21. Victoria
21
VICTORIA
The ride back to the Wraith is less exhilarating than the outward journey. I sense the tension through Caleb’s leathers as I hold on to him from behind: the straight spine, the taut shoulders, the clenched muscles. He didn’t confirm what Don Dragonetti’s possible death would mean to him and his family, but I guess he didn’t need to. Olivia is his only child. She would be the new head of the Dragonetti family, and it would not bode well for any of the mafia families in New York.
They might not have cemented an alliance yet, but I sense that Caleb has a lot of sentiment for Don Dragonetti. A lot of respect. His concern runs deeper than fear of Olivia holding the reins of the older man’s empire. He might never admit it, but I think he cares about him.
We don’t go to the hospital. The don is still alive, and it would be wrong to encroach on his family’s precious moments with him. Instead, we return to the Wraith, and I go straight to his apartment while Caleb holds a meeting in his office.
The news has rubbed the shine from what had been one of the best nights of my life. Eating halal food in Times Square, the show, the motorcycle. Stopping on the roadside, just the two of us, no bodyguards, no family members, no reminders of real life.
Caleb was different somehow. Softer. Gentler. Unmasked. He was about to tell me what he wanted when he got the call about the don. He was so close… So close that my heart didn’t know whether to slow down so that I didn’t miss a word, or flutter around like an excited butterfly.
I change out of the leathers and into one of Caleb’s shirts. Make coffee. Wander up to the rooftop decking and huddle under a blanket to watch the stars.
I think about Don Dragonetti in a hospital room somewhere surrounded by people who care about him. Is he sad that his entire legacy will be left to his uncontrollable daughter? Or is he so blinded by paternal love that he can’t see the darkness ahead? I don’t know the man well, but my heart aches for him.
The sky fades to gray and then lilac, the pink of dawn rising above the horizon, and still Caleb doesn’t come back.
I head back inside, grateful that Abigail is safe with Moira and Terry, and lie down on Caleb’s bed. When I wake up, the comforter has been pulled over me, but the apartment is empty. No note. No sign that Caleb was there at all.
The apartment seems even larger when I don’t know where Caleb is. I switch on the sound system to drown out the silence, an old Fleetwood Mac album, the songs easy to listen to because everyone has grown up with them. I make more coffee and stand in front of the windows staring out at the city, but all I can think about is Don Dragonetti.
Caleb can’t keep me here indefinitely without any news. Till now, Lauren might’ve been the only person who needed to know his movements, but I’m his wife. Okay, I’m only his wife on paper, but the nights we’ve spent together must count for something.
Caleb knows every inch of my body. He has tasted me inside and out. He was about to make this real last night on the Byway, I know he was, because two people don’t share the kind of passion that sparks between us whenever we’re together if they’re just passing through. Do they?
Danny pops into my head, and for the first time in five years, I bat the images out of the ballpark. Danny isn’t real, but Caleb is. This is more than just a one-night stand; this is what Danny and I might’ve had if only we’d found each other again, and the soreness in my breasts this morning only cements this. If this means what I think it could mean, then the universe is giving me a second chance. I just pray it isn’t messing with me this time around.
I almost blurted it out to Caleb on the Byway, but I didn’t want him to think that I was trying to trap him. I’m not Olivia Dragonetti. I’ll fight fair and square for him, but I want him to want this as much as I do with or without whatever my body is trying to tell me.
I’m about to get dressed and go down to Caleb’s office to find him when the elevator dings and the doors slide open.
“Caleb?” I run to the elevator, my pulse racing, and fail to hide my disappointment when Kyle steps out. “Oh, Kyle, what are you doing here?” My eyes instinctively drift back to the elevator, hoping that he isn’t alone.
“Caleb asked me to come and check on you.” He shakes his head as if trying to erase the words and start again. “He doesn’t want you to be lonely.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s with Terry and the twins. There’s a lot to sort out.” He shrugs, a smile that doesn’t fully materialize half-forming on his lips. “Strange considering the business we’re in, that a heart attack can throw the entire city into this kind of turmoil.”
“It was unexpected.” I peer down and realize that I’m still wearing Caleb’s shirt and holding an empty coffee cup in my hand. “I’ll go change and make coffee.”
“I’m quite capable of operating a coffee machine.” Kyle heads to the kitchen while I dash back into my room and tug on the jeans and sweater I wore last night for our date.
