Chapter 10 #3
His expression doesn't shift, but something behind his eyes does. "I'll get them for you."
"I could go with you," I offer.
He frowns again. "It's not safe for you to go back there right now."
I want to argue, but I think about the Vitellis and about my uncle's blood pooling on the bookshop floor. I think about the two men who grabbed me and the needle in my neck. The way my body stopped responding to my brain's frantic commands.
“You’re thinking about it.”
“Huh?” I blink.
“I’m not sure what happened, but something did.” Rian strokes the back of my hand soothingly. “We’ve talked before about my certainty that you weren't taken at random. The Vitellis specifically targeted you. Why? That’s what I’m wondering."
My mouth goes dry. I've been waiting for this question since I woke up in his bed, turning the answer over in my head, trying to figure out how much to tell him. Or whether to tell him at all.
But he saved me. He bought me at a fucking auction and carried me out of there. He held my hair back while I threw up. He saved me on the rooftop, he holds me while I sleep, and just this morning he made me come.
Never once has Rian asked for anything in return. Well. He asked for a lot. But he didn't take anything I wasn’t offering.
Besides, if my excuse before was that I didn’t know Rian well enough to judge whether he meant well, I certainly know him now.
"The Vitellis targeted me because I saw something. A murder.”
Rian’s jaw tightens. "What did you see?"
I twist my fingers in my lap. My heart is going so fast that I can feel it in my throat. "Like I said at dinner, my uncle Marc sold the Vitellis the building the bookstore is in. I just kept my head down and ran the bookstore."
"Go on."
"A few days before they took me, I went back to the store after hours.
I tried to call 911 for some girls on Gloss, but forgot my phone inside the store.
My…. my uncle Marc and Andreas Vitelli came into the shop while I was there.
They were arguing, so I… I hid behind the bookshelves.
" I swallow hard. "Marc confronted Andreas about Gloss.
He was upset that girls were turning up dead and said that it might come back to him politically. "
Rian's jaw tightens. "And?"
"And Andreas just shot him." My voice cracks on the last word, which pisses me off. I press my lips together and breathe through my nose. "He put a bullet in my uncle's forehead."
Silence fills the car. Rian's knuckles are white on the armrest.
“And then he grabbed you,” he spits out. “Fucking vulture.”
"I ran." Tears are pressing at my eyes now. He was my uncle. He was the last family I had besides Aunt Kathleen. And he died on the floor of my parents' bookshop. "Andreas saw me. He shot at me but missed. I got out the front door, but his guys caught me running away."
There's a part I don't say. The part where I got two pictures before I ran. It sits behind my teeth the whole time I'm talking.
I don't tell Rian. He bought me, and he's been kind to me, and he made my mother's salad. But I still don't hand a man like this the only thing I have. What if he wants it more than he wants me?
Rian unbuckles his seatbelt and slides across the back seat. He pulls me against his chest without asking. And I let him, because I'm too tired to pretend I don't want to be held. His heartbeat thumps against my ear, steady and hard, as his hand runs down my hair.
"I've got you," he murmurs.
I sniffle. "I guess I need to call my aunt and let her know that I’m okay. She must be going crazy, thinking I’ve disappeared. She hates the bookstore, but I don’t think she’d want anything bad to happen to me."
Maybe.
Something shifts in Rian's face. It's subtle, a tightening around his mouth, a flicker in his jaw. If I weren't sitting six inches from him, I'd miss it.
"Not right now." He says it carefully, like he's picking his way through broken glass.
"Why not?"
"Because I need you to stay hidden. Nobody can know where you are, Noemi. Not until the Vitelli situation is handled."
"But she's my aunt. She's not going to tell anyone."
His silence stretches a beat too long. I study his face, looking for the thing he isn't saying. There's something there, something he's holding back. My anxiety, which has been relatively quiet since the boutique, twitches to life.
"What aren't you telling me?" I ask.
"Nothing you need to worry about right now." He cups my jaw and tilts my face up. "I'll keep you safe. That's all that matters."
"Rian." I blow out a stream of breath.
"I promise I'll explain everything. Just not today." His thumb brushes my lower lip and I lose my train of thought for a second, which I'm sure is intentional. "Can you trust me?"
I shouldn't. I know I shouldn't. He's a killer. He bought me like property, he's been stalking me for months, and he's definitely hiding something about my aunt. But his hand is warm on my face. And his eyes are full of something that I don't think he could fake even if he tried.
"I want to," I answer honestly.
He offers me a small smile. "That’s not a no."