I moved through work in a haze after Renato left. It felt like I’d just survived another near-death experience. I didn’t know how much more of it I could take. The cops came to our apartment, and hours later, Renato knew. I couldn’t get anything past him, and going to the cops about the murder wasn’t going to guarantee our safety.
My neck throbbed where he’d injected me with the tracker. I couldn’t stop imagining it, lurking just under my skin, letting him know where I was at all times.
Kneeling before him to “confess my sins” had also shaken me. The man was deviant. Dangerous in a way I’d never known. He was the living embodiment of everything the nuns at Mercy House had warned us about. A dark and powerful temptation to sin. And my idiot body didn’t hate that. Shame coated me, thick and sticky. Maybe I should give myself a cold shower, now that I was old enough to police my own impure thoughts.
I dragged myself home at the end of my shift and collapsed at the kitchen table. I’d never been so exhausted.
Lucy shuffled out of her room. The run-in with Renato had shoved everything else out of my head. The guarded look on my sister’s face reminded me of our fight.
She leaned against the kitchen counter and folded her arms. I looked at her, wondering which way she was going to go. She opened her mouth, like she wanted to say something, and then closed it. Eventually, she took a deep breath and spoke.
“I think that guy came here today…Miguel’s buddy.”
Suddenly, making up after our fight didn’t seem so important anymore. My heart stopped for a beat. “Tell me.”
“Someone knocked at the door. I was in bed, so I didn’t get there quickly. Before I could open it, they started pounding. It was scary. They waited around for an hour, maybe more, before leaving. I think he’s going to come back.”
“He is definitely going to come back,” I muttered, chewing on my lip.
“So, what should we do? Go to the police?”
“And tell them what? Some guy keeps knocking on our door? There’s no way to tell them what kind of threat that really is without admitting all of it and putting us in the De Sanctis crosshairs.”
Lucy rolled her eyes. “So, what do we do, then?”
I studied her. I’d worked so hard to build this life for us. I was almost done with school, and I had connections at a real hospital. There was a good chance I could get a job and start to earn more soon. All of Lucy’s friends were here; her entire life was here. But Renato De Sanctis wasn’t a man to cross, and Miguel’s boss was looking for his money. The police were watching us, and it was a tightrope walk that I was tired of walking.
Our lives here had become too dangerous, and nothing else mattered in the end.
“We each pack a small bag, and we go. Tonight. As soon as it’s quiet. We leave here, and we don’t look back and we don’t stop until a thousand miles are between us and them.”
“We’re running away?” Lucy’s eyes narrowed.
I had no idea what she thought of me suggesting the idea, and I was past caring. I wanted to live. I could worry about everything else later.
I nodded. The panic in my chest had slightly eased as the plan took shape in my head.
“We’re running away, and we’re going tonight.” I reached for the silverware drawer and pulled it out, finding the smallest, sharpest blade I could. It needed to be sanitized, and then it was good to go. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best we had. The tracker itched under my skin, but not for long.
“First, I need you to do something for me.”
In the end, it only took an hour to pack up our entire lives and abandon the apartment we’d called home for the last five years.
We bundled up in layers. Soon, it would be truly cold, and while I didn’t know how far we’d end up running, it seemed a good idea to take as many clothes as we could we easily carry.
We left the house and took a long, twisting route around the neighborhood before heading to the jitney stop.
It was only a few stops to reach the bus station. I stood at the counter, cap on and a mask hiding the lower half of my face. I was grateful that wearing a surgical mask had become more normalized. It certainly made hiding our identities easier.
Small town or big city? A direct route or something with a lot of stops? My mind conjured pros and cons for every alternative.
In the end, I went for lots of stops and a random small-town destination that was a stopover for other larger destinations. I could only hope that if anyone did follow us, they wouldn’t be able to follow the trail. I paid in cash for the tickets and and sat with Lucy as we anxiously waited to board the bus.
Inside, we settled into the cramped seats for a long journey. Neither of us had phones anymore. We’d left them on the city jitney, going round and round town.
I stared out at the bus station as we pulled out, staring at every new face, peering into every dark opening.
Every time the bus paused, I worried it would stop and someone would get on who was hunting us. But it didn’t happen. Slowly, we worked our way out of the city.
I dozed, haunted by dreams of opening my eyes to find a dark shadow walking up the aisle toward us. Renato De Sanctis, knowing every move I made before I’d done it.
This is pointless. He’s always watching. Even before he’d injected a tiny microchip under my skin, he’d known where everything about us. The chip wasn’t the only eyes that Renato De Sanctis had on us.
Even though I knew as much, I had no other bright ideas about what to do. I was truly trapped.
With nothing else to do but stare out the window, Lucy grew tired quickly and fell asleep on my shoulder. I stroked her hair like I used to when she was just a kid. I had nothing but the night passing outside the window to distract me from how horrible my reality had truly become in less than a week. Everything I’d worked for was gone, just embers in a fire that had ripped through my carefully laid plans. All the nights I’d worked extra shifts, all the classes I’d forced myself through, so tired I could die, had all amounted to nothing. I’d worked my entire life to provide something real for Lucy, and now, I had nothing. Not that she appreciated all the sacrifices I’d made. Ugly resentments and hopeless disappointment threatened to overwhelm me.
The road looked familiar as we worked our way deeper into New Jersey, away from the shore. It was the same road we’d taken the other night. We were going to pass close to Casa Nera. A chill went over me at the very thought.