I can smell Caleb on my clothes. I want to feel close to him, to hold onto the memories of our first real date, to nurture the tiny nugget of hope that he was going to tell me how he feels about me. Kyle’s arrival has driven home the stark reminder that this is Caleb’s life, and that work will always take up much of his time.
Back in the kitchen, Kyle is filling two cups with steaming black coffee and buttering slices of toast. “See.” He grins at me. “I’m the domesticated brother. You drew the short straw when you got Caleb.”
He slides a plate of toast across the counter towards me, and I realize how hungry I am when I take the first bite. “Oh my God,” I manage with my mouth full of buttery bread. “Is there anything better than toast when you’re hungry?”
Kyle tilts his head to one side, pondering the question. “You know, I don’t think there is.”
We both laugh, and I climb onto one of the leather-cushioned chrome stools around the central island. Growing up, even when our mom was never really present, Mason and I spent most of our time in the kitchen. It was the hub of the family unit. It was small and cramped—a million miles away from Caleb’s pristine kitchen—and there was rarely enough food to fill our tummies. But it was warm. It was where we both felt safe.
I hadn’t thought about feeling warm and safe in Caleb’s streamlined kitchen before, but with Kyle keeping the toast and coffee coming, I finally start to feel comfortable.
“We went out on Caleb’s bike last night,” I kickstart the conversation.
His eyebrows shoot upwards. “He let you on his bike?”
“Even said that I could keep the leathers and helmet.” I lick butter from my fingers and help myself to another slice of toast.
“Wow, what have you done to my brother?” Pink spots appear on his cheeks, and I feel heat rising in my own face when I think of me and Caleb in the elevator.
Has he seen the video footage? Would Caleb show his brother? No. I immediately shake the thought from my brain; Caleb would never share me with anyone.
“Sorry,” he says. “That was a stupid question.”
A heavy silence settles on us. We both know that me being here is just an arrangement to serve a purpose, and that one day, I’ll disappear from their lives as if I never existed. Unless Caleb tells them how he feels about me.
“Do you have a motorcycle too?”
It’s a tough habit to break, this need to fill silences before they become awkward. It’s like there’s a time limit on them, fill them too soon, and you just sound needy, but leave it too long, and then anything you say sounds forced. Overthinking is another tough habit to crack.
“No.” The toaster pops, and Kyle retrieves the hot slices. “I was involved in an accident five years ago. It kinda shook my confidence. I’ve never been back on a bike since.” He pushes some more buttered toast my way.
I bite another mouthful of toast; I was hungrier than I realized because I skipped breakfast. I study him closely. No one could mistake the fact that he and Caleb are brothers, but there’s something softer about Kyle, almost as if life has sanded down his edges to make them smoother, less abrasive. Or perhaps Caleb has simply developed a harder exterior. Comes with the territory.
Then I realize what he just said.
“Five years ago?” Shit . “What happened?”
“Long story.” He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing above his shirt collar as if he’s munching on glass. “It was New Year’s. Caleb and I had gone to a club. We got separated, and I met a girl.”
Something cold and slimy slithers down my spine, and I suddenly feel nauseous.
“Something clicked between us.” Kyle’s eyes grow distant. “She was … amazing. Wild. Full of life and energy and laughter. I’d honestly never met anyone like her before.”
His gaze hops my way. Oblivious to the churning in my gut.
He’s describing Sienna. She is all of those things, or at least she was before the accident destroyed her self-esteem.
“It was past midnight. I didn’t want to let her go.” His voice is barely audible above the thud-thud-thud of my heartbeat. “I don’t know. I wasn’t drunk, so it wasn’t that; there was just something about her that I’d never found before. So, when she suggested that we drive out of the city and watch the sunrise, I said yes.”
That’s why they were on the highway. They were going to watch the sunrise together. Sienna never mentioned this before. She never spoke about the guy she was with like she wanted to erase it from her memory completely. I never pushed it because I knew how painful it was for her.
“What happened?” I whisper.
“It’s all a bit fuzzy. There was a truck heading in the opposite direction. The cab was all lit up like a Christmas tree, and we laughed about it. I flashed the headlights. It was New Year. Everyone on the road was buzzing. Then a car came out of nowhere.”
“A car?”
