Chapter 32 Stephanie
STEPHANIE
I’m lost deep inside a dream—or a nightmare, more accurately. It’s the same one I’ve been having over and over since Gio came back into my life.
Almost every night, I’ve been forced to relive it—the last time I saw Gio before he was bludgeoned from my memory.
Only, tonight’s a little different.
Because I actually know I’m dreaming, even as it’s happening.
I still get a few breathless moments of romance with Gio—moments I crave now more than ever, even if I know how this story ends—and as he kisses me and whispers sweet nothings, and even in my dreams, this time, it’s laced with a hint of loss because I know he’s really gone.
Then I’m walking away from him, playfully pretending like it doesn’t tear some small part of my soul away every time I go.
I hear Gio’s cry with perfect clarity now as he shouts my name. I can hear every ounce of terror in it that he must have felt—to see what was coming and be too far away to stop it.
Then I’m snatched up by men who grab me with forceful hands. They whisper the same terrifying threats, all in the name of Don Augusta.
I fight with all I have to get free—even if I know my chances are slim.
I feel the sickening crunch of a nose breaking against the back of my head. And when I turn around, I see the black ski mask that covers my kidnapper’s face, the blood staining the already-dark fabric.
Then comes that same blinding flash of pain.
For a moment, everything goes black.
But this time, I don’t wake up from it.
Slowly, my movements sluggish and heavy, I manage to blink, then open my eyes a fraction of an inch.
And in blurry snapshots, I capture some of the world around me. I’m drifting, weightless, too dizzy to make much sense of anything I see.
Then voices start to filter in more clearly.
My captors are still there, but they sound different now—their voices pitched high with panic.
“You hit her too hard!” one of them hisses.
“She’s breathing, right?”
Silence. Then, “No. I don’t think so.”
Something cold seeps into my limbs. My chest feels heavy, like I’m floating just under the surface of water.
“You idiot!” someone snarls. “We were supposed to hold her, scare her—now you’ve gone and killed her!”
I want to scream that I’m still here, but my lips won’t move.
“What do we do?”
There’s a pause, then shuffling—and the sound of a phone ringing as it’s put on speaker.
“She’s dead,” a voice says, lower now, deferential.
Someone sighs heavily on the other end of the line, the sound crackling across the air and filling the van with static. “It truly is a wonder your family hasn’t died off from natural stupidity.”
Ice floods my veins. I would recognize that voice anywhere. Don Augusta, Gio’s father.
“What do you want us to do with her?” someone asks, his tone apologetic.
“Get rid of her. Make it look like an accident, or make sure she’s never found. I don’t care. Just take her ID, anything she might be identified with, and burn it all. I don’t want my son to find her and connect the dots back to me.”
“Understood.”
My head lolls, bringing one of my captors into view, but he doesn’t notice as he frowns, the phone held near his mouth.
“And, Dino, if you screw it up again, you can consider our ceasefire terminated.”
The line goes dead, and the two men hovering over me share a look from behind their ski masks.
One of them speaks, but the world around me is losing focus, and as I cling to consciousness, I feel myself slipping into darkness once more.
Then I’m being lifted again, arms dangling, head rolling limply forward against my chest.
The scent of gasoline lingers in the air, and the heat at my back would suggest a fire.
Panic surges through my chest until I realize wherever we’re going, it’s away from the flames.
Night air whips across my face, and the pain in my head is like ice searing straight into my brain.
“She’ll sink,” one mutters. “Nobody’ll find her.”
“You'd better be right, or we’ll all be dead.”
They count—one, two, three—then I’m falling, terrifyingly weightless for what feels like an eternity.
And when I finally stop, I would give anything to feel that gut-wrenching freefall once more.
Because the shock of the cold steals every thought and ounce of oxygen from my body.
Water floods my ears, my nose, my throat.
I kick weakly, instinct fighting against the weight dragging me down.
But my vision fades quickly, darkening at the edges.
Until blackness swallows me whole.
I don’t know how long I’m unconscious.
But somewhere, through the muffled roar of the river, I hear a man’s voice in the distance.
“Hey! Are you okay? Can you hear me?”
Fingers brush my arm. I think I see dark eyes, frantic, desperate. Then, with no small amount of effort, strong hands grip me, hauling my water-logged body over the nose of a plastic boat kayak.
“Christ,” the man breathes, his salt-and-pepper beard the only thing I can bring into focus as he turns my head to inspect me. “That’s a nasty cut you got there. What’s your name?”
I know the answer now, but in the dream, my mind is a blank canvas, and my vision is starting to darken once more.
“Just stay with me,” the man says, his kind voice fading. “I’ll get you some help…”
I jolt awake, my eyes flying open as my mind starts stitching together pieces I didn’t realize were still missing.
Don Augusta never meant to kill me.
Those men were just supposed to scare me.
Whether his goal was to chase me away or just force Gio into obedience, I don’t know.
But I know now that the blow wasn’t ordered.
It was a mistake.
And they didn’t burn my ID to hide me from the police—they did it to hide me from Gio.
My chest aches with the truth I’ve been dancing around since I recovered my memories.
I don’t need a paternity test.
I know.
I’ve always known, deep down.
Jackson is Gio’s son.
I could see it just from looking at him—Jackson’s stubborn chin, his dark, unruly hair, the way he tilts his head when he’s thinking.
Every piece of him is a reflection of the man who held me like I was the most precious thing in the world.
And Gio…
God, I never should have punished him for his father’s sins.
I’ve been blaming him for a crime committed against both of us.
Because no man should ever be held responsible for trusting his father. Gio was as much a victim of Don Augusta as I was.
I can’t hold what happened against him. If anything, I should be proud of the man he became despite his horrible father.
Heart hammering, the dream still clinging to my skin like cold water, I feel the fog in my head finally lift—leaving only clarity in its wake.
I made a mistake.
Sending Gio away didn’t protect Jackson.
It robbed him of the one man who would die before letting anyone hurt him.
And Gio deserves to know.
He deserves to be that man for his son.
I sit up in bed, determination burning hot in my chest. I need to find him.
I need to tell him everything before it’s too late.
But it’s the middle of the night.
He’s probably asleep, and I shouldn’t wake him. I bite my lip as I glance at my phone, crumbling to the temptation.
Maybe I should just text him. If he is asleep, it probably won’t wake him up. And we can talk about it in the morning.
I’m reaching for my phone when my hands stills, a sound catching my ear from the hallway.
The sound is so soft at first, I almost didn’t notice it. A faint creak on the floorboards near the doorway.
My head turns, a cold shiver of terror racing down my spine as the door to my bedroom slowly groans open to reveal a shadow.
Before I can call out, the figure is in my room, moving fast.
I scramble away from it, the sheets tangling around my hands and legs, hindering my escape.
Then something damp covers my mouth and nose, and an acrid, sickly sweet smell floods my senses.
I try to twist out of the iron grip, to push them off, but my limbs turn heavy, sluggish.
The air burns in my lungs.
My vision blurs, the edges closing in.
The last thing I feel is the cloth sliding from my face as the world tilts away.
And as I fade into oblivion, I’m struck by the awful realization that I might not get the chance to fix the terrible mistake I’ve made.