Page 60 of Salvatore

“I’m sorry.” I choke on the words with my retreat. “I’m so sorry, Liv. Just give me some space to figure it out.”

I turn and walk away, my heartbeat growing faster, my footsteps following suit. I’m jogging by the time I hit the end of the block, then I stop to kick off my shoes and palm my cell so I can run, determined to outpace the tears threatening to spill, but their advance gains on me.

I’m alone again. Back where I was at sixteen. Friendless. Soon-to-be jobless, and eventually homeless.

I’m a panting, sweaty mess as I reach the front doors of my apartment building, my hand shaking as I input my access code to enter the foyer.

I climb the stairs at a sprint, holding my shit together with the barest of threads, and make a beeline for my apartment to place my cell against the smartphone lock. It’s the only safety concession my landlord gave me after my apartment was broken into last year. But the slight nudge of my device against the black screen has the door creaking open an inch.

I freeze. Stop breathing.

All my senses are on alert as I calmly take in my surroundings, eying the common hall for signs of danger that aren’t apparent.

Everything is quiet. Not a whisper of noise except for the barely there scuffle of nails from Mrs. Hale’s poodle in the apartment above.

I wish I could back away. Call the cops. But there’s no one who can help me.

I’m a one-woman show, and all I have left is in this apartment.

I inch the door wider, taking in my darkened living room with its drawn drapes and shadowed kitchen. I can’t remember how I left it. Yesterday morning before the funeral is a blur.

Still there’s no sound as I slowly chance a calming breath and lean forward to slide my hand along my living room wall toward the light switch.

Then my wrist is captured and I’m yanked inside.

14

IVY

I’m notsure which God I pissed off, but it must be one of the vindictive ones. A powerful deity who obviously thinks I haven’t suffered enough this week.

I’d pray for forgiveness if I thought it would help, yet somehow I’m convinced pleading words to an unseen force won’t help me escape the back of my brother Alonso’s car when his henchman is seated on the opposite side of the vehicle with a gun pointed at my chest.

I haven’t been blindfolded, which doesn’t bode well.

Usually, when Gabriel summons me via an unwilling abduction, I’m delivered to him with my head hooded or eyes bound. Today it’s only my wrists that are restrained in front of me, in what looks to be the silken tie from my bathrobe.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“Shut up,puta.” Alonso scowls at me from the rearview mirror. “Just because you’re currently in one piece doesn’t mean you’ll stay that way.”

I raise a brow, trying to wordlessly articulate how little my brother intimidates me, but it’s hard to pull off nonchalance when the tortured soul I once saw in his eyes is no longer there. He’s empty. A black hole. One that currently has my phone.

He turns up the radio, the Latin pop blasting my ears.

The drug-addled guy beside me starts to sing, his bellowed words off-key and unnecessarily spat my way as he swirls his gun at me like a conductor’s baton.

Does Alonso realize I’m one unseen pothole away from being a perforated mess?

I shift my body toward the door and stare out the window, breathing through the unease. I’ve survived every Gabriel-inspired abduction so far. I’ll survive this one too. I just need to be smart.

I take note of the landmarks outside. The buildings. The street signs. I’m being driven back toward the city like a battered yo-yo in need of retirement. Then driven into the underground parking garage of a towering apartment building far taller and classier than my own.

Once Alonso finds a parking space and cuts the engine, he grabs a leather jacket from the passenger seat and throws it at me, the heavy weight slapping my face before falling on top of my bound hands.

“Keep that over your wrists,” he sneers. “Don’t draw any fucking attention.”

Both men get out, the two of them coming to stand at my door, the drug-addled gun wielder pulling me from the vehicle by my hair, blatantly dismissive of the ‘no attention’ memo.

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