“Heading straight for us. On the wrong side of the road, like it was a game of chicken. It was level with the truck.” His breathing is growing shallow, but I keep my eyes fixed firmly on the half-eaten slice of toast in front of me. “I hit the brakes, but I must’ve hit some black ice because the car swerved across the lanes.” He pauses, wiping tears from his eyes with his thumbs.
I try to wash the toast down with a mouthful of coffee, but it’s hard to swallow. Sienna must’ve been so frightened. They both must’ve been, but I’m struggling to muster any sympathy right now for the man who left my best friend to die in a car wreckage.
“Next thing I knew, Cash and Bash were there, and I was lying in the middle of the road.” He puffs up his cheeks and releases a steady breath, remembering. “They said I called them. No one could get hold of Caleb.”
No mention of the woman who was in the car with him.
My mouth is dry. My palms are sweaty, and the apartment suddenly feels claustrophobic even though there’s only the two of us in a room that could easily accommodate an entire party.
I have to ask. “What happened to the woman?”
“She died.”
She died? He wasn’t with Sienna. This was a separate incident. Two wrecks on the same night, which I guess isn’t so unbelievable especially on a night like New Year’s.
My heart does a double take and starts racing to the tempo of utter relief. Kyle didn’t leave Sienna for dead… Although this thought is accompanied by another icy shudder that travels the length of my spine.
“Did your brothers pull her out of the wreckage?”
He inhales deeply. “She was dead. There wasn’t time. They called the emergency services and got me out of there. We couldn’t afford to have the press get hold of the story.”
“So, they left her there.” My voice is cold.
I’m trying to picture the scene: Kyle lying in the middle of the road, perhaps fading in and out of consciousness; Cash and Bash feeling the passenger’s pulse and trading her life for their brother; Caleb God only knows where. I shouldn’t really blame Kyle, but there’s something cold and heavy puddling in the pit of my stomach at the thought of this family protecting their own rather than saving the life of a young woman.
“I trawled the tabloids after.” Kyle picks the loose skin around his thumbnail. I never noticed the pulpy flesh around his nails before. “I wanted to find out who she was, to pay my respects to her family, to tell them what happened. I hoped… I hoped that maybe we could all gain some closure from it.”
“What was her name?” I grind out the words with clenched jaw.
“I…” Kyle shakes his head. “She told me her name was Ruby Tuesday, but she made it up. She was wearing a costume.” He closes his eyes briefly. “She was Wilma from The Flintstones .”
Bile rises in my throat, and I cover my mouth, trying to swallow it. Kyle was trying to find closure for his survivor guilt, while Sienna would never have found him because his brothers covered up his part in the incident.
“She wasn’t dead.”
“Huh?” Kyle furrows his brow. His thumb is bleeding, and he covers it with his other hand as if he can make it go away. Just like his brothers did with the woman they left for dead in the car wreckage five years ago. “H-how do you know this?”
“Because the woman in the car was my best friend, Sienna.” Tears spill from my eyes now, and I don’t wipe them away. “She didn’t die in the crash. After your brothers rescued you, the car caught fire. Sienna suffered burns on seventy-five percent of her body. She has been in and out of hospital ever since, having operations and skin grafts.”
It sounds as if I’m reading from a script, but it’s the only way I can recount Sienna’s horrific story without breaking down.
“Sienna? Your friend, Sienna?” His voice has shrunk, and when I finally force myself to look at him, he seems smaller somehow too. “Is she… Did she ever…”
“If you mean did she ever talk about you, the answer is no. You left her to die in that wreckage.” My voice rises a notch, but I don’t even try to contain it.
“I didn’t. I thought?—”
“It doesn’t matter what you thought.” I cut him off. “Sienna knows that two people went into that car crash, and only one got left behind. That night changed her life, and not in a good way.”
As the enormity of what I’m saying sinks in, Kyle’s shoulders begin to shudder. “I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen.” He hangs his head low, his chin almost touching the counter. “I need to speak to her.”
“She’s missing.” Sienna was almost killed by a member of this family, and now she’s missing because of them too. Or at least, because of my involvement with them. It amounts to the same thing. “She wouldn’t want to speak to you even if she was here. Because of what happened that night, she has never dated anyone else since.”
