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“I really should start believing people when they tell me who they are. But I think it’s because I have been a liar for so long. I’m not powerful. I’m not strong. I’m a chicken shit. But I guess it doesn’t matter.” Her phone buzzed in her purse on the bedside table. She didn’t even glance that way as she looked at me, her eyes void of soul. “This body is a lie. It’s a shell.”
“Phoenix.”
“I wanted you so much, I buried myself.” She laughed without humor. “That’s my addiction: beautiful men without souls.” Despair of the worst kind filled my body as she gave up on me. “How could I convince you to love me when I have no fucking idea who I am?”
“Phoenix—”
“You don’t have to love me. But I’m asking you to save me. For the first time in my life, I’m asking a man to save me. I’m begging you, Daniello, finish this. Finish me.”
I knelt by her side, my eyes intent on hers. “I would never harm you, Taylor.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Her phone buzzed again, and I searched her purse then answered the call.
“Taylor?” The voice on the end of the line was that of a man destroyed.
“Cedric. She is safe. She is with me.”
“Goddamn you, man. I swear to God if you hurt her—”
Taylor looked up at me with no sign of hope as I spoke. “She will be home soon.”
“Put her on the phone.”
“She cannot talk.”
“Then I guess I’ll see you in a few hours.”
My patience ran out. “Do not threaten me, bald man. You should not have let her come.”
“Really? Have you met the woman? How the fuck was I supposed to stop her? Call your goddamned dogs off. I just stuffed my trunk with two.”
“I will work on that.”
“I’m not letting this go until I hear her voice. You aren’t the only motherfucker with friends overseas.”
I did the only thing I could do to try to convince them both. “My name is Amon Daniello Stamatio Di Giovanni. I will not let any harm come to her or Amber. I will keep them safe. I promise on my life.”
Taylor’s eyes held mine as she sat up on the bed and grabbed the phone before she spoke softly. “It’s almost over.” She glanced at me warily and without trust. “It’s almost over, Cedric.”
She ended the call and handed it to me. “Your move, lover.”
She turned over as her body shook silently in my bed before her breath went shallow and her shoulders stopped moving.
“Taylor.”
I opened my eyes to see Daniello towering over me, his face etched with hours of lost sleep. “I need you to dress.”
He pulled out my suitcase he must have retrieved from my hotel. I glanced down at it and turned over in his bed, staring out his iron-covered bay window at the statue in the center of his large patio. It was filled with dancing angels, and the water trickled do
wn their joyful faces.
“Why am I still alive?”
“I never would have harmed you.”
“Lie.”