I snuggled deeper into Lucy, trying not to picture those blood-red halls with the imposing paintings staring down at me, or the dark and terrible basement level with a corridor of cell-like rooms.
We pulled in at a rest stop an hour in. “Lucy.” I tapped her arm gently. I hated to wake her, but the chance to use the bathroom was too important to pass up.
She woke slowly and and groggily took in her surroundings. For a second, she looked serene and carefree, just like the old Lucy. But then she seemed to remember the situation we were in, and her features became tight with worry. “Are we there already?”
“God, no. We just need to go to the bathroom. The next break might not be for a long time.”
“Okay,” she mumbled and slid out of the seat after me.
The night air was cold, and I was glad for our layers as we crossed the parking lot and made for the restrooms. Waiting in line, I couldn’t help watching the other people around us. Were they running from something, too? Or were they just taking a trip at a discount rate?
“I’m hungry,” Lucy muttered as we inched along in the line.
“Want me to get you something from the store?”
She thought for a moment. “Chips?”
“Okay, sure. Save my space,” I said to her, peering around.
The store was right there, and Lucy was waiting in line with about twenty other people. In plain sight seemed like the safest place to be right now.
I headed into the shop, the harsh overhead fluorescent lights reminding me of the hospital at night.
The hospital. My heart clenched thinking about it. I had been so close to finishing my degree. Within touching distance of my dreams. Now, they were ashes in the wind. If someone was looking for us, calling the hospital and trying to get my credits transferred would be a very stupid thing to do.
I grabbed a couple of bags of chips and some water bottles, paid cash, and headed outside. The line had moved up a little, and Lucy was nowhere to be seen. I stood outside and waited for her. After what seemed like ages, the door to the ladies’ room opened and someone came out. Someone who wasn’t my sister.
She wasn’t here. She wasn’t in line or in the restroom.
I stepped out of the line and spun around, searching for her.
“Lucy?” I called, worry threatening to steal my breath away. “Excuse me, did you see where my sister went? She was just in front of you in line?” I asked the older lady standing behind me.
“I’m sorry, I was checking my messages,” she said and waved her phone.
Okay, great. I stepped further from the line and spun around. Maybe she’d gone back to the bus? I started toward it, a sinking feeling in my gut. Of course she hadn’t. Why would she? She knew I’d panic when I couldn’t find her. Ignoring logic screaming at me that something was happening, I checked the bus. A few people had made it back to their seats now, but Lucy wasn’t one of them.
I got back off and jogged around the parking lot. At the far end, trucks were parked, and in the other direction was the highway, cars whizzing by.
There was the rest stop building, with its bright lights and people, the gas station, also full of bystanders, and then there was the area with the overnight trucks. The shadows between the hulking vehicles called to me. There was nowhere else to look.
A fine drizzle fell as I crossed the lot. The light from the gas station didn’t quite penetrate the darkness at the far corner of the lot, and I steeled myself to step into the shadows. I had to find Lucy. I strode in. It was quiet. The cab light glowed in a distant truck parked on the periphery and the driver fiddled with something on his steering wheel. The rest were dark, their drivers asleep for the night.
I moved up a long corridor formed by two trucks. It was quiet this far from everything else. So quiet, I made out the sound of footsteps first. They weren’t even trying to be stealthy. Someone walked parallel to me, their steps nearly in sync with mine. When I stopped, they didn’t.
I was frozen with fear in the middle of that dark walkway when he appeared at the top. Rounding the bend, he faced me and stopped. He was wearing a long black wool overcoat with the collar turned up. Tall and broad and utterly inescapable.
Renato De Sanctis. Of course it would be him. The demon from my nightmares and the man who I had promised to obey.
You knew he’d find you, didn’t you?
Yes.
“Run from me right now, and you’ll regret it, bambina.” Renato’s voice seemed to reach me clear as crystal, without him even raising it.
I shook my head, fear mixing with adrenaline. “I think I’ll regret going with you more.”
“You have no choice. Accept that now,” he said, advancing slowly toward me. He sauntered as though he had all the time in the world.
I shook my head again. A puppet on a last broken, desperate string. “I think I’ll regret not putting up a fight more,” I whispered.
Renato’s mouth quirked in a devastatingly handsome half-smile. “You can’t fight destiny, Charlotte. It’ll find you, every single time. I’ll find you, every single time.”
You can’t fight destiny. His words were so similar to the ones I’d thought to myself a thousand times before, it threw me for a second.
“I took the tracker out.”
“Of course, you did. But did you take out the men watching you?”
I backed away as he approached. “I’ll scream. The people from the bus will hear and come looking for me – the truck drivers, everyone.”
He shrugged. “Scream away. Scream to your heart’s content. Just know that I could kill every single person who dares to check on the sound…and no one could stop me from walking right out of here.” His dark eyes flickered back to mine. “I could have my men gun down every single person on the bus, and my lawyer would have me free by sunrise.”
I couldn’t speak. His words had punctured my lungs.
“Do you want their blood on your hands?” He took a step toward me.
“You’re bluffing. You wouldn’t want that kind of attention.”
“Well, we can’t always get what we want. That’s a lesson you’re about to learn the hard way. The attention isn’t ideal, but I can afford it. They can’t save you.”
“Where’s my sister?” I veered off topic before his words could freak me out too much.
He smiled, and it had a wicked edge. “I’m sure she’s around here somewhere. Don’t worry. Elio’s on it.”
Just the thought of the mercenary enforcer getting his brutal hands on my sister was enough to send me spinning around and running.
