Chapter 24
24
ZARINA
It was weird sleeping in my old bedroom at Toni’s house. Sure, it looked nothing like how it used to, but it still felt like mine.
There were no boy band posters on the wall, no mirrored vanity or boxes stained with makeup, no piles of clothing in the corner of the room. But the bed was the same, and so were the dark red sheets that felt so soft and worn in.
It’s no wonder that when I checked the time that it was nearly 10 a.m. It had been probably some of the most restful sleep I’d had in a while.
Toni and I hadn’t got to talk much after he brought me back here. We put on quite the show though. I sulked in the corner while he told me I was not to leave the house. And though it was tempting to reclaim my 16 year old self and sneak out the high window to go and meet up with Ashe, I stayed put.
I had tried so hard to get Toni and the others to listen to me, and now they had. I wasn’t about to ruin it by fucking up what was essentially my own plan.
Though, I’ll admit that I was a little disheartened that Ashe hadn’t even tried to call me. Hadn’t sent me any harassing text messages either.
Hadn’t stalked me even a little .
But my time in the tower playing locked-away princess was nearly over.
I padded out into the hall to the bathroom to wash my face, but the house was eerily quiet. My ears strained as I got dressed, listening for a hint of anyone or anything downstairs, but heard nothing.
I headed down the steps slowly and on high-alert. My stomach twisted, telling me that something was very wrong.
“Hello?” I tried halfway down the staircase.
And there was no response.
“Toni? Rome?” I called as I headed into the kitchen.
Had everyone left?
The sound of my phone ringing echoed through the room, causing me to jump. I clutched at my chest and looked down at the screen.
“Val?” I answered.
That feeling in my stomach only got worse.
“Zarina. Have you seen Ren?”
I frowned. “No, why?”
“He’s not at the house?”
“No one’s at the house.”
A few heavy beats of silence hung between me and my sister, like she was jumping to the same horrible conclusion that I was. It was something that I had considered before, something that had always been a possibility. But the real thing was so much worse.
I wanted to vomit.
“Ren didn’t come home last night,” Valerie said quietly.
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“Toni’s not answering his phone. Neither is Rome. Neither is Sam. Neither is Livie,” her voice was stringing higher and higher with each sentence. I could hear the twins through the phone nearby, probably tugging on Val’s shirt and demanding her attention—blissfully unaware of what was a very real possibility.
“I’m sure they’re fine,” I lied through my fucking teeth. “Maybe they’re just caught up with something.”
“Mmm.”
“Let me, uh—” I had to keep it together for Valerie right now. She would go insane just waiting at home and wondering. She couldn’t leave, not with the girls, couldn’t do anything. “Let me ring around. I’ll try and get onto Dimitri. Maybe go for a drive to Lilith’s. See if someone there knows anything.”
I tried my best to keep the wobble out of my voice, but it didn’t work.
“Okay,” Valerie said on a sigh.
“I love you.”
“I love you too,” her voice cracked then, and my heart broke.
“I’ll find him, Val. I’ll call you back soon, okay?”
A strained, high-pitched, “Mmhm,” was all she managed before her sobs crackled through the phone, and then she hung up.
I steadied myself on the kitchen counter, taking a few long, deep breaths and trying to push down the overwhelming sense of nausea that was rising up.
What the fuck was I supposed to do?
What fucking good was I in this situation?
I slid down to the floor, gripping my phone like a vice.
I called Toni.
I called Rome.
I called Sam, Livie, Angel, Dimitri—even fucking Theo.
No answer.
I called Ashe.
“Please, please, please,” I begged as the phone rang and rang and rang.
Eventually, it went to voicemail.
“Fuck!” I screamed, throwing my phone as hard as I could and putting my head in my hands. My body shook with something like anxiety, maybe rage, maybe fear. Because I had no idea what to do.
If Toni was in my situation, he would already be up and moving. He would know exactly where to start and where to go.
I shook it off and stood.
“Get moving, Princess,” I hissed at myself.
And I did.
I headed downstairs, barging into the pantry that I knew was full of more guns than food, and picked out two that could fit into my bag, along with a handful of bullets that I prayed would fit the weapons that I chose.
