No answer comes back. Just silence—heavy and waiting.
I push the door open wider, met by stale air and darkness deeper than it should be. Something’s wrong. Something’s very wrong.
“Sabrina?” I call again, stepping cautiously over the threshold. “Are you home?”
The silence that greets me is my only answer.
The living room is shrouded in shadow; my fingertips sliding along the wall until they find the light switch. Nothing happens when I flick it up. The bulb must have burned out—or Sabrina forgot to pay the electric bill again.
I fumble for my phone, activating its flashlight to illuminate the strange emptiness before me. The coffee table is bare, the decorative pillows missing from the couch. Something’s not right. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as I move deeper into the apartment, the beam of light revealing more absences than presences.
“Sabrina?” I call for the third time, my voice thin and shaky. “Are you playing some kind of prank?”
Only silence answers me. The kitchen looks untouched, but when I swing my light toward the hallway leading to our bedrooms, my heartbeat quickens. Dread pools in my stomach with each step I take toward Sabrina’s room.
Her door stands open, which is unusual in itself. Sabrina guards her privacy fiercely, always keeping her door firmly shut and locked. My phone’s light cuts through the darkness, revealing a space I barely recognize.
She even stripped her bed down to the bare mattress. The dresser drawers hang open, emptied of their contents. The closet door gapes wide, showing nothing but vacant hangers swinging gently in the draft from the hallway.
I step inside, disbelief making my movements sluggish. My light beam travels across bare walls where fashion photos and social media printouts once created a collage of Sabrina’s carefully curated life. Even the pink curtains she insisted on hanging last summer are gone, leaving naked windows staring out into the February night.
“She’s gone,” I whisper to the almost-empty room, my fingers trailing over the bare wall. The realization hits me with physical force, making my knees weaken. “She left.”
The day after our mom’s funeral, Sabrina packed up and disappeared without a word. Without even a note. A hysterical laugh bubbles up in my throat but gets stuck there, turning into something closer to a sob. Of course, she left.
I turn to leave, my mind racing with questions about where she might have gone, when a large figure blocks the doorway. My heart stops, then restarts at triple speed.
The scream that tears from my throat is primal and raw. I stumble backward until my calves hit the bed frame, my phone clattering to the floor. The light spins wildly before settling, casting bizarre shadows that make the intruder seem even larger, more monstrous.
“Careful,” says a deep, masculine voice I recognize from somewhere. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
The man steps forward, bending to retrieve my phone, but I get to it first. He chuckles darkly as though me having it doesn’t change anything as far as he’s concerned.
When he straightens, I shine the light, so it illuminates his face from below, creating harsh shadows that accentuate the sharp angle of his jaw and the straight line of his nose. Recognition slams into me like a physical blow.
Raffaele Russo.
The Debt Collector, as he’s called in hushed whispers here in Little Italy. The man who breaks kneecaps and ruins lives forthe Russo family. His reputation definitely precedes him, and I know his presence here isn’t a good thing.
And… damn. Having the phone isn’t going to help. Not when I’m up against one of the four men who rule Cleveland so completely that even the police answer to them.
“H-how did you get in here?” I ask, my voice barely audible over the thunder of my heartbeat.
He shrugs one shoulder. “That doesn’t matter.” He pins me with an icy glare.
I back up further, pressing against the wall. “What do you want? Why are you in my home?”
“Your home?” One dark eyebrow arches elegantly. “Interesting choice of words, considering the circumstances.”
My mouth goes dry. “What circumstances?”
“Sophia’s debt.” He says it simply, matter-of-factly, as if discussing the weather. “Your mom owed me two hundred seventy-five thousand dollars—”
“What?” I gasp. God, I’m feeling sick. “That can’t be right. Mom never mentioned anything.” Please, please, please let this be some kind of freak mistake.
The behemoth of a man just rolls his eyes. “I can assure you there’s no mistake.” Each word is as cold as his tone is hostile. The man who showed up and paid his respects at the funeral yesterday is nowhere to be seen.
“But I…” Trailing off, I lick my suddenly dry lips. “I don’t have that kind of money.” Or any money. If I’m lucky, I have about twelve-hundred in my account.
