head’s pounding. I need to find an elevator. Hurry up! My stomach hurts. I see a door that’s labeled EXIT. It’s a push door—thank you, stairwell. I push, and I’m in the stairwell. There’s a lot of stairs. I’m staring down them when the door opens again, hitting my shoulder.
“Fuck.”
“Luca?” I can barely hear her for my own moans.
“Baby, what are you doing?” Her hands on my neck. She’s gripping my good side. “Cuore, look at me.”
I shut my eyes, dizzy as shit.
“Where are you going? What’s the matter?” Her hands are on my shoulders. Her arms wrap around me gently.
“Does everybody know?” My voice sounds like an echo.
“That you’re here? Like, you specifically? No, of course not. No one knows.”
“But what about…the cameras?”
“Dani paid off one of the guards in her building. He lost his job for ‘forgetting’ to check the garage cams that night, so now he’s working for Dani’s mother, who she claims needed someone anyway.”
I open my eyes. “Go home.” My voice cracks. “I don’t…want to fuck shit up. Elise.” I hold my head, which is pounding sickly. “I don’t want to…be that person…for you.”
“What do you mean?” Her voice is gentle.
I’m not fucking up her life—not if I can help it. “Did he die?”
“Do you mean Aren?” Her hand rubs my back. “He did.” I feel her move in front of me, but I can’t open my eyes. Then she wraps her hand around the wrist of my unhurt arm, and I force myself to look at her.
“You have to go, rosa. There’s gonna be a…war. Someone’s gonna die. I can’t let it…be Alesso. Or my brother.”
“What does that mean?” She looks worried. “Are you saying it has to be you?”
I don’t know if they’ll avenge him. Jesus Christ, my head is spinning. I grab the rail. She says, “Please, please Luca. Let’s go back to bed now.”
“If I kill one of theirs first…and scare them…then it might not get far.” I feel cold and strange.
“I think you need to sit down. I’m scared you’re going to fall.”
There’s no way I’m sitting down. I’d never get back up. I can feel her move in closer, wrapping one arm carefully around me. Her hand is on my nape. She lowers my head to her shoulder. “I love you so much, Luca.”
“There’s not a way out. Always…a bad time. And right now…it’s really bad.”
Her hands stroke my hair. “Are you talking about leaving your job?”
I nod.
“Do you want to get out? Would you if you could?”
A groan slips out. It’s because I’m bending over, curled against her.
“What would you do if you could do anything? If you could start all over.”
It feels good—her holding me. I find her belly with my hand, relieved to see it’s still round.
“I want the selfish thing,” I whisper, my head reeling. “The do-over…that doesn’t exist.”
For a long moment, she’s silent. Then she whisper-hisses, “There’s no cameras in the stairwells. Dani told me. She found out from someone she knows who works here. She’s been bringing things up to me, and we meet in a stairwell—so no one sees her either. Luca, can you lift your head and look at my eyes?”
I do—because she asked.
“You look like you’re really tired. It’s been a while since you got medicine. But if I help, do you think you could get down these stairs? There’s a lot of them. Like five flights.”
I’m surprised she thinks we should leave. But I nod.
Her gaze holds mine. “Do you trust me?”
I nod. I’ve got a cold sweat going now—but I trust her.
I swallow as Elise pulls out her cell phone, holding it to her ear, cupping her hand around it as she whispers. I’ve got my eyes on my bare feet, but I hear her murmuring. “Do it a little early. Yes, the south side. On the way…like as you’re pulling up, call and say…in a stairwell…fifth floor… Ree will have to call the second we leave—so tell her right now…say she saw a man get hit. Near the…took the body.” There’s a pause, where my pulse whooshes in my head. “It doesn’t matter if it’s…exactly. Dilla’s car…not breaking laws by leaving. We were going to do this anyway…”
I have the sense of her ending the conversation. Then her hand rubs my back. “We’re going to get out of here. Does that work? You’ve been in here almost four days. They were going to send you home tomorrow, they said—and Dani and I had cooked up this crazy