Too many people, too much noise, everyone pretending to be someone they weren’t, all in an effort to get their fix, whatever that might be. Drugs, booze, sex. They were all vices, and parties were where everyone congregated to sate theirs.
It looked like tonight’s event was not the exception.
After finding those abandoned warehouses really abandoned, Orianna had figured for sure she would go back to her apartment empty-handed. Of course, the weirdos she’d encountered had once again given her the gift of hope. And while she seriously doubted the woman was trustworthy, Orianna didn’t have the option of being choosy these days. She’d been down this road a hundred times over in her search for answers. It hadn’t taken long to realize she could leave no stone unturned. Even then she always seemed to be one step behind her sister.
One day, she thought to herself. One day this pursuit would lead her right where she was meant to be. She only hoped that wasn’t a nursing home.
It had all started when Orianna’s mother had been brutally attacked, left for dead in an alleyway not too far from the hospital where she’d worked as a triage nurse in their hometown of Oklahoma City. Kinda ironic that Elizabeth McKay had spent all her time saving people’s lives only to find herself barely clinging to her own with no one around to help her. The incident was chalked up to a tragic case of wrong place, wrong time, a tragedy that left Orianna’s mother confined to a wheelchair, the lower half of her body paralyzed and useless.
Random, they’d said.
Pure and utter bullshit.
According to the worthless detectives who’d closed the case with minimal effort, Orianna’s mother had been an arbitrary victim in a personal attack gone horribly wrong.
First of all, what attack went right? It was an attack. That bitter, nasty word did not roll off the tongue easily. Secondly, how many muggers skipped over the pocketbook full of cash, hands glittered with expensive jewelry in lieu of beating a defenseless woman to a pulp? None? Yeah. That was her thought, too.
Of course, that was only the first of many unfortunate incidents to trickle through her family. Over the years, Orianna’s father had endured countless injuries at the hands of those random attackers. Or so her father claimed. Orianna had stopped believing in coincidence after the third time. By the tenth, she’d known there was a reason.
And those events had ignited the tragedy that was her life.
In an effort to shield his children—or so he claimed—Erik McKay had convinced their grandmother to spring for boarding school. With their education dealt with, he packed up Orianna and her sister, shipped them off, and officially washed his hands of them. Someone probably should’ve told him safe was a relative term, because uprooting their lives and forcing them to leave their mother had resulted in something else entirely. While Erik had resumed his day-to-day as a licensed plumber and his nightly rounds with booze and cards, Orianna and Amber were left to fend for themselves.
Those two kids who’d suffered unnecessarily had done what any tragedy-stricken adolescent would do. They went off the rails, seeking solace in booze and sex, looking for anyone to bestow even a smidgeon of acceptance upon them and failing miserably.
Never one to rock the boat, Orianna hadn’t put up a fight. At twelve, she hadn’t had much of a say in anything she did, so she went along with the plan. As for sticking to the straight and narrow … yeah, that was a no go. Unfortunately, Amber—fifteen when this all went down—was the one who’d veered too far off the path to find her way back. By the time Orianna was old enough to help her sister, it was too late. Amber had disappeared.
In pursuit of her troubled sibling, she’d traipsed across the US and back, through big cities and small towns, following one failed lead after another. And here she was, the cataclysmic result of human incompetence, the only one sound enough to make the effort. Her mother was barely coherent, still suffering thanks to injuries from the accident along with her addiction to prescription meds. The gifts from that random attacker just seemed to keep on coming.
Of course, her father was likely the biggest fuckup of them all. Erik had disappeared off the grid completely four years ago, abandoning his job and his wife in lieu of running from the mob his gambling addiction had gotten him indebted to. As for Amber … well, Orianna had no clue what she’d been up to because her sister was MIA, likely taken by those same goons out to make an example of their father.
The fate of her family had structured Orianna’s destiny, sent her on this never-ending search. Every day when she woke tired and lonely, Orianna vowed she would continue her pursuit until she found Amber—dead or alive. Once she did that, she would go after the assholes responsible for destroying her entire world and put them in the ground, where they belonged.
Was Amber here like that woman claimed? Orianna seriously doubted it. Luck wasn’t something she’d ever relied on because it had failed her time and time again. The most she could hope for was that these people might shed some light on the situation, tell her where to look next so she could one day drag her sister back to their mother and give her what-for.
Orianna paused as the sidewalk gave way to fancy pavers, painstakingly laid by hand, herringbone style, to form the long driveway—a mere introduction to the monstrous estate that sat grandly before her, designed to both intimidate and beguile. With night in full bloom, the lights had come on, strategically placed to highlight and accent. She was impressed, no reason to deny it. Perhaps envious.
While she stood there, admiring the splendor derived from more money than sense, Orianna thought about the woman who’d told her to come here. There’d been something off about her, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. Aside from the David Copperfield routine, that was.
Perhaps by coming here, Orianna was proving the one thing she’d denied all along. Maybe she was an idiot after all.
But she was a persistent idiot, if anything.
Figuring what the hell, Orianna pushed forward. There was a fifty-fifty chance whoever resided within these walls knew where her sister was.
As she strolled up to the front doors of the two-story mansion with its modern charm and lush landscape, she couldn’t help but wonder why random strangers would be invited to parties like this. Based on the volume of high-end vehicles angled in the designated spaces on the circular drive, this was a shindig for the rich and famous. Considering there was no one lingering outside, Orianna assumed it was well underway, which worked to her benefit.
As she made her way toward the wide front steps, she didn’t encounter a soul, which was as much a relief as it was a surprise. No one to question why she was there, no one to scrutinize her attire. She doubted her casual ensemble was appropriate for a gala, but for tonight it would have to do. She didn’t have the time nor the inclination to backtrack in an effort to blend. In her defense, the woman hadn’t mentioned a dress code.
Before she reached the front steps, Orianna paused for a moment, sensing someone out there, staring back at her. Figuring there were security guards monitoring the grounds, she glanced around but saw no one.
A flash of yellow caught her attention. Orianna squinted in the dark, attempting to make out what it was.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, her breath catching in her throat.
Eyes. Those were glowing eyes peering back at her. While she couldn’t make out the details, she sensed it was human. Too tall to be an animal.
Orianna found herself trapped, held there momentarily as though by some invisible force. Her heart pounded in her chest, anxiety replacing determination as fear blossomed hot inside her.
