Chapter 53 SOPHIA
That weekend…
Daylight in Vegas feels like neon that forgot to go to sleep.
The air smells like warm sugar and concrete, perfume and hot metal.
We spill onto the Strip in a loose ribbon—me, Gigi, Scarlet, Violet, Cat, Izzy—trailed by our shadow details.
Two in front, two behind—a compromise we wrung from our men—and Lexy floating left like a second spine, hand never far from her waistband, eyes always working.
We pretend to be normal. Sunglasses. Shopping bags.
Laughter that sounds like it belongs to girls who don’t have enemies.
Violet’s still a little pale, but stubborn; she squeezes my hand whenever we stop and claims she’s fine.
Cat is running point on stores. “In. Out. Nobody gets kidnapped by sequins,”—and Scarlet keeps pointing out everything ridiculous with a commentator’s bite that makes Izzy snort-laugh behind her hand.
Gigi, all legs and sunglasses, is halfway into a rant about the tragedy of faux vintage when—
“Cammie,” I say.
The word leaves me in a breath. Gigi startles. “What? What is it?”
I’ve stopped dead. The crowd flows around us, annoyed.
Across the sun-flash of roofs and chrome, I see the slope of a shoulder I know like my own.
Dark brown hair lifted by the desert breeze.
A dress in a color Cammie always claimed as hers, a mix between peach and coral.
She’s turned away from me, hand on the crook of a man’s arm.
He’s tall. Too tall to miss. Tailored suit even in the heat, face I can’t see, and his grip on her elbow is wrong—possessive, not protective. A hook. He leans down. She tips her chin the way she does when she’s pretending she isn’t afraid.
I’m already moving.
“Soph—hey!” Violet’s voice. Then everyone’s heels find the same rhythm; we’re a flock with a purpose. Our guards close ranks, the front two widening their shoulders, the back two rushing to seal the gap we leave.
“Cammie!” I call, loud enough to scrape my throat.
The woman turns.
It’s only a second. Sunglasses, lipstick, that profile. It looks like her. It feels like her. The man’s hand tightens, and he pivots, angling his body between us and her. A black limo yawns open at the curb like a mouth.
“Cammie!” I call again. The name catches air and breaks.
The man steers her—no, drags her—inside. The door thumps shut. Tinted glass eats her whole.
“Cammie?” Izzy asks, breathless. “Where—?”
“There.” My finger is already up, pointing at the car easing into traffic.
“Got it,” Lexy announces, satisfied. She’s already moving, one knee on the planter for height, phone up, shutter staccato. “Plate, side camera, front cam. We’ll figure it out.” She drops back down. “I’ll give it to Leo.”
“Are you sure it was her?” Gigi asks, scanning the street like she can summon the car back with will alone.
“It did look like Cammie,” Izzy says, softer. “But—it was so far. I can’t be sure.”
I don’t take my eyes off the departing limo. I know the way my friend moves. The tilt of her head when she’s calculating. The way she holds her purse strap when she’s pretending she isn’t hurt. Even through glass, even across a river of tourists, my bones know her.
“It was her,” I say. My voice doesn’t shake.
The car fades into the glare and is gone.
“Let’s go, ladies,” one of the guards says, hand inside his suit jacket, the other tapping his earpiece twice. The formation tightens without feeling crowded. “We’re moving.”
“Eyes up,” the second adds, scanning rooftops, reflections, shadows under the awnings. Their bodies say no one gets cute on our watch.
I force myself to breathe. In for four. Out for four. The Strip returns in pieces—the hiss of the Bellagio fountains, the clatter of souvenir keychains, a woman laughing three octaves too high. It all feels wrong now. Tilted.
Lexy is already swiping on her screen. “Plate’s clean—too clean. Rental with a shell owner. I'm sending it to Leo anyway.” She fires off the text and pockets the phone. Her eyes slide to me. “We’ll get something. We always do.”
Violet squeezes my fingers. “We’ll find her,” she says. There’s steel under the softness; I believe her.
Gigi blows out a breath, like she’s trying to push the image out of her lungs. “If that was Cammie,” she says, “we'll get her back.”
The guards herd us forward, not rushing, just insisting. People are still staring at us, more than before, after the spectacle we made. The boulevard swallows us the way it swallows everything—noise on noise. I look back once and see nothing but heat and chrome.
On another day, we’d keep shopping and call it therapy. Not today. Today, a shadow reached across the sun and laid a hand on the girl who used to be my friend.
“Lexy,” I say.
“Yeah.”
“If it was her… he grabbed her like she was his.”
