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“I mean it.”
“I’m sure you do,” he says dismissively, turning away with a wave. “But if you leave, how will you get all your answers?”
I storm into the bedroom, grab a pillow and scream.
I scream for Arnie, for my pounding headache.
I scream for my busted nails and my own clothes.
I scream for being held here, one way or another, against my will.
I scream for Douglas.
God, do I scream for Douglas. But the screams quickly turn into sobs, and I sink to the ground. Resting my throbbing head on the carpet as the tears come and come and come.
My friend. My mentor. The man who singled me out in a crowded room and told me he would make me a star. Who offered me a place in the dorms when he found out I was commuting from Brooklyn. The only person to reach out when my sister went missing.
That day, I told him I couldn’t go back to the apartment. Couldn’t face going there alone if she wasn’t there. So he got in a cab and went there himself. He packed a box up with the things I’d told him I needed and delivered it straight to my door.
Douglas Jones, the Oscar-winning movie director, and me. Little Roisin Maguire. We were a team.
Doug was the first person besides my sister to truly believe in me. And now, he’s gone.
My body shakes as the sobs wrack through me.
Everybody leaves me. What’s wrong with me?
I don’t realize he’s still there until his soft, soothing voice breaks through my jagged breaths.
“Dinner tonight.”
I look up at Arnie through my bleary eyes and notice the hard line of his jaw clench and unclench.
“I’ll… explain what I can over dinner.”
With that, the man turns away and walks out the door without looking back.
My grief hits me like a tsunami.
I sink further into the carpeted floor.
Chapter Six
Arnie
The groan of the warehouse doors fills my ears, and my black Lamborghini drives through without issue.
The Maguire base is unusually busy for this time of day. Jon and Toby wave at me as I pull into my spot and park up. But there are new faces, too. Ones that stare at me with even more abandon.
A couple people even clap at me as I make my way through the warehouse.
“Good work, Arnie!” someone I couldn’t even name shouts over to me.
I frown at them. This is the mob. If someone has something nice to say about your work, they usually want something from you. But as I look around at the men turning to smile at me, some even waving, I see he’s not the only one with well-wishes today.
What the hell did I do to deserve this? Could it be that somehow Connor found out about Roisin? Did someone see us on campus after all?
If either were true, surely everyone wouldn’t be treating me like this. Unless Connor did something to put them up to this… Unless this is some kind of payback…
