Ispend the day in the otherwise empty office going over my notes again and again. For all his arrogance and bragging, Angelo wasn’t able to get anything useful out of Sheila, except for a small piece of the timeline. It helps, but it doesn’t change anything.
What pisses me off more is the way Angelo acts like he has a monopoly on pain, like just because my father was a surgeon I somehow didn’t have any problems. He walks around acting like he knows me better than I know myself and it drives me absolutely crazy.
He’s the kind of person that loves to talk about how nobody can judge him while spending all his time judging others.
But he doesn’t know me, not even a little bit. We slept together one time and that’s it. He can say whatever he wants, tell himself that he knows something about me just because I want to Blackwoods College and got a law degree, but I know the truth. I know what my life was like before he ever showed up.
I’m stewing as I call a car and head back to my apartment. It’s after seven at night and I’m looking forward to curling up on the couch, eating leftovers, and going to bed early so I can be up before the sunrise to start this whole process over again. Every day, day in and day out, working and working until I either find something or kill myself trying.
Something is off the moment I reach my hall. It’s a smell, faint at first, but stronger as I get closer to my door. Like smoke, but more acidic, sharper, like melted metal. I’m on edge as I reach out for the knob—
But the doorknob is missing, and the door’s standing slightly ajar.
It looks like someone cut it clear off. That must be what I’m smelling. Metal dust and wood shavings. I want to turn and run but morbid curiosity makes me push it open and step into my own small living room. “Hello?” I say but it comes out strangled and soft. “Hello?” I say again louder but there’s no answer.
The apartment’s empty.
And it’s a total wreck.
It’s hard to process something so bizarre. The couch cushions are slashed. The kitchen cabinets are all opened and my plates and glasses are in a pile of shards on the floor. The refrigerator door is open, the food tossed out on the counter and in the sink. The paintings and prints I hung on the walls are ripped down, the glass broken.
My bedroom’s the same. The more I stand in there and look around, the sicker I become. My clothes are torn out from the closet and thrown on the floor. My bed is ripped to pieces like someone took a knife to the comforter and the mattress. My clock is broken, my makeup is scattered, the water glass I keep beside my bed is shattered.
It’s chaos. Pure chaos.
Who would do this? Who would break into my apartment and make such an insane mess? I try to see if anything is missing, but my laptop is still here, my TV is still on its stand, anything worth money is still basically where I left it—
But I know who was in here. I know who cut the knob and kicked the door in.
The black truck. The one that drove off from Sheila’s house earlier.
I yank a suitcase from the back of my closet and start throwing clothes into it. I grab as much as I can, whatever looks like it’s in one piece and relatively clean. I take what I need from the bathroom, get everything in order, and I hurry into the hall as my heart races wildly and I raise my phone to my ear.
“Angelo,” I say, breathless, and only realize I’m panicking when I hear how shrill I sound. “My apartment. It’s been ransacked. Someone broke in and threw stuff around and broke my plates and my glasses and now—”
“Slow down,” Angelo says, sounding strained. “Where are you?”
“My apartment. They came to my apartment.”
“I’ll be there in a second. Don’t get off the phone.” I hear a door open and slam, and he’s breathing hard, probably running down stairs. I hurry away from my ruined apartment breathing hard and listening to the sounds of Angelo getting into his car and starting the engine. “Don’t move. Don’t hang up.” He’s driving fast, tires squealing, and I get outside. I can’t bring myself to stay near that apartment, not for a second longer than necessary.
His breathing is a strange comfort. The anxiety in his tone pushes my own panic down a notch. I can breathe at least. I stand out front of my building with my bag, and I look around for a black truck, but there’s nothing, only normal-looking cars and normal-looking people walking past, but nothing’s normal anymore.
My life’s been ripped to shreds and my illusion of safety is gone.
A car pulls up and slams on its brakes. Angelo rolls down the window. “Get in.”
I toss my bag in the back seat and he drives fast away from the building. As soon as we’re clear, the sudden horror hits me full on, and the careful facade and the iron-laced fence I keep around my heart suddenly cracks, and I lean forward and sob into my hands.
Angelo doesn’t speak. I bet he’s bewildered. I never cry in front of people—hell, I never cry at all. But I can’t help as the tears rip themselves from my throat and my chest heaves. Someone broke into my apartment and threw my life around like it’s nothing, and if I was home when that happened then I might be dead like those cartel guys.
The car slows and stops. I don’t know where we are. I stare out from tear-blurred eyes and shake my head when Angelo offers me a tissue. I wipe my face with my hands and sleeve, feeling like an idiot, and he looks back at me with a grim frown.
“I don’t cry,” I whisper. “I never, ever cry.”
He looks surprised. “Your apartment just got violated. It’d be weird if you didn’t cry.”
I stare down at my hands, streaked with tears. “My dad would yell at me if I got upset. My mom would call me a baby and mock me viciously. I still don’t know which of them was worse, but I learned fast that crying didn’t get me anywhere in my household. If I wanted something, I needed to swallow my feelings and act like nothing mattered. At least they respected that.”
Angelo’s silent. He’s studying me, and I feel so vulnerable, which is strange. I never wanted to be vulnerable around this man, not again, but I can’t help myself. Crying like this brings back too many ugly memories—my mother, drunk, yelling as I sobbed over the death of my hamster when I was seven years old, or my father sneering as I teared up when I failed to make the varsity softball team in middle school, or a dozen other pathetic moments when I was told that my feelings were irrelevant, that I needed to shove them away and suck it up and move on. It didn’t matter if I was crying for good reason—
Tears were for babies and the weak, and weakness was not allowed in my family.
“You’ll stay with me tonight.”
I shake my head. “No. I can’t do that.”
“I have a suite. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“Angelo—” I clear my throat and take a breath, trying to get myself together. “It’s not appropriate.”
“What, because I fucked you a couple months ago? Or because you’ve been touching yourself in the shower thinking about my cock between your legs?”
“God damn it, what is wrong with you?” Anger flares as I turn on him. “Why are you always like this?”
“Because it’s easier to be pissed than it is to be scared,” he says softly returning my gaze with a grin. “You’re staying with me tonight, Sara. You can’t go back to your place.”
This man is a psycho. He’s infuriating and insane, but he’s right. The anger does manage to clear my head a little bit and gets the gears in my skull running, even if that means all I’m doing is plotting his demise.
“Just for tonight,” I say. “And only because they cut off my doorknob.”
“They did what?”
I tell him everything, starting with the moment I reached my door. “I think they were looking for something, but I don’t think they found it.”
He runs his hands over the steering wheel. “They were looking for your notes.”
“My notes?”
“On the trial. They want to know how close we’re getting to figuring out the truth, which means we’re on the right track. But more than that, they were trying to scare you.”
“It worked,” I say and laugh bitterly. “They scared the shit out of me.”
“Good.” He looks at me with a hard expression. “But don’t let them win.”
I let those words sink in. I can hear my father saying something similar: don’t let someone steal your win, Sara. It was always like that with him, that obsession with winning, with getting ahead, with shoving those around you down beneath your boots and climbing up over their bodies. He did it, one surgery at a time, one promotion at a time, and now my father is a famous neurosurgeon with a popular podcast and dozens of eager patients and millions in the bank.
And he’s the most miserable person I’ve ever met.
I don’t think Angelo realizes what that means to me, what I’ve done in the name of winning, and what I’m willing to do. But he’s right—whoever broke into my apartment and ripped my life to pieces wants to make me turn and run away.
But I’m not about to lose this game of death chicken.
They’ll blink first and I’ll catch them—
Or I’ll slip up.
Either way, I’m not letting this go.
