“Looks like we’ll finish this chat later, Grace,” he says as he grabs the fallen hood and yanks it over my head again. I groan as fear floods me. Being blind is worse than I ever could’ve thought. “You’re hiding something from me and I will find out what it is. Take some time and think about your situation. Nobody knows you’re here but me and my most loyal men. Think, Grace. Think about how you might survive. Think about how you might still honor your cousin’s memory. When I return, I hope you have something to tell me.”
And before I can plead with him to stay, to tell me the truth, to make me understand how he knows Riley and what he had her doing, he walks off and I’m plunged into quiet blackness again.
I don’t know how long it lasts. Time doesn’t make much sense when I can’t see much of anything and there’s nothing to hear but groans, hums, and my own breathing. I’m not tied to the chair, but I know that if I get up I might never find it again, and there’s no way I’m going to escape with a bag over my head and my hands bound behind my back.
I’m stuck here. I’m stuck and I’m going to die—and I don’t know if I’ll ever learn the truth.
It’s a while before the door opens again. Enough time that my thoughts drift deeper and deeper into very grim and dark territory as I contemplate my death and imagine myself finally being with Riley once again. No way, girlie, you gotta stay breathing, at least for me. But the Riley in my head is wrong for once.
I’m ready to go. This is the end.
Calvino is my only regret. If I could do anything, I’d go back and spend another night with him, or at least I’d apologize for running the way I did. We had something real, and I was impulsive when I disappeared and went to Damon’s place, and now I’ll never know what could’ve been.
That hurts the most. If I didn’t have Riley dragging me back to hell, if I could somehow move on and be a normal, complete person, maybe I could have a decent life with Calvino. But it’s not possible for me because I’m so twisted and shattered, and too much of my life back home was a misery. Riley was the only shining light in my otherwise bleak daily existence, and no matter how hard I try to love and be loved, all that’s left is a hollow pit in my chest where my heart’s supposed to be.
For a long time, I’ve only been able to imagine filling that hollowness with revenge, but maybe I should’ve tried to fill it with Calvino instead.
Now I’ll never get the chance.
Footsteps come closer. I’m breathing fast and hard. I’m so afraid of saying something that might hurt the people I care about, and I don’t know how long I can last if Vince decides to hurt me. Tears roll down my cheeks, hot and wet, and the hood feels damp when it’s ripped off my head.
I blink rapidly at the face staring at me and a spike of dread fills my veins.
“Hello, Grace,” Rella says, grinning.
Chapter 25
Calvino
I spend the night driving around LA looking for Grace, but she doesn’t turn up anywhere. I drift past all the local haunts, anywhere I think Louie might be hiding, and even check out a few hotels.
“I’ve got a few guys looking, but so far there’s nothing,” Diego says over a steaming coffee in the front room of a cafe I own downtown. “I asked the girls, but none of them have heard from her.”
“Send some guys to check their places anyway just in case they’re being stupidly loyal.”
Diego nods. “Good thinking.”
“I fucked up, Diego.” I take a long sip of the too-hot drink and let it burn my tongue and throat. “I never should’ve told her about Louie, at least not until I was ready to do something about it.”
“You thought she needed to know. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“But I could’ve done it better, maybe had some of the girls around or something. I should’ve figured out a way to keep her from running off at least.”
Diego gives me a long look, and if anyone in this world understands what I’m going through, it’s him. He’s been with me since we were kids, since the bad old days of that awful hellish boarding school where everyone thought they were better than the pair of us and maybe they were right, but we fought and kicked their asses anyway. He knows I’ve never felt like this for a woman before, and the fact that I’m aching so damn much for Grace to come back says all there is to say.