But because I wasn’t 100% confident in my choices, I stopped back in the kitchen to grab the fancy knives I’d gotten for Toni for his birthday and splayed them out on the kitchen table.
After taking the stairs two at a time, I stormed back into my room and emptied the contents of my never-ending handbag onto the floor at the foot of my bed.
I changed into a more practical set of clothes, which unfortunately for me, meant black yoga pants and a sweater.
I threw my hair up into a bun on top of my head and crashed into Rome’s room to steal the pair of Doc Martens that I’d been coveting since I met her. They were a tad too small, but at least they weren’t the stupid fucking floppy sandals that I had with me.
Heading back into the kitchen, I loaded my Chanel bag with the guns, the knives, and the loose bullets of various sizes.
The ‘special’ kitchen drawer was locked, so I kicked the flimsy wood with the heel of my boot until it cracked, yanked it open and retrieved the spare keys to Toni’s fancy fucking sports car.
He’d never let me drive it before, but he wasn’t fucking here to stop me.
No one was.
* * *
As I drove to Lilith’s, I kept trying to call people, just to see who would answer. The only person who picked up was Larissa.
“Riss, have you heard from Ren?”
“No?”
“Okay, bye?—”
“Wait, why?”
I didn’t answer.
Didn’t know how.
“Oh,” was all she said, because she grew up the same as me.
Mafia heiress.
The sit-at-home-and-wait daughter.
The none-of-your-business kid.
She cleared her throat and then said, “Keep me updated,” before hanging up.
I parked illegally in front of Lilith’s, and tried to convince myself that I didn’t care because Toni had enough money to pay the fine, rather than ‘they can’t fine him because he’s probably dead’ .
I used my spare key to let myself in through the back door and burst inside.
“Hello?” I called, running from the dressing rooms to the main floor of the club. “Please! Hello?” My voice was desperate now.
“Zarina?” A small, familiar voice came out of Rome’s office.
“Livie!” I sighed a heaping breath of relief, flinging myself towards my tiny sister-in-law and wrapping her into a tight hug.
She patted me on the arm, signalling that I should settle a bit.
“What’s wrong?” she frowned, eyes bouncing between mine with worry as I pulled away.
“Everyone’s gone. No one is answering their phone. Everyone is gone.”
“Shh, shh,” she hushed me, pulling me into Rome’s office and plunking me down on the chair. “Tell me what happened.”
I told Livie everything.
Everything between me and Ashe, me and Theo, me and Toni. I told her what I knew, what I had found out, and what I thought had happened.
Her eyes went from concerned, to wide, to glassy and unfocused as I continued to speak. Eventually, she left me, half-mindlessly drifting towards her computer and beginning to type.
Honestly, I didn’t know why I hadn’t come to her sooner. I supposed that everyone else was always so busy, so consumed with dealing with important things, things that were dangerous but necessary, that my little hunch didn’t seem worth the time.
Even now, Livie’s undereyes were dark from a lack of sleep after sitting at Rome’s desk all night and working. Even she hadn’t heard from Sam.
“Dean White,” she said after a few moments of reading. “His father is a mining magnate. Probably one of the richest men in Australia. Joshua Stragg, son of the dude that owns all the Royale Casinos. William Peck,” her eyebrows pinched together, eyes scanning the text on her screen quickly. “Real estate development.”
And then she was typing again. Typing and then reading. Then clicking a button and the printer began to whir.
“This is a list of all current projects by Peck Developments nearby. We should start with these,” she said, half to me, half to herself, rolling the chair towards the high bookshelf and standing on it to retrieve a book. She opened it, and pulled a gun out of the disguised case, tucking it into the back of her jeans.
I scanned the list.
“This one,” I pointed to the third address on the list. “A new shopping centre. That will be Theo’s dad’s. They’ll be there.”
Livie nodded once. “Let’s go.”
“Wait, just us?”
“There’s no one else, Zar.”
I chewed down on my bottom lip, and Livie quirked a brow.
“Actually, there might be.”