“Ransome.” The name catches in my throat. “Please, just let me?—”
“Explain?” His fist clenches so hard, his expensive phone snaps in half like a pencil. “Spare me.”
“You have to listen!”
“You spoke to him in my house. Under my roof.” His face is twisted with rage. “What else did you do with him there?”
“Nothing!”
But I can tell he doesn’t believe me. After all, I didn’t even tell him Tristan had been there.
Because I was hungover. I was tired and scattered and then the shooting made it all worse.
I tried to tell him later, but he told me to rest. That it could wait until morning.
The words crowd my throat. Not a single one gets out.
Ransom cuts me with a glare halfway between murderous and broken. Like I’ve betrayed him. “Get out.”
“What?” My eyes are hot, burning with salt and the hurt of what is happening. The hurt of what he could say next.
“I want you to talk to your brother and sisters and leave. Leave town. Leave the state. Get far away enough that I don’t have to worry about you fucking things up more than you already have.”
My chin is quivering. I feel like I’m on a broken life raft, pulling away from the sure shore and drifting off into a torrential storm. “But…”
“Did you not fucking hear me?!” he shouts. “I don’t ever want to see you again. I don’t want to hear your voice or your name or anything else. In fact, change your name. Change it all. Leave town and leave no trace that you were ever here. No trace that you ever existed.”
My chin quivers. I put my hand on my stomach, feeling another wave of nausea. “I don’t know if I can do that.”
“You can. You will. Period. Now go.”
I think about saying something else. One more thing that may or may not matter. One more thing that could change it all or make it worse. I don’t know.
But I decide against it. He said his piece and he means it. If there is anything I have learned about Ransome, it’s that he means what he says the first time, no exceptions.
I walk out of the warehouse. Gianni and I get in the car.
“Are you okay?” he asks. “Did he hurt you?”
Only my heart.
“I’m fine. Are you hurt? Do you need to go to the hospital?”
“No. I got smacked in the face with the butt of a gun, but I’m okay.” He hesitates. His gaze drops to my throat. “Are you sure?—”
“Then we have to go home,” I cut him off. “We have to get our sisters and we have to leave.”
“Leave?” Gianni asks. “Leave where?”
The city. The state. The country.
The worst part? I did this all to avoid uprooting them. I could have had them living with me in the city, but I didn’t want them to have to leave everything they’d ever known. School, job, friends.
Now they’re going to have to. Because of me.
“Things are about to get very dangerous around here, G,” I whisper, choked by my own guilt. “I don’t know where we’re going, but we’re going to get as far away as we can.”
Gianni doesn’t question me after that. And as I drive, I try to organize it all in my head.
