down my entire body. We’ve never spoken. If he hadn’t done what he did to Nina, I wouldn’t have even remembered him.
But here he is now… in my room. Why is he in my room?
“If you scream,” he says in a low voice that would normally be handsome but right now is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever heard, “I will not hesitate to kill you. Understood?”
I nod. I may be a brat sometimes but I’m not stupid. I don’t want to die.
Slowly, Gabriel removes his hand from my mouth and steps back. “There. Good.”
“What do you want?” I whisper. I’ve never been one for whispering. Instead, I’ve aways boldly gone wherever I wanted. Right now, that’s all different.
“I want you.”
His words are so simple yet they punch me in the gut. I scramble upright but Gabriel gives me a look that tells me not to try anything. “Me? Why do you want me? I’m nothing.”
“That’s precisely why I want you. I want Luca to suffer. But I can’t go after his wife again. She’s too well guarded. That leaves you.”
“But Luca doesn’t care for me. In fact, it’s the opposite. He can’t stand me. You’d be better off kidnapping someone else.”
He chuckles. It’s a low dark sound that sends a heavy weight over me. “There is no one else. Luca doesn’t have much family or many friends. But you’re the sister of his wife. That will have to do. So, you’re going to come with me. We’re going to walk out of your house without any problems. Because if you put up a fight, I’ll kill your mother. Cut off her hand like I did the hitman Luca sent after me.”
“So, the hand was you,” I say, my lips numb. “How did you know to send it here?”
“Because I looked into you. Simple as that. It was a warning that I was coming and yet…” He makes a show of looking around the room. “You don’t have any guards around your house. Nothing and no one to care for you. Luca must think you’re not in a position to be taken. Well… he’s wrong about that.”
“No one cares for me. You’re making a mistake. You don’t want me. No one will even miss me.”
“You think low of yourself.”
In fact, it’s the opposite. I think too highly of myself sometimes. But I have to tell Gabriel something to make him not kidnap me… and do worse to me.
“You don’t want me,” I say. “Trust me.”
