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Connor suddenly becomes very still. “Stop it.”
“Because right now, I’m starting to see why.” I stare at him for another beat before I turn on my heel and walk toward the door.
“Don’t leave the compound, Roisin,” Connor warns as I open the door.
“Why?” I spit.
“You’re a liability.”
My fingernails press so hard into my palms they almost bleed. But I don’t give him the satisfaction of turning back to him. I carry on, slamming the door behind me as I do. Storming through the warehouse, my mind battles with the insanity of all this. Arnie made me feel so powerful like we could do anything if we put our minds to it.
But it’s clear as day who really holds the power here. And he’s not inclined to help us with our revenge.
I finally reach my room. Part of me wants to fling myself on the bed and sob. Part wants to go back to those blurry days before my treasured sobriety coin. The biggest part, the part that wins out, sends me pacing around the room, ticking over my options. My almost non-existent options. It’s not like I could march up to Padraic myself, and as much as I hate to admit that my brother was right, I’ve got no experience working with the mob. What am I supposed to do now? Call the police?
There’s a knock on the door and I whip around to face it.
“You don’t need to knock, Arnie,” I call out bitterly. “It’s your room too.”
The door opens with a creak.
Only it’s not Arnie who suddenly stands before me.
“Hello, Roisin.”
Chapter Nineteen
Roisin
Eda Romero looks at me like I’m some kind of wild animal she’s attempting to coax closer. Her hand even stretches out a little, as if to pet me on the head, when she approaches slowly.
But I can’t move. I’m entirely cornered in this shipping container. There’s nowhere to go. Nowhere to run.
“Please, Roisin. I didn’t mean to startle you yesterday,” she says softly. “I just wanted to talk.”
Fight, flight, or freeze. Everything inside me is begging me to move, but I can’t.
But why?
For so long, my memories have been locked in a box. When that box opened yesterday, I thought I would finally understand what was going on. The fact that my memories of Eda were in the very heart of that box has to meansomething.
But now that it’s been opened, I’m no closer to understanding who she is.
“Who are you to me?”I want to ask, but my mouth won’t cooperate.
“Do you remember me?” Eda says instead.
Her name, her face, was never entirely lost to me. In fact, on more than one occasion back in LA, I’d asked Aimee who she was and why I kept dreaming about her.
“Roisin? Roisin!” The words lilt out in an unfamiliar accent, but the hands are familiar. Hands that shake me at first, then struggle to lift me upright. A woman’s voice, distant and echoing through the pounding in my head. “Stay with me, we’re getting help, please…”
Aimee had gone quiet each time I brought it up. Not because she was unsure or suddenly timid about the subject.
But because she was angry.
I could see it in the way her jaw tensed and how she said Eda’s name like a curse. She told me not to dwell on it, to forget about it completely. But there are nights when my dreams cling to her more than to the memory of my own mother.
“Why are you here?” My voice is barely more than a tremble, but I force the words out.
