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“Men like that don’t justget overthings, Cinderella. They hold grudges. We don’t even know what was in the safe deposit box.”
“So call my boss then, find out what he took, and make him give it back.”
“Are you the one calling the shots now?” Saint grins coyly.
“Maybe. I’m pretty good at it, I think. I mean, going after Patrick makes sense, right? He has to be the one who took the safe deposit box. He’s pinning it on me because I went into the safe without permission. I’m an easy target.”
“I had men overturn your boss’s house the second we heard of this, but this isn’tThe Sopranos. Torturing men doesn’t get us answers. It just makes people say whatever they think you want to hear.”
“I didn’t say you had to torture him; you could just talk to him. The man is scared of his own shadow. He’d break like a cheap plate against a guy like you.”
Saint’s chest inflates and his throat clears. “Sure, but he’d only tell us what we wanted to hear, not the truth. I have men looking at his financial records in the hopes that he’s moved something big recently. They’ll let us know if they find anything.” Saint turns away and moves toward a small bar sat on the opposite side of the room. He pours himself a short glass of dark liquor then knocks back the shot quickly before corking the bottle again. “I’m going to strike a deal with the Brit. I think it’s generous enough that he’ll keep off our backs.”
I glance back at Dante because it seems he’s the only one who has any sense left in his head. “Please. I don’t want more trouble.”
“You shouldn’t even be in here,” Saint barks. “Take her back to her room and stay there for the night. I’ll be in to take you to the hospital at eight o’clock.”
“And then what, a shootout? Is your plan that you hold him at gun point until he agrees to slice open my brain? No thanks.”
“You agreed to follow orders, remember?”
I shake my head. “That was before all this.”
With flaring nostrils and his legs planted wide, Saint speaks in a low voice. “Do you want the cuffs again?”
I tilt my head to the side. “Yes! Lock me up. You’re going to have to if you want to get me to that hospital tomorrow.”
I’ve pushed him too far. He’s done playing. Saint’s eyes go cold and dark and his lips curl back. It’s the same look that he gave earlier when I realized why they called him a wolf.
“Saint,” Dante says, interrupting his transformation, “she’s going through a lot. Just give her a break. She needs to think this through.”
Saint stares long and hard at Dante, holding tension back from exploding. “She doesn’t know what’s good for her,” he growls. “I’m going to see that she gets the help she needs. And if she can’t turn away and walk back to her room in the next ten seconds, we’ll cuff her there.” Saint looks toward me so hard that I fear a hole is beginning to burn between my eyes.
I hold my arms out in front of me, ready for the cuffs, but a rush of heaviness expands from my stomach and my muscles feel weak. My heart races as I try to figure why I’d be feeling this way, but within a second, the dizziness takes over and my heart races as I lose vision again. This can’t be happening…not again.I close my eyes tight and try to open them, but a haze of sleepiness wavers in, and soon everything is darkness… and the sound of the big, bad wolf, howling for help.
Chapter Fourteen
Lucy
Water rushes up over my face while I sink below the crashing waves and my heart races. I should be strong and push forward, but my arms and legs go numb and refuse to paddle upward.
Why am I in the water? How did I get here? God knows I wouldn’t jump in on my own free will. Maybe the Brit got to me.
My thoughts are halted by the burning in my lungs. I struggle against the loss of air, trying to wiggle my way to the top of the water, but it’s no use. I’m only sinking faster.
Fuck!My muscles tighten further and my ears ring. There’s no more holding my breath. Reacting on its own will, my mouth opens, and my body tries to suck in air, air that’s not there, air that’s actually water. Salty, pungent, water that I try to cough up. This in turn only makes me swallow more water and soon, I’m sinking faster as I feel my body fill with the salty sea.
“Cinderella,” a voice says. It’s deep and rough, but far away, distorted even, as though I’m imagining it. “Come back here. Come back to us.”
Frantically, I beg my arms to move, beg my body to respond, but it doesn’t. I’m still sinking further and further into the darkness.
A hand touches my arm, startling me from the moment. It’s heavy and somehow comforting, just before I’m pulled back up to the light, and the water turns to full darkness as a chorus of beeps dance between my ears.
I can’t tell where I am now, but I know my location has changed. I’m dry and I can breathe. I struggle to open my eyes, but they’re heavy. So are the rest of my limbs. My arms, my legs, even my fingers are immobile. Maybe this is death, or that feeling just before death, the one where you haven’t detached from your body yet, but you can clearly hear everything going on around you.
I think I remember the phenomenon from a movie I watched, though I don’t remember what it was called, but it’s a common state after you die, right before you disconnect and look down on your body.
Disappointment floods my heart as loss weighs me down. I want to call out for Saint, Dante, and Luca, but I’m paralyzed.
