Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Erin
The common area of our brick apartment building welcomes me home with a wide patch of soft green grass dotted with simple benches and shaded by a couple of old, sturdy trees, the city a distant hum. It’s one of the reasons we picked this place.
That, and the wheelchair-accessible first-floor apartment with three bedrooms.
Smiling, I wave to a few new neighbors as I turn the corner to our place. I stop in my tracks, key in hand. The door to our place is ajar.
It shouldn’t be.
It never is.
We always lock up. Always. Deadbolt. And that door doesn’t open unless we hear the secret knock or call one another to announce our arrival.
My heart lurches as I push the door open slowly. “Cass?”
No answer.
The scent hits me first, bitter and metallic. As sharp in my memory of that day as it is now.
Fresh blood.
I don’t think. I move.
“Cass!” My voice is high, too sharp, cutting through the silence like a scream.
She’s on the floor of the kitchen, curled around herself, a hand pressed to her side. Blood seeps through her shirt, but it’s not enough to pool on the tile floor beneath her, not like before.
But enough to make my heart race.
I drop to my knees, sliding across cold tile. “Oh my God—Cass, what happened?”
She tries to smile, gritting her teeth. “Not as bad as it looks. Just a warning.”
“A warning?” I rip her shirt up to see the gash. It’s deep but not life-threatening. My fingers tremble as I reach for a towel.
“Yeah.”
“From them?” I ask, but I already know the answer.
“Tis but a flesh wound,” she gives a tight laugh.
Only Cass would be quoting Monty Python after such a terrifying incident.
“Was it Valentino?”
“No.” Cass shakes her head. “It wasn’t Val. It wasn’t anyone I’ve met.”
“Coward. Coming after a woman home alone.”
“Legless woman no less.”
I manage a smile for her. “You have legs. And very sexy ones.”
“Used to be my best physical attribute,” she gives a dramatic sigh. “When they worked.”
“No way. That was always your boobs. Still is.”
She laughs. “That’s because compared to you, I’m Dolly Parton.”
I press the towel against her wound as gently as I can. Still, she flinches and I wince with her. “Did you call Bambi?”
“No way. Like I told you when we moved, I’m not going to ask her for anything else. She already let the three of us live with her for free and let us royally piss off her brother. As shitty as Valentino is, I don’t want to come between siblings.”
We’re quiet for a moment, both lost in our worries. I tend to her wound as gently as I can. Finally, I ask the question I dread the answer to. “What did he say?”
“He said we’re at the end of the line. You have five days left. You give them what they’re after or—” Finally, the stress is too much. Her hard exterior breaks, her shoulders racked with sobs.
My entire body goes still. “Or what?”
“They’ll escort Caleb here. Personally.”
Terror settles in my gut.
“I have to end this,” I whisper. “I have to end it before they take everything.”
My words trail off, my thoughts going to the fob resting in my coat pocket.
I’ve been shielding my sister from as much as I can, knowing the last thing she needs is more worry. When we lived with Bambi, I’d sometimes see them whispering, their conversation ending as soon as I walked in the room.
I have no idea how much she knows.
I pull away and stand. I move to the sink and rinse out the towel.
Cass looks up at me like she knows what I’m thinking.
We clean and bandage her wound, dress her in a fresh shirt, and return her to her chair. Luckily, it was a surface cut and doesn’t need stitches. I pull her up to the table, making us both a cup of tea.
She wraps her hands around her mug, staring down at the table. Her voice drops. “Erin.”
“Yes?”
“I know.”
My heart clenches. “How much?”
“Where should I start?” Her eyes meet mine. “How about from the very beginning that kicked this whole adventure off? My husband beat me so badly that he wrecked my spine. Or where you tried to stand up to him and he broke your nose?”
She has no idea that’s not even when he began to hurt me.
“Bambi told me. It wasn’t just the money. You’re getting something for them. That key fob. The one that unlocks the black boxes. Like we had in the dorms at college.” She eyes me. “Do you have it?”
Confession time.
I nod. “I have it.”
“Fantastic.” Her eyes light up. “Call Valentino. Right now.”
“I can’t.”
The fob in my pocket burns, no longer a secret.
She watches me, waiting. When I stay silent, her voice lowers. “This was supposed to be one night. Not a love story.”
“It’s not.”
“It is,” she accuses. “And you haven’t even told him the truth about you, yet.”
“I told him some of the truth,” I protest. “I already told him about Bambi, about how we’ve been living with her, how she helped us escape England and let us stay with her.”
“No. Ryan did. At dinner. Remember? Moretti Spaghetti? You would’ve kept lying.”
She’s not wrong. “You’re not wrong.”
“I’m right. And when he finds out why you were in his apartment that night, what you came to do, he’s going to break up with you anyway.”
Her words land like a punch in my stomach. I don’t want him to know the truth. I don’t want him to leave me.
“Beat him to it,” she says. “And save us.”
“I can’t do that to him.” Pain tears through the guilt. “I can’t hurt him like that.”
“And Caleb won’t hurt us?”
My throat tightens. “It’s complicated.”
“You want complicated?” She scoffs, ripping open the buttons of her top to show off her bandage. Blood has already begun to seep through, red against white.
I pull the fob from my pocket, needing someone else to see it, to unburden myself from the secret.
“Our ticket to safety!” Her face brightens.
“I can’t use it.”
She stares at me like I’ve lost my mind.
The air crackles with the tension running between us.
“Erin…I’m scared,” Cass whispers. “And you should be too.”
“I am.”
“Then act like it!” Her anger strikes like a whip. “You have the key. The way out. Why aren’t you using it?”
“You know why.”
“He’s a mafia boss!” she roars. “We’re nobodies. He has a fucking army. And I’m in a wheelchair.”
My breath stutters. “I’d trade places with you if I could.”
“I know. And I’d never let you.”
Tears fill her eyes. “I thought we had a plan. No more bad men. Just us, safe. You were supposed to protect us.”
“I still can.”
Her eyes flood with tears. “He took my legs, Erin. If he comes back, he’ll take my life.”
Standing, I go to her. Leaning over, I wrap her in a tight hug. “That’s not going to happen.”
Finally, she says, “You’re not just sleeping with him. You care. Which means you have two options here, sis. Either you ask your Romeo for help. Or you end it with him and give them the key.”
Telling him the truth? Tell him about how I was going to betray him and his entire family?
Just like Carlos did to him.
The idea scares me so badly. What will he say? Will he ever want to see me again?
And more importantly, will he still help us?