Chapter 3 Megan #2
I press my forehead against the tinted window, waiting for Gio to tell me that there’s been some mistake. Ot that he has to attend a meeting in the terminal before we go and get food. But instead, we enter a private parking lot, and the driver pulls into a reserved bay.
“What’s going on?” I glare at Gio who is still sitting comfortably. “Why are we stopping here?”
“We’re getting food, Meggie. Like we agreed.”
“In an airport? So, what, do you have a flight to catch or something?”
It’s a little unconventional, and I’m already working out how much it will cost me to get a taxi back to the motel, but if he’s in a hurry, perhaps we can grab a sausage and egg McMuffin to go. The sooner I get away from him the sooner my heart can start functioning properly again.
“Something like that.”
I don’t like his tone or the glint of amusement in his eyes.
“Are we going on an airplane?” Amber asks.
“No,” I say, at the same time as Gio says, “Yes.”
“Oh, no. Absolutely not.” I sit forward, and rap on the glass partition separating us from the driver. “Turn the car around.”
The driver ignores me. He gets out of the car and opens the passenger door on my side of the car and waits for me to climb out.
I don’t.
“Take us back to the city,” I say to Gio. “Now.”
He releases his safety belt and sits forward, nodding at the driver as if everything is in hand.
Everything is abso-fucking-lutely not in hand.
“Meggie, I want you to trust me. Please.”
“Trust you?” My voice is shrill. “First you kiss me in front of an entire film set filled with people, and now you’re trying to kidnap us. I am not getting out of the car until you order your driver to take us back to our motel.”
“Boss?” The driver pokes his head inside the car and then quickly retreats.
“It’s okay, Ric.” Gio gives a barely perceptible shake of his head.
“It is not okay, Ric!” I shriek. “He brought us here against our will. You brought us here against our will. You’re complicit in our abduction. You can go to jail for this kind of thing, you know.”
Gio chuckles openly, flaunting my distress in my face.
“How dare you fucking laugh at me!”
Amber hunches her little body between me and Gio, and my raging yellow anger subsides instantaneously.
“It’s all right, Amber.” I pull her against my chest and fold her into my arms, stroking her hair and breathing in the mango scent of her shampoo. “Gio will take us back to Auntie Nikki now. Won’t you?” I stare at him above her head.
“I will take you back to Auntie Nikki,” his voice is calm, placating, infuriatingly so when I know that I’ve been shrieking like a psychotic banshee. “But first, I promised that I would make it up to you for what happened earlier. And besides, a breakfast date isn’t long enough to get to know you.”
I don’t know what I’m supposed to think. Or what I’m supposed to do.
How can I believe him when he clearly does whatever the hell he wants with no consideration for anyone around him. But screaming for help will only freak Amber out, and there are two of them against me and my little sister.
So, I try the helpless female approach.
“Look, I don’t know where you’re planning on taking us, but we were awake at silly o’clock, it’s been a difficult morning, and all I want to do is go back to our motel and chill out for a while. So, will you please ask Ric to take us back to the city?”
I think I’m getting through to him when he hesitates, his eyes flickering back and forth between me and Amber.
But then he says softly, “You agreed to breakfast, Meggie. I promise I’ll bring you straight back after and you’ll never have to set eyes on me again.”
“We’re getting breakfast in the airport?”
“No. My private jet is waiting to take us to New York.”
“New York?”
“Where’s New York, Meggie?” Amber asks.
“It’s a city, sweetheart.”
I’m torn between stopping Amber from getting upset and not wanting to take my eyes off Giovanni Sabatelli in case he whips a sack over my head and handcuffs me to him.
“It’s where I live,” Gio says. “But we can’t drive there. We have to fly there in my airplane. Would you like that?”
He has this way of altering his voice when he speaks to Amber, sucking her in like the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
“Don’t confuse her.” I clench my jaw, trying to convey just how much I hate this situation he has dragged us into, without scaring Amber. “If you won’t let us go, I’ll call the police.”
Gio nods once. “Go ahead. But I’d think carefully before you make that call, Meggie.”
“Why?” Panic is starting to congeal inside me.
“I know the LA Police Commissioner personally, and you have no evidence to back up your accusation of abduction. You’re not bound or gagged, or worse, and neither of you have been harmed.
