Chapter 4
MEGAN
Gio is the first thing I see when I open my eyes.
His beautiful smile.
His gentle brown eyes.
I settle back against the pillow, purring like a cat as he leans over me and strokes my hair away from my face. The daylight streaming through the window frames him like a golden halo.
“How are you feeling?
Then it all comes flooding back.
Nikki. Ric. The basement. The explosives.
“Amber!”
I try to sit up, my pulse racing, my breath coming in ragged bursts, and Gio is right there, wrapping his warm arms around me and murmuring into my hair. “I’m here, fiore. I’m here. We’re doing everything we can to find her.”
Tears spill over my bottom lashes, making my face damp, and staining his shirt. “What day is it?” The last time I opened my eyes it was dark, and now night has been replaced by day, and my sister is still missing.
“Meggie…”
I wriggle free from his embrace even though the only place I feel safe is in his arms.
“What day is it?” I sound brittle, broken, damaged, and I hate that about myself. Amber needs me. She doesn’t need a mouse who is afraid to look the lion in the eye.
“Tuesday.” Gio must understand that I’m not going to let this go. “It’s morning. We’re in a lodge on a private estate in Vermont.”
I glance at the window. No blinds. Simple green curtains frame the window through which I can see woodland. I can hear the birds waking up with their joyful song. Hear the rustle of the branches scraping the side of the lodge with the gentle breeze.
The room is furnished elegantly but simply. A standalone whitewashed wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a dressing table with a white-edged mirror, and a plain green velvet-cushioned chair.
“You moved me?” Snippets of what I thought was a dream start coming back to me.
Voices. The rumble of wheels. Doors opening. A bang…
“It was for your own safety, Meggie.”
I see the pain and the guilt in his eyes, and I want to reach up and stroke his face, run my fingers through his hair, kiss his lips, but I don’t.
“What about Amber?”
He pauses. Enough for me to understand that he knows something, and my heart starts thudding, making me feel dizzy.
“She’s still alive.” He hesitates.
“How do you know this?”
An internal debate plays out behind his eyes. “There was an attempt on your life, Meggie. It’s the reason why we moved you from the hospital.”
“Was it him?” Thud. Thud. Thud. My heart feels like it’s trying to wade through quicksand.
“Someone working for him. He told us that Amber is safe.”
“He told you that?” I whisper. “Where is she? Why haven’t you found her?”
“He couldn’t give us her location.”
“Couldn’t? Or wouldn’t?” This isn’t Gio’s fault, I remind myself. None of this is his fault; that accolade is all mine.
“I know you’re frightened, fiore. But we will find her. If he wanted to hurt her, he wouldn’t be keeping her safe.”
“What are you saying? You make it sound as if he’s fattening her up to use as a sacrifice.”
Gio winces. “Alive, he can use her as a bargaining tool.”
I close my eyes, trying hard to regulate my pulse. “Dead, she’s worthless, you mean.”
He doesn’t need to answer.
We shouldn’t be speaking about Amber in these terms, but at least Gio isn’t trying to hide the truth from me.
I open my eyes again and hold Gio’s gaze. “I can’t stay here. I need to get up, get mobile, do something to find my sister.”
“You’re still healing, Meggie. The trauma of what you’ve been through—”
“Which part, Gio? Losing my mom? Losing Amber? Or almost being blown to smithereens in a hut in the mountains?” His shoulders drop, and I soften my tone.
“I know there was a bullet in my foot.” I try to raise my leg beneath the comforter and barely get it above the mattress.
“And I know I need to heal, but I can’t lay here worrying about what he might do to her. I can’t.”
He smiles, stands up, and pulls the comforter back. Then he offers me his hands, and I accept.
The strange thing about gravity is that it doesn’t only apply to tangible objects. It works on pain too. When I place my feet tentatively on the carpet, every ounce of pain in my body is drawn down to my damaged foot and flares like a beacon.
I clench my jaw, grind my back teeth, and squeeze Gio’s hand.
“Slowly, fiore.”
I nod. I can’t speak and concentrate on moving one foot in front of the other at the same time.
Leaning on Gio for support, I make my way out of the bedroom, along the corridor, and into the kitchen where I’m greeted by the aroma of coffee, and voices.
“Meggie?” Demi leaps to her feet and comes to help me, but I sense Gio shaking his head. “How are you feeling?”
“Sore. Like I slept for a month in a bath filled with custard.” I peer around her and find Enzo sitting at a pine table, a mug of coffee in front of him. “I could murder a coffee.”
