“I’m kidding. Sort of.” Her cell phone buzzes in her hand and she looks down at the screen, and the slight furrow to her brow has me asking, “What is it?”
“Hold on,” she says, punching in a reply to the message, and then linking her arm with mine. “Niccolo is standing near the stairs we need to take.”
“Can’t we go another way?”
“Not if we’re going to make them think I’m you, when I leave through the front with Kayden.”
“We can’t just walk right by him.”
“Kayden’s going to create a distraction right when we get into Niccolo’s line of sight. So here’s the plan.” She locks our arms. “I’m going to hang on to you, and we’re going to keep our heads
low, like two new girlfriends chatting it up about pasta and coffee, and we’ll zip right past him.” We near the end of the hallway and she stops. “If you suddenly have a flashback that causes an urge to stop, shout, or shoot, just hold on to me and let me get you through it.”
Stunned that Kayden would tell her anything at all, I look over at her. “What do you know about me and Niccolo?”
“That you have amnesia, and think that he did something horrible to you or someone you love. And I get it. He did something horrible to someone I love.” Emotions knife through her eyes, and she cuts her gaze away. “Don’t ask for details.” She squeezes my arm. “Let’s get this over with.”
I nod, and as we reenter the party, I decide that death really is too good for Niccolo. Destruction. Disgrace. Jail. Those things sound good. “Head down,” Sasha warns as we pass the piano, then laughs as if I’ve said something funny. I laugh, too, and, needing a place to put my nerves, I say, “Pasta, pasta, coffee.”
She snickers and says, “Coffee, coffee, and pasta. We’re going up the center stairs and he’s to the left by the food displays.”
“Got it. How is he even here when he’s a criminal, and Donati is here?”
“We’re with politicians,” she says. “They’re all criminals.”
“Right,” I say, and we both fake laugh as some man stops in front of us, gazing down at her cleavage while she waves him off, and drags me around him. “Bastard,” she mutters. “Here we go. Niccolo on our left. Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. Assholes everywhere. Coffee. Your turn.”
“Pasta. Pasta. Pasta. Assholes everywhere and I swear my skin is tingling like he’s looking.”
“We’re gorgeous. Of course he’s looking. And one of us is Kayden’s woman. Someone will have told him, but there’s about to be a planned distraction. Don’t react.” We reach the steps and start our climb, and the sound of glasses crashing to the ground fills the air.
“That was a tray of champagne being dropped right next to Niccolo,” she tells me. “Kayden promised the waiter extra if Niccolo got wet.” The sound of an angry, familiar male voice rips through the air.
“And I’m betting the waiter is getting that tip,” Sasha quips.
Niccolo’s voice lifts in the air again, and his voice, his anger, is familiar, but not quite right for some reason. A niggling memory begins to come back to me. Images flicker and then take control. I am in “his” bedroom, and I’m holding the gun, pacing, certain of what I have to do. Decision made, I walk to the bathroom and grab my purse, then open a drawer and grab the cosmetic bag where I’ve stashed the cash I’ve been collecting for weeks. I head for the door and open it, exiting to the hallway, when I hear two male voices raised in anger, his and another coming from the office down the hall. The office door opens and I hurry back into the bedroom, peering through a crack as they approach and then stop on the stairs in front of me.
“Ella,” Sasha says, jolting me back to the present. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Sorry. I’m fine.” I realize that I blacked out again, and we’re now at the top of the steps.
“This way,” she says, dragging me to the right, behind a wall, but I can still hear Niccolo’s voice, and I know—I just know—that if I see him, I’ll remember everything I have lost and need to find.
I jerk free of Sasha’s hold, turning back toward the party and stepping just to the edge of the wall, my gut clenching as I find Niccolo in profile. “Ella,” Sasha hisses, closing her hand down on my arm again.
“One minute,” I whisper, planting my feet and holding on to her. “Just one minute. I have to see his face.”
And in that moment, as if he senses my presence, he turns and looks toward us. Sasha and I both jolt backward and start moving down the hallway, but I saw his face. “You’re a crazy person,” Sasha chides. “Crazy, insane, and did I say crazy?”
“Amnesia sucks,” I say. “I had to try and jolt my memory.”
“Did it work?”
“No. It didn’t work.”
“Some things are easier forgotten anyway,” she declares, echoing Kayden’s sentiments and turning us around a corner into a narrow hallway. “Here,” she says, opening a door, and we step inside a dark room that I think is a library.
“What are we doing?” I ask as she locks us inside.