Page 43 of Mercy (The Sins Trilogy 3)
The traffic is horrendous. By the time we get to the airport, it’s ten till ten. The first flight is taking off in an hour. Yuna must have already checked in and gone through security by now.
Frustration and tears clog my throat. Damn it, I’m too late. Yuna hasn’t responded to my text, either. Is this how I lose her? Even though she lied to me, this feels like having a limb chopped off.
Because I understand she didn’t lie just for the hell of it. She did it for the same reason Tony did.
If she’d been with me when the killer struck on Saturday, she would’ve pushed me out of the way too. She told me she’s my soul sister. Never hesitated to offer me help, always lent me a shoulder to cry on, always cheered me on when things were going well.
I can’t forget the duet we played together. Rachmaninoff’s “Tarantella.” She cried afterward and vowed to help me reclaim my music—the aspirations I’ve lost along with many of my memories.
“If you miss her, you can always call her after she lands in Korea. I’ll make sure,” Tony says.
“I can’t let her go like this. The problem isn’t so much that she’s going, but that our last interaction was me being angry with her.” I push my hair out of my face. “If anything happens to me, that’s going to be the last memory she has of me.”
He wraps his hand around my wrist, his fingers tense over my erratic pulse. “Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“I know you’ll do your best, and I’m going to be careful too. But there are no guarantees in life.”
There. I said it.I’ve been trying to put on a brave front—unwilling to let the killer cast an ugly shadow over my life. But the fact that I might not be so lucky next time has been hanging over me, even though I’ve been doing my best to ignore it.
Tony gives me a tight hug. “Guarantee or not, I’m going to keep you safe, Ivy. I swear.” He places a kiss on my forehead. “I’m going to help you see Yuna before she leaves, too.”
“How? She’s probably gone through security already. We can’t go there without a ticket.”
His eyes glint.
He walks up to an airline counter with a rep still working, then places two passports in front of her. Bobbi places hers as well.
“Excuse me, I need three tickets leaving tonight,” he says.
The rep looks up from her computer. “What?”
“Three tickets, leaving tonight,” he repeats. “Now.”
He pushes his plastic in her direction.
The rep looks at him like he’s off his meds. “Any particular destination?”
“Anywhere’s fine.”
I walk up to him. “Tony…how?”
“I thought maybe it’d come to this, so grabbed the passports before leaving.”
“But Bobbi?”
“Habit. You never know where a client’s going to want to go,” she says.
Tony brushes his thumb over my cheek. “It’s important to you, so we’re going to get past security and find her. You’ll have a chance to say your piece to her in person.”
Gratitude washes away the frustration. I hug him tightly. If he hadn’t come with me, I would’ve just sat here sobbing in the lobby.
“Thank you.”
He wraps his arms around me. “My pleasure.”
The rep flips through our passports. God, she types so slowly.
“Do we need all three tickets?” I ask when I see the total fare. It’s over three thousand bucks a person. In economy!