Kyle is on his feet in a heartbeat, his cheeks damp with tears. “I’ll find her. I’ll do whatever it takes, I’ll scour the city, I’ll scour the entire fucking United States of America to find her, I promise you. And when I do, I’ll make everything right again.”
“How?” I suddenly feel bone-weary, recent events pressing down on me and making my limbs heavy. “By offering her money? That’s what the Murrays do, isn’t it? You buy whatever you want, including people.”
“No, not with money, that’s not what I meant.” He reaches for my hand across the counter, and I snatch it away. “You have to believe me, Victoria.”
“Why should I believe you? Why should I listen to anything you have to say?”
I climb down from the stool. I have to get away from him, from the apartment, the bodyguard waiting in the elevator. I have to get away from all of them. Even Caleb.
Slowly, like the sun peeping out from behind the horizon, it dawns on me that I told Caleb about Sienna. I told him that the guy she was with left her in the wreckage, and I’m almost a hundred percent certain that I told him it happened at New Year’s five years ago.
“He knew,” I mutter under my breath.
“Huh?” Kyle furrows his brow. “Who knew?”
I start pacing back and forth, trying to get things straight inside my head. “I told Caleb about Sienna. I told him, and he never said that it was you.”
I stop pacing and stare at Kyle. I hardly recognize him now as the suited lawyer who drew up the marriage contract that started all of this. All I can see now is the guy who ruined Sienna’s life that night.
Kyle slumps forward over the counter and holds his head in both hands. When he peers up at me again, his eyes are pink and puffy. “He never told me either.”
What other secrets is Caleb keeping from both of us? Why didn’t he want either of us to know the truth? Was he worried that I would hate his brother and call off the fake marriage? And what about Kyle? If he knew that Kyle had tried to find Sienna, why didn’t he tell him that she was still alive so that he could finally get the ‘closure’ he needed?
I grab my purse off the side and go to the elevator. I don’t know where I’m going, but I do know that I can’t stay here a moment longer.
“Victoria?” I hear the panic in Kyle’s voice, but I don’t turn around until I’m standing in the elevator. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. Away from here.” As the doors hiss shut, I add, “Tell Caleb not to try finding me.”
“No, wait. Come back…” His words fade as the elevator starts descending to the basement.
In the car on the way to Staten Island, all I can think about is Kyle and Sienna in that car wreckage, and Caleb’s silence when he discovered the truth. I know he must’ve had his reasons, but the fact is, all those reasons revolve around Caleb Murray. Everything that he does and says is with his own wellbeing and reputation in mind, and I hadn’t realized until now just how self-absorbed he is.
How can I be with a man like that?
How can I be in love with a man who would cover up a serious accident to save the family name?
Hot tears sting my eyes. I am in love with Caleb Murray, but I don’t even know who he is. Not anymore. Sure, the physical attraction is undeniably through the roof. It’s explosive and sexy and passionate, and I’m wet just sitting in the back seat of the car thinking about it, but two people can’t build a lifelong relationship on lust.
My tears turn to anger the closer to Staten Island I get. I introduced Abigail to this family. She’s with Moira and Terry right now, and who knows what she might hear in a house where the guests are mafia mobsters and supermodels and police commissioners. The sooner I get her away from them the better.
I have no clear plan when the car pulls up outside Moira and Terry’s mansion. I don’t know where I’ll go with Abigail—I haven’t received any money from Caleb yet—but I do know that I’m not going through with the wedding reception. The thought of it makes my hands ball into fists. All that money and pretense and fake smiles.
I don’t wait around for Martin to open the car door. I’ve unbuckled my seatbelt and am out of the car almost before it stops, approaching the front door with my heart still drumming a dull erratic beat.
The door opens, and Moira is there to greet me before I can ring the doorbell. Kyle must’ve called ahead. Of course he did. Family first.
“Victoria, come in.” She holds the door wide. I don’t know if she gestures behind my back to Martin to wait outside, but she closes the door and wanders to the kitchen, expecting me to follow.
“I’ve come for Abigail,” I say while Moira fills two cups with coffee from the elaborate machine on the counter.
“Abigail is with Emily, she’s fine.” Moira smiles. “Let’s talk first.”
I sit down on a bar stool. This room is the kind of family hub most people could only dream of. It’s bright and airy, the cabinets are glossy ivory, the appliances are coordinated, and everything about it yells home and comfort. The Murrays might put family first, but they’re still the kind of people who would leave a young woman to die alone in a car wreckage.
