“We haven’t heard from West in a while,” she says just as there’s a knock on the door.
I brush my hands against my jeans, walking through the house to answer it. The last thing I was expecting to find was Royal, his usual scowl in place, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen him in person. The overgrown beard is new, as is the shaggy hair that touches his shoulders. His unruly appearance is nowhere near as unsettling as the fact that he’shere.
“Umm, hi?”
“You haven’t been answering your phone,” he grumbles, jaw as tight as his expression. I balk at his accusation as my chest starts to ache.
“When have you tried to contact me? I’ve literally been glued to my phone all afternoon, waiting to hear from someone.” I pull my phone from my back pocket, not seeing any missed calls or messages. “Why?”
“I was trying to give you some warning of my arrival,” he says, peering behind my shoulder. “It kept going straight to voicemail.” My heart feels like it’s beating in my throat, pulling an onslaught of nausea along with it. Royal rarely seeks me out in person. We almost exclusively communicate through text. I push the door open, inviting him in, but he grabs onto my wrist, stopping me. “Wait.” He looks behind him at a blacked-out SUV then back to me. “Not in there.”
He crosses his arms over his chest. His shirt sleeves are rolled up, showing both forearms decorated with tattoos I don’t recognise from the last time we saw each other. A gun on each side with flowers wrapped tightly around the barrel, blooming all around it. There’s no colour, all clouded in shadows.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and a chill runs over my arms. “What’s going on?” I ask.
He tips his chin, pointing past my shoulder.
I turn around to find Aurora carefully watching us. “Babe, can you please figure out what’s wrong with my phone?” I hand it to her. “My calls are going straight to voicemail.”
She nods, accepting my phone before giving Royal a curious look. My skin feels like it’s crawling as I wait for her to leave so I can find out what’s going on.
“You somehow had airplane mode turned on,” she says, pausing halfway down to the entry hall. “And did you know the flashlight was on too?”
She holds up my phone, and sure enough, the light on the back is glowing.
“I don’t know how either of those things happened.” Seriously… how the fuck did I do that?
“Westley texted you not long ago. They’re on their way back.”
“Okay. Thanks, Superstar.”
She gives a tight smile, looking reluctant to leave, but I give her an encouraging nod, and she backs away until she’s out of sight.
“Please don’t tell me we need to leave,” I whisper, trembling over every word.
I can’t do it again. I can’t run when I’ve finally found the one thing I always wanted for myself. Not when everything has just started to feel like some semblance of perfection. I’ve finally found everything I dreamed of, something I fought for but never thought I’d truly hold within my grasp. Safety. Steadiness. Love.
Royal shakes his head slowly. “She found you.”
Everything comes to a screeching halt, and I’m suddenly out of my body. As if I’m stuck between two worlds, belonging to neither one. The past and the present.
“W-what?”
Everything feels wrong. Royal looks over his shoulder, back to the car, and I catch movement in the front seat.
“Who’s that?”
Royal’s lips twist as he looks away. “I told you. She found you. I was able to stop her, to a certain degree.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” The words burst from my throat before I swallow them down, and I step outside, pulling the door closed behind me. “Aurora is inside.”
“I tried to call you,” he hisses. “She’s been clean for six years. She’s never reached out to your dad while he was inside. I watched her closely when he got out, but she never tried. I thought she was dating some new guy, but I found out a few hours ago that it was a private investigator. She’d been looking for you. The guy she hired is an ex-cop who was using facial recognition programs. You and Aurora got caught on the news when someactress was out in public. She almost wasn’t going to come, but then…”
My knees feel weak as my head spins, recalling a few weeks back when Westley took us out to the harbour. All these years, I tried so hard to keep us safe. To keep us out of sight. Why now? Why me? Just,why?
“There was a drug trade gone wrong. Your dad’s crew. He was one of the casualties.”
“He’s dead?”
