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Chapter
Forty-Two
A man truly loves you when missing you is his hobby and caring for you is his job and making you happy is his duty and loving you is his life.
UNKNOWN
BASTIANO ROMANO
The manila folder looked unassuming.
I’d seen thousands of them in my lifetime. None had ever whipped a frenzy in my body like this one.
One of my building’s guards approached me as I entered the building to my penthouse. “Sir, I have a copy of the security film you requested.”
I nodded my thanks and plucked the DVD from his outstretched hands. I knew what I’d find. A video of Ariana De Luca sliding the manila folder under my door.
Didn’t matter.
I wanted to see for myself.
As soon as I reached my penthouse, I tossed my keys and phone onto the kitchen island, grabbed the manila folder and my laptop, and slid the DVD inside. I sped the tape and slowed it when a shot of Ariana filled the screen.
Zooming in, I paused on her face. She looked like she’d been crying. Her fingers clenched the file, a little too tight. I traced the grooves she’d left on the folder, wondering why it didn’t smell like her.
She bent forward and slipped the folder under my front door. Instead of rising to her feet, her shoulders sagged and she took a seat on the floor in front of my door.
Letting her head fall back against the wood, her eyes met mine through the camera, like she knew I’d be watching.
Two tears punished me as they hit her cheeks.
My only wish is you open your heart to the people who love you.
Vince’s words chose the worst possible time to land in my head.
“She doesn’t love me,” I replied to his ghost, who had returned three days after Ariana had left and stayed the two days since popping up.
“You should eat. You look like shit.”
“I’ll eat when I fucking eat.”
“Smart of you.” Hallucination Vince crossed his arms and leaned a hip against the island. “You don’t sound like a petulant child at all.”
He had a point.
When was the last time I’d eaten?
I shut the laptop—I’d seen all I needed to see—and grabbed a granola bar from the pantry. It’d only been expired for two years. I could work with that.
Hallucination Vince followed me to the kitchen island stool. I took a seat and stared at the file as I inhaled the granola bar, hardly chewing between swallows.
He plopped onto the seat beside me. “Staring at it isn’t going to magically make it open.”
I spared him a quick glance. “I’d say you being here is pretty magical.”
His fingers thumbed the edges of the file, but of course, it didn’t move.
“If hallucinations are magic, your Great Aunt Martina was a witch during her acid trips.” When I didn’t respond, he added, “You should open it.”
