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He graced her with the faintest of smiles.
“I’m sorry I made you worry.”
He shrugged. “You are forgiven, always. You are my Bez. My trouble.”
Her life revolved around Giorgio and Aleksi, and after she joined the circuit, fighting was all she knew. If she were to shed each identity, the woman staring back at her would be unrecognizable.
“Want to give Aleksi to your brother and run off for a quickie?”
He frowned. “What is quickie.”
“A term you’re unfamiliar with,” she said. “Come on. Let’s go.”
They stood.
The photographer entered the tent. “Excuse me? By any chance, did you see where the bride went? I ran off to get an SD card, and when I got back, she wasn’t where I left her.”
Josiah entered behind the photographer, Malia at his side. Later, she would gush over the fact that Malia had his jacket strewn over her shoulders. They’d already teased him until he went berry red about his pink pocket square being the same color as Malia’s dress. Little by little, they witnessed Curtis and Joel’s influence on how he carried himself. How he treated others was all Ayesha.
It would make for a cute middle school story: a boy who lost his father and a girl who lost her motherandher leg developing a stronger friendship where the most intimate thing they would ever do was hold hands.
“Auntie Mo, have you seen Ma?” Josiah asked, and his tone made her shift gears. “Me, Malia, Dad, and Grandpa Archie are looking for her, but,” his voice shook, “nobody can find her.”
Mo told the photographer they would look for Ayesha and walked Josiah and Malia out of the tent, Giorgio behind her. They handed Aleksi off to Thanasis just as Joel walked up.
“Nobody’s seen Eesh,” he said. “I saw her. I looked right at her. But when I checked for her again, she was gone. How?”
“And someone checked the bathrooms?”
He gripped a handful of his hair. “Larke and Ari. She’s not there. She wouldn’t just go off and not tell me.”
Someone screamed.
A blood-curdling scream.
They turned toward where one of the event staff stumbled away from a car, finger shaking as they pointed. Mo raced ahead, sprinting to get to the car before Joel.
When she saw the blood smeared on the back driver’s side window, she extended a hand behind her. “Joel, let me go first.”
He shook his head, his chest moving so fast that she silently asked Giorgio to keep an eye on him.
She walked up to the window, peered inside, and gasped.
CHAPTER39
“Josiah, go find Grandpa,” Joel said.
“But Dad—”
“Siah, I need you to listen to me right now.”
Josiah and Malia walked off.
Joel felt his chest start to cave in. “Mo, is it her? Is it her? Mo.”
Adrían appeared on his right. “I didn’t find her. I checked the perim…is that blood?”
“It’s not her,” Mo choked out. “But it’s bad. Gruesome. I don’t think she’s okay, Joel. If this guy’s like this, I don’t think she’s okay.”
