Starlet: A Dark Retelling - Cora Kenborn Page 0,133
deli and dragged the owner into the alley with a gun to his head, but it was all for nothing. The name she gave them was a fake.
I didn’t give up. For years, I followed the same routine, visiting that same deli, day after fucking day. But I never saw her again. I never knew her name.
“You know what’s in there. You’ve always known it.”
Maybe Alexandra was right. Maybe in some way, I have always known it. There was just something about that boy that got under my skin from the minute I caught him stealing my wallet. I chuckle to myself. The balls on that kid—like steel. Not too many fifteen-year-olds would look down the barrel of a gun and mouth off to Luciano Ricci.
That’s why I did what I did.
Because, like I told Dominic the last time I saw him, most people don’t get a second chance to make things right. If you do, don’t fuck it up.
One Year Ago
Something doesn’t feel right.
I can’t explain it. It’s just an ache in my bones that makes me restless. Since Dominic walked out, I’ve been on edge. More than once, I’ve had my phone in my hand but put it down each time.
He’s a grown man. This is his problem.
She’s a grown woman. She’s not my problem.
But on the fourth pace around my desk, my eye catches the calendar. I don’t have a family. No wife or kids. My parents are both dead. What do I care that it’s Christmas Eve?
I don’t.
But that grown man and woman, they sure as hell do. And after the shit I laid down tonight and the truth I have no doubt Dominic dug out of the bowels of the blue vault, I don’t know where their heads are at.
I’m pulled out of my thoughts as my phone chimes with an incoming text. Grabbing it off my desk, I read the one word staring back at me.
Goodbye.
Before I can change my mind, I’m in my car, driving to Bel Air. It’s not smart. The last thing I need to be seen doing is driving onto Romanov property on the damn anniversary of the murders.
Fucking stupid, Luciano. Real fucking stupid.
But I don’t even get close to the gate before I see it swing open, and an Audi tears through it like a bat out of hell. It’s too dark to see who’s behind the wheel, so I follow it.
Again, stupid, but I’m too far in to turn back now.
“The fuck are you doing, boy?” I mutter under my breath as I floor the gas pedal, hitting ridiculous speeds trying to keep up with him as he takes sharp turns like a suicidal moron.
Finally, he slams on the brakes at the end of Beechwood and flings the driver’s side door open. Only it’s not Dominic. It’s Alexandra.
She’s dressed in a thin, flowing nightgown and—what the fuck? Is she barefooted?
Pulling off the side of the road behind her, I throw the car in park and take off running as she heads toward the Hollywood Reservoir hiking trail.
Shit!
How in the hell is she running on unpaved dirt so fast without shoes? I can’t keep up with her as she disappears down the winding trail, the overhanging branches swallowing her along with the night.
“Alexandra!” I growl, but I have no idea if she hears me. I’ve lost sight of her.
Jesus Christ, I’m out of shape.
The hiking trail is long, and by the time I wedge myself through a newly-cut opening in the chain link fence and make it to the bridge, I’m gasping for air and my chest feels like it’s been beat with a branding iron. I stop for just a minute and rest my hands on my thighs to catch my breath.
That’s when I hear her. I look up, and my heart slams against my chest. Alexandra is standing on the other side of the railing, one hand wrapped around the top and the other clutching something against her chest. I want to run and jerk her the hell back over, but there’s too much space between us. I’d never make it in time.
“Remember what you always used to say?” she says, and there’s something different in her voice. “You can’t drown in the rain as long as you run from the storm. I don’t need to run anymore, Angel. The storm is over.”
The storm?
She speaks again, “What are you saying, Alexandra?”
Angel. Alexandra.
Oh fuck.
Her chin turns to the side as she answers herself again. “I’m saying you were