Lexy’s mouth goes thin. “Then he made a mistake in front of the wrong women.”
We cut off the Strip into cooler air—hotel marble, conditioned wind, the faint smell of lilies. The guards fan at the thresholds, a human hive, and we move through.
Gigi bumps my shoulder. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I say, and manage a smile that doesn’t quite fit. “I’m okay.”
“I know,” she says. “I just hate the way the world keeps trying to prove it isn’t.”
Violet leans on the rail for a heartbeat, catching her breath, color returning. Izzy adjusts her bag; Cat is staring off. She has no love for Cammie, who tormented her for years, just for the fun of it. Or so she thinks.
"It wasn't always what you thought," I start.
"Look, I get it. You were all friends." There is no accusation in her voice. "But honestly, whatever happened to Cammie, she deserves it." Now I hear a hint of venom.
I should have probably filled Cat in the first time we were alone, but it hadn't exactly been a priority in my mind. This is probably not the best time or place, but then again, is there ever?
"Cammie gave you those clothes to hide you from Roberto," I pull Cat to the side, a little away from the others, who give us curious glances.
"What do you mean?" Cat's brow furrows.
"Roberto was a… monster." Even now, I can't say his name without shuddering, without having to push dark thoughts and memories from my mind. "Do you remember the dinner when she spilled wine on her dress?"
"And accused me, so I was sent from the room?" Cat crosses her arms over her chest. "Yeah."
"Roberto was checking you out," I laugh humorlessly, "and trust me, the last thing you wanted was to attract his attention. I didn't know what to do about it. But Cammie did. She got you kicked out of the room, away from Roberto's line of vision."
Thoughts swirl through Cat's eyes as she digests my words. Her brows knit even closer together. "I… don't understand."
"Cammie tried to protect you the only way she knew how," I state.
Cat's lips curve into a cynical grin, "By tormenting me?"
"By keeping you from us, from our radars, she kept you from Roberto's. She gave you clothes that didn't fit right and made you look…" I search for words.
She helps me. "Look ugly."
I nod.
"I wasn't the nicest person either," I confess.
I don't think I was ever mean to Cat; she just wasn't on my…
radar, just like Cammie had planned. She had never been in our orbits.
By making Cat an outsider, she had never entered Roberto's line of attention.
She was nothing that he needed to invest time in to prove a point to anybody.
Cat just was. She lived in the Giordano house, but she was an invisible guest. Nobody paid her attention.
Now she's frowning, tilting her head, deep in thought, before she shakes it. "I'll have to think about that."
I put an arm around her. "I understand. And for what it's worth. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I never saw you. I'm sorry if I ever made you feel bad or… inadequate or anything.
A sigh moves through her, and she steps into my embrace. "I was never mad at you or the others. It was just Cammie."
Knowing Cammie, that might have been part of her plan, too. Take the brunt of the anger. It sounds like her.
"Friends?" I ask.
She nods, "Yeah, I'd like that."
"When you two are done with… whatever you are doing, can we go now?" Izzy pushes.
Cat and I laugh and walk over to our group, already assembled by the elevators. We’re not the girls we used to be, giggling in corners while our fathers made deals. We’re women with a machine behind us and men at home who would burn the city to keep us breathing. We’re not alone.
“Give it ten,” Lexy says, angling her head like she can hear Leo’s reply coming in across the air. “Then I'll let you know whether to go hunting or call in the cavalry.”
I nod. My heart is a tight drum. Cammie’s name is a bruise on my tongue.
The elevator doors slide open like a promise, and we step inside, minus Lexy, who promises to call us as soon as she has any information.
Vegas gleams on the other side of the glass, glittering and indifferent.
I press my palm to my sternum and feel the hard, steady beat underneath.
If it’s her, we will bring her home. If it’s a message, we return it with interest.
The elevator doors slide shut, and all six of our phones buzz at once—like the floor just texted us. I glance down.
Raffael:
Running late. In a meeting. Stay with Lexy. —R
Scarlet says out loud, "Meeting went long. Don't leave the hotel."
"In a meeting. Be good." Violet looks up, "M? What the fuck? Since when is Marcello ‘M’?"
"Meeting. Back soon. Keep your phone on." Cat rolls her eyes.
We look up at each other in the mirrored box, a chorus of identical you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me faces.
Gigi snorts. “Don’t you just love that their meetings carve up the city, and we’re expected to applaud?”
Scarlet tips her sunglasses down. “Carve up the city? Try ego maintenance. If it mattered, there’d be a cheese tray.”