He jumps up and grabs a mug from the stand on the counter as a nurse enters the room from outside. Her eyes flit between me and Gio. “You shouldn’t be out of bed.”
“I’m fine.” A wave of pain travels from my toes to the top of my skull, and I smother a groan before it can escape.
She takes control, pulling out a chair for me to sit down, and another for me to rest my foot on. “Keep it elevated. That’s an order.” With one final glance at Gio, she leaves the room. I don’t even ask where she’s going or why she’s here.
I sit down and swallow a mouthful of coffee; the caffeine hits my veins almost immediately. Using both hands, I lift my leg and rest it carefully on the other seat.
“You must be starving.” Demi joins Enzo, opens the bread bin, and sticks two slices of thick white bread into the toaster. “I’m a terrible cook, but I can stretch to a couple slices of toast.”
Enzo opens the refrigerator and hands the butter to Demi.
I watch them in silence. Since when did they become so comfortable together? How long have I been out of it?
Gio sits next to me, and Enzo slides another mug of coffee across the table towards him.
Deep breath. “I want to go back.”
They all turn and stare at me like I just announced that I want to go to the moon in a rocket.
“Back where?” Gio asks.
“To Stowe.” I haven’t thought it through, but now that the suggestion is out there, it makes perfect sense. “He’s still in Vermont, right?”
Gio narrows his eyes.
“And he tried to have me killed.”
“Correct.” This comes from Enzo, and I flash him a look of gratitude.
Gio’s brother might have come to New York with the intention of causing a fight, but he’s here now, when he could potentially be anywhere else in the world.
“What makes you so certain that he’s still in Vermont?” Gio catches a drip of coffee on the side of his mug with his thumb.
“I…” I blink. “I heard you talking.”
The toaster dings, flinging the grilled slices of bread upwards, and Demi catches them.
She spreads butter lovingly, making sure to reach all the corners, and brings the plate to the table.
Leaning back against the counter with her arms folded, she says, “You’re not a cat with nine lives, you know. Next time, you might not be so lucky.”
I look at each of them in turn, finally settling on Gio. “I don’t care about catching him. I only want to find Amber.”
“Meggie…” Gio sits forward and covers my hand with his. “You can barely walk unaided. You might think that you’re hiding it well, but you’re in a lot of pain. And you already know too much. The bottom line is: he no longer needs you because he has what he came for.”
I bite into the buttery toast and chew; I don’t think anything has ever tasted this good before. Ever. One mouthful, and I already feel ten times stronger than I did when I woke up and discovered that I’d been moved around while I was unconscious like a pawn in a virtual game of chess.
“Then he’ll try to finish what he started, won’t he?” I’m surprised at how determined I sound. “And he’ll lead us to Amber.”
Gio studies the cooling surface of his coffee. Whatever happened while I’ve been on all the drugs, it has affected Gio more than he wants me to know. The broiling anger seems to have been replaced by a metal-cold agenda.
“Meggie, I want to keep you safe, and if that means locking you up here in this lodge, then so be it. That’s what I’ll do.” I see it in his eyes: he’s deadly serious.
“Fine. I’ll get Enzo to take me.”
Enzo almost chokes on a mouthful of coffee, spluttering brown liquid down the front of his T-shirt. “Have you met my brother? He’d have me wearing my balls around my neck like a fucking medallion.”
I smile. It feels wrong to be smiling while Amber is missing, but there’s something comical about Enzo that I didn’t notice the first time we met. He doesn’t have the weight on his shoulders that Gio has, so I guess he can afford to stand back and view life from a distance.
“He’d come around eventually.” I lick butter from my fingers. “Besides, I’ll tell him that I forced you to do it.”
Gio is smiling too. “Okay, you’ve made your point, Meggie, but the answer is still no.”
I arch an eyebrow. I must be feeling stronger because oh, how I want to straddle his lap and kiss him all over, but I warn my rampant pussy to be still. It will have to wait.
“Demi?” I address her from across the room. “Will you take me back to Stowe?”
“Whoa.” She raises both hands, palms facing outward, in a gesture of surrender. “I’m not getting involved. This is between you and Mr. Sabatelli.”
I note that she still addresses him formally even though just a few days ago, she was pretending to be me.
“Okay.” I lift my leg down off the chair and stand up, swaying against the table as gravity does its thing again. “I’ll find my own way back.”
Gio is on his feet and easing me back into my seat before I can even take a step. He remains standing, ready to stop me from going anywhere. But his expression has softened. “You’re not going to back down, are you?”
“Nope.”
“Has anyone ever told you how stubborn you are?”