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I felt dizzy. Everything was a misunderstanding. Nic went to Italy. It was him I saw in the car.
“Who was the guy? Who did you meet?” Charity asked me with a look of disbelief on her face.
“My brother.”
She gasped as she asked, “You have a brother?”
Cole shook his head. “I knew it wasn’t what he thought.”
The red phone rang.
Jumping up, I rushed over to the dresser.
“Gabi! Why did you lie to us about your family?”
There wasn’t time to explain anything to Charity. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. I fumbled with the phone for a few seconds before getting it open.
“H-hello. Papá?”
The looks on Charity and Cole’s face were unmistakable. The truth that I had lied to them now out in the open.
“Gabi, it’s me Antonio.” I could hear it in his voice. Something was very wrong.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“Dante has found you.”
Fear splintered into my heart and twisted my gut as I bit back a scream.
“One of my guys spotted him in the Denver airport late last night.”
I was barely able to breathe as Antonio’s words sunk in.
He found me. Dante found me.
My body trembled. Dropping to the floor, I started crying. The nightmare was beginning all over again.
Charity and Cole were by my side in flash.
“How? How did he find me?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe from the picture in the paper. Or, he may have seen you in Italy.”
Tears streamed down my face. I knew I should have never have gone! I knew it!
Antonio cleared his throat and kept talking. “I got a call from an old friend of mine in the FBI. His name is Jim.”
I somehow must have turned the speaker on because Antonio’s voice was filling my room. I didn’t care though. All I could think about was Dante finding me here with Charity.
Oh my God. The baby.
“I worked with him in the New York office when everything took place with Dante. He saw you in Italy.”
Sucking in a breath, I waited for what was coming next. A part of me already knew what Antonio would say.
“Nic was there, Gabi. I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you. He followed you to Italy because he thought you were meeting a man there. From what Jim told me Nic had a feeling you had been hiding something from him and was having someone at the FBI try to find out more information on you.”
My eyes widened as I sat there shocked. Nic was having the FBI check up on me?
“He had reason to believe you were meeting a man in Italy so he followed you there. When he saw us, his suspicions were confirmed and Jim said Nic left for the airport right away. Jim said Nic was really upset.”
My arm wrapped around my stomach in an attempt to hold the bile down.
“But Jim came back to the restaurant a few times because he said he couldn’t shake the feeling he had seen you before. He thought he recognized you the first day they followed you to the restaurant. Then, Nic mentioned my name and Jim started to dig around a bit. Yesterday, when you were here saying goodbye to everyone, he saw me walking you out to the car and put two and two together. It didn’t take him long to figure out I set everything up to fake your death and that you had been in hiding.”
Charity fell back on her ass and covered her mouth. I reached for her hand and she took it. Her eyes were filled with nothing but questions.
“If he figured it out then Dante could as well,” I barely said.
“I don’t think he had any of his guys in Italy. I’ve been watching for four years, Gabi. But it’s like Jim said, we slipped and got careless. If Dante did have someone watching the place, they would have seen you.”
A chill moved through my veins and I was instantly taken back to the night that changed my life.
I squeezed my eyes closed, trying not to see the blood.
All the blood.
Dante knew I was alive, and I was positive he knew where I was.
When I opened my eyes, Charity was staring at me. Her confusion replaced with fear. “When I got home, it felt like someone was watching me. He knows where I am, Antonio. He knows.”
“You have to get out of there now. You know where the closest safe house is I set up, right?”
“Y-yes.”
Cole reached for the phone.
“Antonio, this is Cole Night. I work for Colorado Springs Police Department and Nic is my best friend. What do you need us to do?”
The line went dead.
“Hello?”
“He won’t talk to you, Cole. He’s going to be furious with me that you heard any of that.”
Standing, I quickly rushed into my closet and grabbed another suitcase. Turning to Charity, I covered my mouth with my hands then dropped them to my sides.
