28. Chapter 28
Addy
The phone rang while I was sitting on the edge of the bed, now supposedly mine, staring out at the ocean as though it might explain how my life had derailed so spectacularly in under a week.
The room still smelled faintly like saltwater and him — cedar, soap, something darker beneath it — and the sheets were twisted around my legs from a night entangled with Sasha.
When the screen lit up on the nightstand, my heart lurched.
Savannah.
For one brief, stupid second, something akin to joy flooded through me.
They noticed.
I had disappeared into the night, my phone had been off for days, and I had been dragged across the ocean by an escaped felon who casually discussed violence over breakfast.
Someone had to be worried.
I grabbed the phone so fast I almost knocked over the glass of water beside it.
“Sav?” I answered, already half-smiling. “Hey. I know it’s been a couple days, but I’m actually okay, I just—”
“Adelaide, where the hell have you been?”
The sharpness in her voice made me pause. I had expected relief, maybe even elation, not … this.
“I—”
“Mom said you haven’t called her in over a month,” Savannah continued, her tone already sliding into the familiar clipped rhythm conveying she’d decided I was wrong about something before the conversation had even started. “Do you have any idea how selfish that is?”
My smile faded slowly. “Oh.”
“Our mother is alone in England and you can’t even pick up the phone? What exactly are you doing with your life that you’re so busy you can’t call your own mother?”
I blinked at the wall across from me, stunned.
She. Is. Not. Alone.
Somewhere outside, waves crashed against the cliffs below the villa, the steady roar of the ocean filling the silence suddenly stretching between Savannah’s accusations.
“I thought you were calling because you were worried,” I said finally.
“Worried about what?”
I frowned. “Well … I haven’t exactly been reachable.”
Savannah scoffed. “You’ve always been bad at answering your phone, Addy. That’s not new.”
Something small and sharp twisted in my chest. If I would have imagined this moment, I definitely would have imagined it differently.
There would have been concern, a myriad of questions, and maybe even a little panic.
Not … whatever this was.
I cleared my throat and blinked rapidly. “I’ve been … busy.”
Savannah huffed on the other end of the line.
“Busy doing what? You quit the one steady job you had months ago, the bakery is gone, and unless you’ve suddenly developed a secret career you forgot to mention, I can’t imagine your schedule is that demanding.”
The words landed with the same dull, familiar thud they always had.
As far as Savannah was concerned, I was not ambitious enough, not driven enough, not focussed enough. I wasn’t good enough and yet I somehow still managed to be too much.
My fingers tightened slightly around the phone. “That’s not really fair.”
“Oh please.” She scoffed. “You’ve always drifted from thing to thing. Mom was asking about you and I had to tell her I had no idea what you were doing because you switch jobs so fast, no one can actually keep up.”
I stared out at the water, watching the sun glitter across the surface like shards of glass.
“She didn’t call me either,” I said quietly.
Savannah paused. “That’s not the point.”
“Isn’t it?”
“She’s your mother, Adelaide.”
“And I’m supposed to be her daughter.”
The words slipped out before I could stop them. For a moment there was only the sound of Savannah breathing on the other end of the line.
“You always make everything about you,” she eventually hissed.
Something in me went very still.
I wasn’t angry. Or at least it wasn’t the hot, explosive kind of anger I could categorize. All I felt was … ice. Ice spreading through my chest, pumping through my veins, making me go numb.
For most of my life I would have apologized by now. I would have backtracked, softened my tone, and tried to smooth over the tension like it was my responsibility to make sure everyone else felt comfortable.
Instead I found myself sitting there in Sasha’s oversized shirt, looking out over an ocean thousands of miles away from home, realizing something that felt both obvious and completely new.
I was tired of this charade.
“I worked three jobs last year,” I said slowly.
Savannah went quiet.
“I opened the bakery every morning at six after Dad died because someone had to,” I continued, my voice calm in an almost surprising way.
“Then I closed the café at night because we needed the money. Then I delivered groceries on weekends because the bills kept coming even after the customers stopped.”
“The business was failing long before Dad died—”
“I know.”
“Then why are you acting like you were personally responsible for saving it?”
“Because someone had to try.”
Another stretch of silence.
I could practically see Savannah standing in her pristine kitchen, which I’d only ever seen pictures of, her phone tucked against her ear, her expression tightening the way it always did when a conversation drifted outside the neat boxes she preferred.
“You’ve always been dramatic,” she snapped.
