Me: Not interested.
Mom: You’ll do what you’re told. Do I need to find another bodyguard? Or have him keep you under lock and key? You’re safe, and I’m happy, but you won’t let your career slide. You will dance the moment you’re healed and you will do your best. Meet me at the apartment at 2pm. There’s also a package waiting for you.
I almost hurl my phone at the mirror. My throat tightens. At that moment, I completely understand Leon. The bind he’s in with family. How trapped he feels. And my mother…she’s the worst. I hate her. I hate how she treats me, how she reduces me to a child. I hate?—
I stop. Wait. A package? The image of the bird flashes in my mind and my eyes burn.
I push the bathroom door open and nearly collide with twomen who don’t bother looking at me since they’re deep in a low conversation that ices my blood.
“If she’s the one who killed the cop or tried to bring Cinco down?—”
“The redhead’s with a Murphy. Touch her and you’re dead.”
My heart stutters.
Declan wasn’t lying.
I bolt through the back corridor and shove through the emergency exit, stumbling into the night.
Can I just run?
Disappear?
No. I have to go home first. Get some of my things. Make a freaking plan for how the hell I’m going to pull this off.
I hail a cab to my mother’s apartment. Henry greets me, worry pinching his face.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Someone broke in to the apartment. Your mother changed the locks. She didn’t leave your keys.”
Humiliation crawls up my throat, but I flash him a bright smile. “It’s okay. She said there was a package for me?”
He retrieves a small box wrapped in red satin from the back.
The moment it touches my hands, dread coils through me.
I open it with shaking fingers.
My gut knots and nausea ripples through me.
Pointe shoes.
Shredded.
Torn apart with violent intent.
Splattered with red paint like blood.
From a distance I can hear Henry’s voice, but his concern slides off me and I just stumble out of the building, box held tight under my arm. I need to getaway, I need…
I need Declan.
My mom kept harping about a stalker but I didn’t believe it…not until the dead bird appeared. And now…these shoes…
Vision blurred, I stumble into the street, heading toward Central Park to flag a cab but there are none around. Jesus, tourists always need rides, so where the hell are all of them?
I finally see one heading in my direction, wave frantically, and miraculously, it stops.
