Page 156 of Stalking Ginevra

I tilt my head. “How old is he?”

“He never said,” she replies with a laugh.

“What? Didn’t he mention his age when you were younger?”

Eyes flickering with regret, she shakes her head. “I didn’t even know who he was until after I left foster care.”

I nod, remembering the background she shared after fighting that brute. Curiosity burns in my chest about what she might have endured living with foster parents, but I clamp my mouth shut. Her trauma isn’t my entertainment.

“How did you find him?” I ask, picturing her hiring a private detective.

Carla shrugs, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “He came to the door of my foster home on my eighteenth birthday, bearing gifts.”

“Really?” I ask with a frown.

She nods, her cheeks turning pink. “It was like that scene inAnnie, where she’s adopted by Daddy Warbucks. It’s so nice getting to know my roots.”

There’s something in her tone—a mix of hope and nostalgia—that makes me think of Dad. I saw him every day of my life, but I only really knew him after he was gone.

I thought the worst of him was the violence that erupted when I refused his request to get engaged to Samson. Then I found out he’d gotten an underage girl pregnant, groomed another, and stole an entire law firm.

Carla licks the chocolate off her fingers and re-shuffles the cards. I reach for a strawberry and dip it in the chocolate. It’s hard to feel self-pity when others’ lives are so much worse.

As she deals a new hand, a loud bang shatters the quiet, followed by the shrill ring of the fire alarms.

I shoot out of my seat, my heart hammering hard enough to break through my ribs. Carla gets up and rushes to the exit, while I stand at the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Below, people pour out through the casino’s front doors and gather around the fountains, their bodies small and frantic from this great height.

“What the hell?” I whisper, my breath fogging the glass.

“Nothing in here,” Carla shouts over the alarms.

“Something’s happening downstairs,” I say from the window.

Her gaze darts around the room, landing on a pair of sandals I left by the bed. “Put them on. We’re leaving.”

Before I can respond, the door bursts open, and a young man rushes in with a gun. His face is pale, his eyes wide with urgency. “Mrs. Montesano, we need to go.”

Throat tightening, I press myself against the glass. “Who are you?”

“Lorenzo,” he replies, his voice low. “There’s been an explosion at the back of the hotel. The casino is under attack. We need to get you to safety.”

A chill runs down my spine, cold fear sinking into the marrow of my bones. I don’t recognize this man. How the fuck do I know he isn’t the face of Bob Brisket?

Anyone deranged enough to break into a penthouse to carve out another man’s heart is capable of planting a bomb in the casino to abduct me to his lair. My mind races, trying to connect the dots, but all I feel is dread. It settles into my gut, rooting my feet to the marble.

“I’m not going anywhere until I speak to Benito,” I say over the shrill of the alarms.

Carla steps forward, placing a hand on my arm. “Lorenzo works for Mr. Montesano. He’s one of his men.”

My stomach twists into painful knots. I trust Carla, but I don’t trust Brisket not to hold her father hostage. They could be working together.

Before I can argue further, Lorenzo pulls out his phone and dials. It rings beneath the alarm’s incessant screech, but after a few tense seconds, Benito’s face appears on the screen.

He’s in the back seat of a car, his tense features softening when he sees me.

“The casino is under attack,” Benito says. “You and Carla should go with Lorenzo and Vitale. They’ll keep you safe.”

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