Page 106 of Ruthless Secrets
“How far away are you from here?” But I already know the answer.
Still, no harm in hoping I’m wrong.
“At least an hour.”
“Fuck.” I knew it.
“Get the girls packed and ready and let me organize a safe house. Alfonzo has already proven once that he can get to us by taking Zoe, and I’m not about to make that mistake again.”
The thought of being separated from Clara and Zoe makes me feel sick. What if I never see them again?
“Where will they go?”
Andre is silent for a moment, so I start to pace nervously around his office, each second that ticks by heavy like a dead weight in my stomach.
Glass crunches beneath my shoes and the room now reeks from the alcohol that is seeping into the carpet.
“I can’t risk sending them to one of our other properties. It needs to be somewhere off-grid. Somewhere Alfonzo and Tommaso would never think to look.”
“Alio.”
“What?”
“Our cousin, Alio. He has a cabin upstate that’s off grid. What if they went there?”
“We haven’t spoken to Alio in years. Not since…”
“…Our father’s funeral. Yes, I know.” I can’t stop pacing. “But he did tell us if we ever needed help to call on him.”
Andre is quiet, and my patience starts to waver.
We can’t afford to waste any more time.
“This might be our only option Andre. We can trust Alio.”
“You’re right. I’ll call him and make the arrangements if you can get the girls ready.”
Bile starts to burn my throat as I think about Clara and Zoe.
“They’re going to be fine, Marco,” Andre adds, as if he can read my thoughts.
“There’s no other option.” I hang up the phone.
How the hell am I going to get Clara to listen to me after the way I’ve acted recently? I just have to hope that she’s willing to hear me out long enough for me to get her and Zoe somewhere safe.
A thin sheen of sweat breaks out on the back of my neck as I head down the hall toward Clara’s sewing room. It’s quiet, but I know she’s still in there from the light that is seeping through the gap at the bottom of the door.
I don’t bother knocking, I just throw open the door. “Clara, we need to go.”
Her head snaps up from where she's bent over her sewing machine.
The look she gives me is so cold that it almost makes her unrecognizable, and I hate that I’m the reason for it.
She turns back to her work. “Get out, Marco. I don’t want to talk to you.”
I cross over to her sewing table. “Clara… You and Zoe, I need to get you out of here.”
For a second, she stares at me with those beautiful green eyes, and then she’s jumping to her feet and looking like she might launch her sewing machine at me.