Besides, trying to have me arrested will be a direct route to getting your photograph in every tabloid in every major city in the United States, not to mention a headline on every national news channel and warped versions of the story all over social media. ”
I allow his words to sink in.
I don’t know how or why he is able to influence the Police Commissioner, but I have no reason to doubt him.
He is calm. He already knew that he’d won the moment I agreed to leave the studio with him.
And he’s right. He clearly has the kind of wealth that opens doors and persuades people to look the other way, so what chance do I stand against that kind of power?
I must do what’s right for Amber. If it means traveling to New York with him on his private jet, then that’s what I’ll have to do.
I realize, too late, what a mistake it was to come to LA.
Lured by the promise of sunshine and sandy beaches and Hollywood, I thought it would be the experience of a lifetime for me and Amber, but I didn’t think it through.
I feel vulnerable so far away from home.
Exposed. I’ve taken our tiny apartment for granted, believed that I was stronger than I am, and now I feel like a snail without its shell.
“And you promise to bring us straight back to LA?”
“I promise.”
He sounds sincere, but I’d bet that a snake would sound sincere as it promises not to eat the mouse.
I’ve seen private jets in the movies. But nothing can prepare you for the sheer luxury of climbing aboard an aircraft knowing that no one is going to jostle you along a cramped aisle so that they can get to their seat and enjoy the chaos and carnage all around them.
But it isn’t just the lack of people. It’s the sleek lines, the plush comfortable seats, and the spaciousness that no one who has ever traveled economy class would associate with an aircraft.
There’s a bedroom with an actual ensuite bathroom.
A steward welcomes us aboard with a glass of champagne served in a crystal flute.
There’s even a mini library filled with books and games in case we get bored.
“Would you like to meet the pilot?” Gio asks Amber.
“Can I?”
Amber peers up at me wide-eyed, and I’m reminded all over again that she’s only five years old. She’s just a child. A child who lost her mom before she even had a chance to create any lasting memories with her.
“Sure.” I watch her walk away with Ric and try to quell the panic that has been simmering beneath the surface ever since I met Gio.
Gio and I sit on opposite sides of a polished mahogany table.
I peer out of the window at the buggies ferrying luggage between the airport and the planes on the tarmac.
It’s a regular day in the lives of the airport workers.
At the end of their shift, they’ll go home, make some dinner, watch some TV and then go to bed, perhaps mentally preparing themselves for the following day, or remembering some errands they forgot to run, or a phone call they forgot to make.
Regular people with regular problems.
That will never be me or Amber.
I’ll never be able to drop my guard because I know that’s when he’ll come back for her.
I sense Gio watching me and drag my eyes away from the world outside the private jet. My skin tingles beneath his gaze; it’s as though he can see right through me and follow every thought.
“She’ll be safe with Ric,” he says, confirming that I’ll never make a professional poker player.
I sip my champagne and listen to the bubbles fizzing behind my teeth. I’m still not convinced that I won’t wake up any moment now and realize that this is all just a dream.
“Do you want to tell me why you were so freaked out about being caught on camera?” His voice is gentle, and I wonder if he asked Ric to take Amber to the cockpit so that we could talk in private.
I don’t know anything about him other than he owns a film studio and a private jet and, if his stunt with the taxi is anything to go by, probably believes that he can cheat death with his billions.
It’s a well-known fact that psychopaths are charming on the surface; I’ve done my research and watched plenty of true-crime documentaries on Netflix.
But he could’ve had us drugged and carried, unconscious, onto the aircraft in black sacks without anyone raising an alarm, and he didn’t. Instead, he’s sitting here drinking champagne with me, and offering to help.
He can’t change our lives, but he can make the video go away.
“I don’t want anyone to know where I am.”
“Anyone?”
“Well, one person.”
It’s still so difficult for me to talk about what happened.
People say that it gets easier over time, but I don’t think it ever will.
Something inside me curls up and dies whenever I think about him, like a slug with salt on its back.
I curl up, withdraw into myself, and then come back out fighting again when Amber tells me that she’s hungry or tired or afraid.
“Who is he, Meggie?”
Our eyes meet, and I feel the tears welling up inside, hot and stinging and deadly.
I won’t cry.
I’m a survivor.
“His name is Steve Barone. He’s Amber’s father.”