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“Whiskey? I ask, pulling a bottle from the dark walnut bar cabinet behind my desk. Travis nods his acceptance, but John, who is their medic, gives him a dirty look and a grim negative shake of his head. “Alcohol is not advisable, boss. Not with the concussions that I’m sure you both have.”
Blake makes a disgusted noise, and I don’t bother holding back my laughter at the disgruntled look on his face. It’s the first time my laugh has been genuine since Analise left.
“I hope you don't mind if I have one.” I chuckle, pouring three fingers worth of the amber liquid into a tumbler and lift it to my lips. “It's not every day that you find out your uncle is staging a coup, and kidnapping my wife was his first fucking strike.” The shocked silence that follows my words resonates through the room.
“Well fuck,” Travis says, “That complicates things a bit.” He looks over at John, “ You sure I can't have that drink, doc?”
“Still not the best idea, Trav,” he responds, his voice amused.
Travis shakes his head with a shrug. “Any idea where your uncle has set up shop?” He asks.
“No, but my guys are working on that.” I also share my suspicions about Analise's father somehow being involved. He didn’t report for work today, and there is no real reason that I can think of for him to be gone.
“I knew he was trouble when I brought him out here.” I slam my empty glass down on the desk, pissed at knowing in my gut that he has something to do with the kidnapping.
Blake cuts right to the heart of things when he asks the question. The one that there is no simple answer for, “Then why did you?”
“Analise,” I answer simply and truthfully, “I couldn't leave her in New York.” There is so much more to it than that, but I wasn’t even able to say it to her. There’s no way that the first time I say it out loud to someone, it will be to these men. What I have to say is for her ears alone.
After a few more minutes of getting everyone acquainted, Travis sends Mike and John to get some sleep in one of the guest rooms. It’s obvious that he and Blake need the rest more, but I understand. Dominic’s men took his woman when they took mine, on his watch. If our positions were reversed, I wouldn’t be able to rest either.
Calling down to Geno, I ask that their gear be brought up and for the most part, stay out of the way while the pair swiftly turn my dining room into a com center. It’s easy to see that they have done this before, many times. Despite his tough, muscular appearance, Blake is clearly a computer geek. He is focused and totally in his element as he sets up several laptops and uses them to immediately start using them to hack into who knows what all over the city.
Travis and I check the hardware they brought with them, a variety of tactical weapons. I take Travis back to my office and open up what I jokingly call my panic room. It's actually a walk-in closet that has been modified to house a small armory in addition to being somewhere that can be locked down from inside, providing a secure place to hide if ever needed. Fortunately, it’s never been needed. I’ve spent my entire life doing everything possible to distance myself from my father and the business that gets people killed.
After a couple of hours in front of the computers, Travis and Blake switch off with the other men to get some much-needed sleep. For the first time in months, I go to my bedroom with the intention of sleeping there. Holding her pillow against me, I breathe deeply, still hoping to catch a hint of her sweet scent as I stare out the window at the glow of the lights below. She is out there somewhere tonight, in my city, most likely terrified and confused. “I love you, sunshine,” I murmur, wishing once again that I had told her how I felt on our wedding night before everything went sideways. “I’m coming for you,” I promise as I close my eyes and try to will myself to sleep.
Chapter Eleven
Ana
The room is cool, at least the air conditioning in this old place works. Without any covers except for the sheet I’m shivering a little as the pale light of dawn floods through the windows. I curl around my belly a little tighter and sigh deeply. I can’t stop thinking about the warm fuzzy hours spent in the cozy warmth of Xavier’s bed. I never should have left the way that I did, but I was prideful and afraid. T
oo proud to admit what I wanted and too afraid that he could never want me the way that I want him.
It started as a simple crush in middle school. What pre-teen girl wouldn’t develop a crush on the hot son of her father’s boss? As the years passed, he was always around, never going away to college, always just on the periphery of my life. I saw him almost every day as I went from an awkward thirteen-year-old with braces to a slightly less awkward high school student. He’s just enough older than me that we never had any classes together, but I would see him in the halls and around campus. Always with his friends Grayson and Geno, never with the same girl for more than a day or two, even though they flocked around him like bees to sugar water.
When he graduated and left, I thought that would be the end of my crush. I was sad for days thinking I would never get to watch him from a distance again. I had no illusions that the son of Xavier Cerelli, Sr. would ever notice me. Vince wasn’t anyone special to them, just another loser who would run errands for them in the hope that he would get a chance to be a made man. It was why my mom had taken me and left. Vince was going nowhere, and she didn’t want that, for herself, or me.
Before that summer ended, he was back in the stately brownstone at the end of the block I lived on with Vince. He was different after his return. I could see it anyway. He smiled less, not that he had much to start with, and I never saw him with anyone but the two G’s as I always thought of them.
I heard he took classes at the local college, but he was always around the neighborhood. For the next few years, it was always the same, and I never got over the infatuation. How could I when he would stop at the diner that I worked in for dinner or for coffee and pie? He was just always there. Deeper and deeper, I fell into the fantasy of him. I barely dated, because let’s be honest, no other guy could hold a candle to Xavier Cerelli. There was no point in even trying to find someone who created the feelings that he did, just from seeing him from a distance. Pathetic I know.
Faye waking up beside me, stretching pulls me out of my reminiscing. If she is half as sore as I am, then I’m sure she is in a world of hurt, because there isn’t a muscle in my body that doesn’t ache.
Her stomach rumbles with hunger, making me aware of how hungry I am too. Since my new normal is waking up nauseated, I’m a little surprised.
“Hey,” I say in greeting as I slowly stretch out and roll over to face her. Her forehead is pinched with worry, and her yellowish eyes are full of tears. Her defeated expression is my undoing and I break into tears. It’s my fault she is in this position.
“What are we going to do?” I ask over my tears. She shrugs a shoulder sadly and takes my hand in hers. There just isn’t anything to say. After I pull myself together, we get up to more thoroughly investigate the room we are in. I’m sure we didn’t, but I can’t help but hope that we find something that we missed in the darkness last night. Something to help us escape. Looking out the window, I point to a building not too far away.
“That’s where I lived before,” I tell Faye. “Xavier’s place is the penthouse.” I point to the illuminated windows on the top floor. He is so close, but figuring out a way to get there feels impossible. Faye turns away from the window and halfheartedly tries the knob of a door. I give a little whoop, as it opens revealing a dirty half bathroom. The lights don’t work, but there is running water, so we take turns using the sink to wash up, and using cupped hands, we fill the emptiness in our bellies with cold water. Then, with nothing else to do, we sit in the bright rays of sunlight streaming through the window to warm up as we wait.
You never realize how slowly time can move until you have absolutely nothing to occupy your mind but worry. Hours creep by before we hear the sound of a key scraping in the lock. We both tense waiting as the door opens. The first thing I see is the gun in one hand and a grocery bag in the other as the man steps across the threshold.
“Dad!” I exclaim, running to him and throwing myself against him in a whole-body hug. He pushes me away from him firmly with a hand against my sternum.
“Get off of me Ana,” he barks. He’s not here to help us. With those words, it’s crystal clear that he’s part of the reason why I am here. Why we are here. I know it. My knees buckle in shock, and horror and Faye is there, keeping me from collapsing until she can lower me back into the sunny spot on the floor.
