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“You can.” Her dramatic huff makes me feel like she’s my teenage daughter, even though she’s a year older than me. “It’s early. I can get it any time.”
“No you can’t. I got what we need, Nix. The next phase of the plan could happen any time.”
“You do?” Her voice is brighter now. Sharper. I can practically see the wide smile on her face. “You have one of them right now?”
“I will soon.” She lets out another noisy sigh, and I roll my eyes but keep my tone even. “Maybe tomorrow, a few days at most. You know we can’t rush this. It has to be right. Which means I need to know you’ve got all the pieces in place.”
“I say you just rock up to their fancy-ass house and shoot them all in the fucking head. That’s what I’d do.”
Yeah, and get both of us killed in the process. “These are the Morettis,” I remind her instead. “Not some punk who hit on you in a bar. We do this my way or not at all.”
“Whatever.”
“So, the supplies? Can you get it all today?”
“Sure.”
I scratch the tip of my nose, squinting as the sun peeks out from behind a cloud. “Everything on the list.”
“I can handle a fucking grocery list,” she snaps.
I roll my lips together, biting back the retort that springs so easily to my tongue, and remind myself she’s all I have. We’re all each other has. “Did you take your meds today, honey?”
Silence.
“Phoenix?”
“I don’t like the way they make me feel, Kee.” She’s back to whining like an overstimulated toddler.
Taking a deep breath, I channel my nurturing side that seems harder to access when dealing with her. “But you’ll get sick and then they’ll try to take you away again. You don’t want that, do you?”
“I hate you not being here. It’s so fucking hard doing everything on my own.”
“Just a few more weeks and this will all be over. Promise. But only if you follow my plan. We have to be smart about this.”
“And then we can go live on our island? Just me and you, and no one will ever bother us again?” The childlike optimism in her voice is no easier to handle than her whining.
I rub my throbbing temples. “Yeah. Just you and me.”
“I’ll get the stuff today.”
“Thank you.”
I stuff my phone into my jacket pocket and put on my helmet while trying to shake the image of a grumpy Phoenix burying her head under the covers and falling back to sleep rather than going to the hardware store and buying the things she’ll need to keep Joey Moretti prisoner for the next few weeks.
This plan has been twelve long years in the making, and nothing and nobody will fuck it up for me. Not even Phoenix, my… What the hell is she to me? She isn’t my best friend; we barely tolerate each other. I suppose she’s my sister. We were bound together as children by a darkness so profound that it still consumes us both, forever keeping us in the shadows and far from the light. But not even Phoenix knows the whole truth. Nobody does. The only other person who knew died an agonizing death with the secret on her lips.
The memory of my mom knocks the air from my lungs, and I do the only thing I can when the bitter memories of my past threaten to overwhelm me: I take off as fast as my bike will go, flying down the almost-empty freeway. With my visor up, I can feel the wind on my face, and I lean into the solitude of the open road. The only place I ever feel at peace.
Scrolling through Romeo’s Instagram page, Biker_69, I pore over his photographs and captions, trying to learn as much about him as possible. It’s all for research and has absolutely nothing to do with the shirtless pictures of him on his bike, which are certainly what earned him most of his forty thousand followers given the comments section.
I stop at an image of him and a blond woman with her hand on his chest. Her pouting crimson-painted lips are slightly parted as she stares at the camera. Wondering if she means something to him, I study his body language. He’s leaning toward her, but their bodies aren’t pressed tightly together. His hand rests on her hip, fingers relaxed and not digging into her flesh. No bruising grip where his fingertips would leave a mark like they did with me. He’s not holding onto her like he never wants to let her go. And for a reason I don’t want to explore any further, that makes me feel happy.
A notification tells me Romeo just sent Ace a message.
Can you pick up my suit from the cleaners on your way? Joey’s attending that charity event downtown next Friday so looks like we are too.
Jackpot! I sit up in bed, a wide smile spreading across my face as Ace’s one word reply of agreement comes through. After opening the web browser, I search for charity events in Chicago on Friday. If Joey Moretti is attending, it’s got to be something big. Given the number of charities the Morettis are patrons of, I figure they’ll take any chance to convince the rest of the world that they aren’t the heartless monsters they truly are. I have no idea why they try to do that, but maybe I’ll ask them when I have the Moretti brothers strung up and at my mercy.
