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“Hey, wait a second.”
I stopped, frozen in place. She was thirty-something and dressed in a maid uniform. I wouldn’t hurt an innocent woman; I couldn’t do that. I prayed internally that she didn’t question us.
“Yes?” Roman asked.
“Do you have a cigarette by chance?” the woman asked.
“Sorry, all out,” Roman said. Roman didn’t smoke. None of us did.
Dante said, “I don’t smoke, I just come out here for the fresh air.”
“Same. I quit a few years ago,” I said, lying and trying to act natural.
She looked at us and sighed. “Probably should quit myself. Maybe one day, but this job, it’s the pits I tell ya,” she said. “Anyway, have a good evening.”
She walked past us and toward the garbage can as we stepped inside Tony’s house. It almost felt too easy, except I knew we were good at being stealth. We blended in. We looked the part because at one time, we were in the lifestyle ourselves.
We stepped into a kitchen which was mostly empty. It was past lunch but too early for dinner. Some kid who looked to be no older than eighteen was washing dishes in the sink. He didn’t even turn to look at us. He had headphones on and music so loud we could hear it from where we were standing.
I motioned for the guys to follow me. We walked down the long service hallway, passing by a couple of women dressed as maids chatting and laughing about something.
I was starting to wonder where Tony’s security guards were when we got to the end of the hall. There was a room off to the left, which appeared to be a break room, and several guys dressed all in black were sitting around a table playing cards. None of them even looked up as we passed by.
“Looks like Tony needs to hire some new security detail,” Roman muttered.
At the end of the hallway, there was a stairwell that I knew led to the main part of the house. I took a few deep breaths before stepping onto the bottom step and heading up.
The hardest part was yet to come.
38
Bella
“Ican’t do this,” I said, sitting in the car outside of a beautiful, two-story home. Kids were playing in a yard nearby, and the sound of birds chirping added to the peaceful nature of the neighborhood.
“We don’t have to go inside if you don’t want to,” Ava said.
“It’s not that. It’s just, the rest of the world is moving along like everything is normal, while I’m sitting here waiting for news about my babies.”
“They’re going to be fine,” Ava said, patting the back of my hand. “My brothers are amazing at this sort of thing. They are complete bad asses. I have no doubt that Gabe is going to get your girls and come back to you safely.”
I looked over at the house. According to Charles and Brenda, they had stayed in this house even after their daughter was kidnapped, because they always hoped she would find her way back to them. That would mean that it was the house I had once lived in.
I tried to remember something, anything, but there was nothing there.
The home had a light blue facade with white shutters and a welcoming front porch with a swing. The complete opposite of the types of homes I lived in as a child. Homes plural because we moved around the city a lot, from dirty apartment to dirty apartment.
Ava was right though, if anyone knew what I was going through, it would be the O’Connell’s.
“Alright,” I said, trying to pump myself up. Part of me still regretted not pushing to go with Gabe, but I knew he’d been right. I would have only held them back.
I opened the car door and stepped out into the sunshine. A cool breeze fluttered past, and the scent of lilacs filled the air. Charles had mentioned that Brenda loved flowers and gardening, I wondered if they might be hers.
We walked up toward the front entrance and before we could even ring the doorbell, the large, French door swung open. Charles and Brenda stood in front of me, and behind them, two others who I imagined were their children—potentially, my siblings.
Tears were already running down Brenda’s cheeks as she reached out to hug me. I fell into her arms, amazed at how natural it felt to be there.
“Your hair is just like mine,” she laughed.
