Page 81 of The Lies We Tell

“That was Taglia on the phone. He went up to collect Tessa’s lunch tray, and her room was empty. He said he can’t find her anywhere.”

Matteo shoved to his feet and grabbed his jacket, slipping it on as he headed for the elevator at a jog. Something foreboding slithered over him and wrapped around his throat, though he couldn’t explain it. He should be pissed she’d figured out a way to outsmart his locked door, but the only emotion he could conjure up was worry.

Taglia was waiting for him at the courtyard gate when Matteo careened up the driveway and screeched to a halt.

“How the hell did she get out?”

“I’m not sure, Il Signore. But I think maybe with this.” He held up a butter knife. “I found it on her bed with this note.”

Matteo stopped short at the base of the stairs and snatched the note from Taglia’s hand.

I’m supposed to meet with my father today. I’m going to prove to you I’m on your side. Or die trying.

Then there was an address on the bottom. Matteo crumpled the note in his fist and took the stairs two at a time, racing down the hall and around the corner to her room. It was empty, as Taglia said, her lunch tray untouched, the closet full of her clothes.

He crossed to her balcony doors and wrenched them open. It was too high up for her to jump, and there was nothing she could have used to climb down. There’s no way she would have waltzed out the front door without being seen. If she had, everyone was getting fucking fired.

Turning to go back inside, he noticed his own balcony and the sweeping spiral stairs that led down to the grass. Cursing under his breath, he tore across the hall and into his own room. Sure enough, his balcony doors were unlatched, and the bottom drawer of his nightstand was open and empty. Clever.

“Are there any cars missing?”

Taglia looked at him with wide eyes. “I didn’t… I haven’t checked, Il Signore. I’m sorry.”

Sprinting back down the stairs and out the door, Matteo was barely fighting his growing panic as he mashed the buttons on the garage’s keypad. The door swung slowly open. Impatient, he dipped underneath it.

The Alfa Romeo was gone.

She’d snuck out of her room, taken his spare weapon, and stolen his car to go meet her father, but why? Luca would say it was to give him more information. But what else was there to give him? She’d been locked in her room without a way to communicate for two days.

Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he dialed Maeve. “Can you track the Alfa Romeo for me?”

“She took it? One second.” The sound of tapping keys drifted over the line. “It’s not far from the house. I’ll ping the address to your phone. Matteo,” she added before he could hang up, “I’m going send Luca to you as backup. Be careful, and don’t do anything stupid.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Tessa circled the block around the shop where she was supposed to meet her father for the fifth time. She didn’t recognize any of the cars in the parking lot, didn’t see her father waiting for her in the alley. He was late, and that wasn’t like him.

Maybe Matteo had tipped him off, or her father knew she was compromised and decided not to show up. If that was the case, she was only making things worse with Matteo by sneaking out and going back with nothing to show for it.

Someone had probably realized she was missing by now, and the first thing they would have done was call Matteo. Matteo, who didn’t trust her anymore, who had people like Luca whispering in his ear about how horrible she was. Luca might be right, but she was trying to make up for that now.

Assuming she got a chance to prove herself. It would be next to impossible if her father really wasn’t coming.

On her next pass, she saw a familiar steel-gray sedan pull into the lot and park close to the mouth of the alley between the store and the restaurant next to it. Her father climbed out, a hat pulled low to hide his eyes, and hunched into his jacket to obscure more of his face.

Tessa frowned. Carina was right. Her father really was trying to lay low and avoid being recognized. Even on this side of the island, where people were less likely to be looking for him. She wasn’t used to seeing him so cautious, his moves jerky while he scanned the parking lot.

Tomaso climbed out of the passenger side and moved to stand with their father, his blond hair dancing in the breeze. Tessa gritted her teeth at his presence. In eight years, she’d never once been able to get out from under his bastard shadow.

In another life, born to different parents, they might have had the opportunity to be as close as brother and sister. They were only two years apart. They could have had a relationship if her father would have allowed it, if Tessa didn’t hold Tomaso’s very existence at least partially to blame for her mother’s disappearance.

Death. Her mother was dead. And now Tomaso was an added complication, the signature on her death warrant. There was no way she could walk away from this alive with Tomaso standing by her father’s side.

Pulling the car around, she parked a few rows away from the sedan, securing the gun under her sweater. She willed her pounding heart to slow as she paced across the lot.

This would have been easier to manage if her father had come alone like she asked him to. She could have taken him by surprise then, put a bullet in him before he knew what was happening, and then take the proof of her loyalties back to Matteo.

Now she desperately needed a plan B.

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