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“Like I said, it’s her choice. I’m just going to support whatever she tells me she wants to do.”
Andy, having been listening in on the conversation, pulls off the main road and into a dingy gas station. He’s shooting off orders and updates over text, redirecting our search with the information he’s picked up on.
“Who was that?” He asks as soon as the phone call clicks dead. The fucker hung up on me. I glare at the phone like I can force him to call me back and tell me where Emma is.
“Derek Vitalis.”
“I didn’t know you could speak to the dead now?”
I huff out a bit of laughter. “Turns out he didn’t die when the building collapsed. He did, however, run away to escape his controlling father and start taking classes in social work in Kansas.”
“Not the career I would think an ex-hitman would pick up, but to each their own.”
Knowing Emma is safe has some of the adrenaline draining from my system. It shouldn’t. I have no reason to trust Derek, and I didn’t get a chance to talk to Emma, but for some inexplicable reason, I trust him. Emma is safe.
Trusting him also means trusting that he’s telling the truth when he says he would make Emma disappear if that’s what she wants. He might overestimate his skill, thinking he can keep her from me, but he can make it very inconvenient.
I’m putting a damn tracking chip in her skull the next time I see her.
“We need a list of all of Derek’s known aliases. I’m sure he’s added a few since his death,” I tell him. He hums in thought.
“You know, now that I think about it, maybe social work is the perfect career for an ex-hitman. I bet he takes care of situations a lot quicker and more effectively than his coworkers.”
Chapter Forty-Three- Emma
The hotel Derek has moved us to is significantly nicer than the motel he originally sent me to. I feel guilty he’s spending all of this money on me. While he insists he has more than enough to cover me, and he doesn’t see me as a poor cause, I can’t help but think there is something better he could spend his money on. When I brought up that I might go back to Enzo, he just told me he would send Enzo the bill if I do.
I spend my day contemplating my decisions. Staying in a hotel is a novelty for Matteo, one he is endlessly entertained with. It won’t last for long. Soon, seeing the same four walls will become boring and he’ll go stir-crazy staying inside all the time. And then he’ll drive me crazy. I suppose we can also go down to the indoor pool or play in the arcade downstairs, but there’s only so many times we can do that.
“Mommy, mommy, mommy,” Matteo says, coming into the room from the bathroom. “Water comes out of the ceiling!”
I glance at him, only to realize he soaked himself in water. He figured out how to turn on the rainfall showerhead in the bathroom, I realize with a wince. Even worse, I hadn’t heard the running water because I was so distracted.
Water that’s still running.
I didn’t exactly grab clothes for us when we left, and we can’t exist in the one new outfit I grabbed for us from the gift shop downstairs. They are painfully touristy, and definitely out of season. There’s a supermarket down the street, and they should have clothes for relatively cheap. I don’t need to spend a lot on clothes, not when Derek is the one footing the bill.
I strip Matteo down and hang the clothes he’s wearing up to dry. Thankfully, the hotel has a small laundromat, because I could wash the clothes we ran away in. I should figure out what kind of detergent the hotel provided because it got the blood out without staining.
Everywhere we go, it feels like we have eyes on us. It’s a ridiculous thought. We’re not in the same city as Enzo. Andy had pointed out that Enzo probably had access to every camera within the town so we drove two hours away. It’s natural, I reason with myself, to be paranoid while in hiding. Someone might not be actively watching me, but someone is looking for me.
We’ll have to pick up hats, I think to myself as we walk into the store. There aren’t too many people here, but it is midday on a workday and the town isn’t large to begin with. I almost wish we had headed into the city. New York City is so large it takes more effort to not disappear than it does to. The small town makes me feel vulnerable.
Matteo is going to be turning five soon, I realize. I’d lost track of the days recently. His birthday is in three weeks. I feel my heart break all over again because he’ll be spending his birthday away from all of the family he loves.
It also means I probably need to buy his clothes a size up, I realize. He’s a big kid, and I always have to dress him a size up from the average for his age. Besides, these clothes might need to last me for a while. I’d hate to ask Derek to buy us more because Matteo went through a growth spurt.
Enzo should be here with me.
I don’t know if he would want to help me pick out clothes for Matteo. I’ve known enough dads who don’t care to take part in little caretaking activities like this, but he’s wanted to be involved in everything I have let him so far. Maybe he’d love to pick out new shoes.
Another thought crosses my mind when I glance across the aisle from the kids’ clothes at the baby section. I hadn’t realized it, but at some point, I started thinking about having more kids. Maybe a girl who I could play dress up with. Or another little boy who could play chase and be best friends with Matteo. If Enzo got his way, we’d have more than enough chances to get both. He practically started planning a nursery already.
“You’re a hard woman to track down when you want to be.”
My eyes snap up at the woman who is standing in front of me. Blonde hair, a bombshell figure, and fingers curled around the shoulder of my terrified son.
Nina. She’s different now than when I first met her. Gone is the flirtation and in its place is a cool, cruel expression. Matteo looks terrified. His wide eyes dart between Nina and me, her fingers curl into the skin of his shoulder.