“I want to cancel the wedding reception.” I sip my coffee, but my whirring thoughts are still making me feel queasy.
Moira stands across the counter from me and cradles her cup in both hands. “Kyle told me about your friend, Sienna. I know what you’re thinking. You think that my sons left a young woman to die to keep their names out of the tabloids.”
It’s exactly what I think, but I’m not going to agree with her. I feel like I’m betraying Sienna, but I want to hear Moira’s version of events before I leave with Abigail.
“I’ve spoken to Bastien and Cassius. Cassius checked the young woman’s pulse. When he couldn’t find it, he called the emergency services. My husband Terry, believing that there had been a fatality, told him to get Kyle away from the scene.” Moira places her cup on the counter and rests her chin on her steepled fingers. “I’m a mom, Victoria. I would do anything to protect my children. But I would never allow them to leave an innocent young woman to die. No matter the circumstances.”
My tears start over again as the anger I’d cultivated on the car journey here evaporates.
“For all we knew the young woman, Sienna, was someone’s daughter, sister, partner. Maybe even someone’s mom. I couldn’t even begin to imagine getting that terrible news from the NYPD. My sons believed that she was dead, and I know my sons well enough to believe that they’re telling me the truth.”
My sobs erupt then, and Moira pushes a silk-covered box of tissues my way. I bury my face in a wad of tissue paper, and cry. There are five years’ worth of tears stored up inside me along with my own guilt at not being around when Sienna needed me most. Maybe my anger is directed at myself rather than the Murrays. I guess it would take a shrink and a whole lot of therapy to figure that out.
“I watched her change from a vibrant, fun-loving woman to someone who was afraid to get dressed up and party.” I soak up my tears with a soggy tissue. “She thought he left her to die…”
“I know.” Moira reaches for my hand, and I don’t stop her. “And I bet you wanted to kill the bastard that did this to your friend.”
I nod, and laugh, and cry all at the same time. Ugly messy tears. Maybe I needed this, and maybe it took an outsider, someone like Moira, to make it happen. “I told Caleb about Sienna. He promised to help her open an art gallery. But he didn’t tell me about Kyle.”
Moira pats my hand and sits back. “Kyle doesn’t know this, but Caleb tried to find out who the young woman in the car was. He felt guilty for not being there when Kyle needed him. But he was looking for a death announcement. We didn’t know her name. He called in some favors, got the names of every person that had passed through every morgue in the city. If we’d known she survived … well … it would’ve been quite a different story.”
Caleb tried to find her.
On the way here, I’d made up my mind to get as far away as possible from Caleb once this was over. It made my heart ache, the thought of never seeing him again, of never tasting his kisses, or feeling him inside me, but I couldn’t envisage a world with both him and Sienna in it, and I owe it to Sienna to put her first.
But now that I know the truth, that we were wrong about the guy she was with that night, that glimmer of hope has been rekindled. We can find Sienna, tell her what happened, give her the money to open her art gallery. Maybe she and Kyle might even fall in love someday.
Me and Caleb, Kyle and Sienna. It’s the kind of story you read about in Romcoms, but it could happen. Couldn’t it?
“My advice,” Moira interrupts my rosy thoughts, “is to go ahead with the party. Wear the beautiful gown, Victoria, be Caleb’s wife, and let us handle Olivia Dragonetti.”
I suck in a deep breath. For a while there, I’d forgotten all about Dragon-face.
“I know you’re in love with my son.”
My breath seems to get stuck, and I blink slowly, thinking that I must’ve misheard.
“Anyone who can’t see it must be either blind or extremely na?ve.” She pauses. “I know that he feels the same way about you too.”
“Y-you do?”
She smiles, and for the first time, I think I’m seeing Moira the mom rather than Moira the mafia queen. “He might not know it yet, but he’ll figure it out. You’re good for him, Victoria. I can’t remember the last time I saw him this happy, and that’s really all I’ve ever wanted for my children, their happiness.”
I don’t know what to say. Is that what Caleb was going to tell me when I asked him what he wanted?
My phone vibrates, and my pulse races as I check the Caller ID hoping to see Caleb’s name. Instead, it’s a message from an unknown number. It says:
I know where Sienna is .