I let out a quiet laugh. “Right.”
“Adelaide—”
“You know what the funny thing is?” I interrupted gently.
More silence, but I plowed on anyway.
“I thought you were calling because something had happened to me.”
Her voice sharpened.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m actually no longer in Florida,” I said simply. “I haven’t answered my phone in days. I stopped texting. I basically dropped off the face of the fucking earth.”
“What?”
“And the first thing you thought wasn’t concern about my well-being, it was accusing me of being selfish.”
Savannah exhaled sharply. “You’re twisting this.”
I scoffed. “Am I?”
“Yes.”
I looked down at the ring of sunlight pooling on the wooden floor. For the first time in a long time, the familiar guilt didn’t rush in to swallow me whole. Instead there was just … distance.
A quiet clarity settling somewhere deep in my chest.
“I’ve decided to take some time for myself. I don’t know when I’ll be back home, to be honest.”
More like, if I’ll be back.
The silence on the other end stretched long enough to almost coax a smile out of me.
“You just … left?” she finally asked.
“Yeah.”
Well, kind of. That’s the official version, I guess.
“You can’t just disappear like that.”
My laugh was dry, sarcastic. “Apparently I can.”
“Adelaide—”
“I’ll call Mom.” … eventually. I rose to my feet and walked toward the balcony doors as the ocean wind lifted the curtains around me. “But not because you yelled at me about it.”
“Sure, whatever you—”
“I’m gonna call her when and if I want to.”
Savannah made a frustrated sound. “You’re being incredibly irresponsible right now.”
“Maybe.” I stepped out onto the balcony, the warm Caribbean air wrapping around me like a completely different life. “But for the first time in fucking forever, I’m actually okay with you thinking that.”
“Adelaide, listen—”
“I have to go.”
“Wait—”
“Tell Mom I’m fine. Or don’t. Doesn’t really seem like you guys care that much.”
Then I hung up. For a moment I just stood there, staring out at the endless stretch of blue water. The quiet felt strange, but not empty.
I heard Sasha’s voice drifting down the hallway behind me as he returned from wherever he had been today.
I froze, straining to hear. Yeah, I was fucking nosy. Sue me.
“… I’m aware of the expectations,” Sasha continued. “Holding the territory, stabilizing the routes, dealing with the resistance—”
The last part made my stomach tighten and I was immediately reminded of the run-in we’d had with those guys in the boutique. There was a pause.
“I understand,” he said again, followed by a heavy sigh.
I exhaled, my heart thudding a little too fast, and took a step back. Heavy footsteps announced his approach, and when he appeared a moment later, I tried to hide the fact I’d been eavesdropping.
Sasha stepped into the room, sliding the phone into his pocket. His brow was slightly furrowed, and his jaw was tight, but his expression softened when he noticed me.
“Everything alright?”
I racked my brains frantically for an answer that wouldn’t give away my indiscretion.
“Yeah, absolutely,” I squeaked. “Just peachy.”
He arched a brow, a faint half-smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, which always made my stomach do a strange somersault.
“Peachy, huh? Because your shoulders are tense, your jaw’s tight, and your eyes are staring at the ocean like it just broke your heart.”
I blinked at him. “You’re terrifyingly observant.”
“Gift and curse,” he said dryly. Then his tone softened. “Addy … are you okay?”
I huffed, crossing my arms over my chest. “I guess I am. My sister called.”
He frowned and took a step closer, his presence warming the cool night air around me. “I’m assuming it wasn’t a pleasant conversation?”
I scoffed. “Yeah, not at all. She … She just makes me feel like nothing I do matters. No matter what I’m juggling, it’s never enough for her. I just…” My voice cracked slightly, but I recovered quickly. “I thought maybe she’d actually care this time.”
Sasha didn’t speak immediately. He just studied me with a quiet kind of intensity, which always made me feel simultaneously seen and exposed. Then he reached out and brushed a hand over my shoulder.
“I get it,” he said softly. “But you have people now. You have me.”
I let his words sink in, letting the silence between us stretch, filled only by the soft sound of the waves below. Sasha made me feel like maybe I wasn’t supposed to keep everything to myself, like maybe someone else could see me without judging me.
I hesitated, then asked the question that had been gnawing at me. “So … the call you were on earlier … what was that about?”
He stiffened slightly but didn’t move away. His eyes met mine, steady and unreadable. “You heard that?”
I nodded sheepishly and lifted one shoulder. “Eh, just fragments.”