“Which is what? What do you know? What do they know?”
“The formula can be found with the one true daisy and you.”
It’s what my brother said. It’s what he said Sofia believed. “What does that mean?”
“That’s for you to figu
re out. This is it for me. I’m done or almost done. I’m all but finally out of this.”
I can sense she’s going to hang up, and she quickly says, “He’s dead, honey. You know that as well as he knew you were the future of the Stradivari family. Watch your text messages. You’ll hear from me one last time.” And then she hangs up.
CHAPTER TEN
Kace stands and takes me with him. “I want you out of here until we know exactly what that was.” Just that quickly, he has me rounding the desk and I don’t have a moment to process. Adrian is in the doorway before we ever exit the office.
“We want you out of here,” he announces, an obvious echo of Kace’s sentiments.
My heart is racing with the assumed danger that call has created, and some part of me, an illogical, rebellious part of me, resists our departure. This place is a part of my future and I’m done letting the past control me. We came here for a reason: to deal with Alexander, and we still have to deal with him. But another more logical part of my mind knows that danger overflows to others. We have to leave and I succumb to the inevitable. I offer a tiny nod of agreement and Adrian backs into the hallway. Kace’s hand is warm on my lower back, guiding me out of the office, where Adam is waiting for us, but there is no lingering to chat. Adam motions for us to follow him and Kace's arm encloses my waist, trapping my hip to his hip, my leg to his leg, and with Adrian at our rear, we begin our pace forward. It’s unnerving to have all three men pace me through the luxury of the Riptide hallway and lobby as if they expect someone to jump from the shadows at any moment. I walked into Riptide at ease, among new friends, chasing a new career, and I’m walking out surrounded by security.
I have a lot of thoughts during the short walk.
My father is dead.
Those four words do a number on me.
I don’t know why, but I reject them. I reject them from this woman I cannot even name. I’ve said them myself a million times, of course, I know, but right now, I reject them. And why would he give this woman a journal to save for me? Why not give it to my mother or Gio? This entire premise is not logical to me. The woman’s voice plays in my mind, teasing me with a memory just out of reach. We step outside, and the snow is a sheet of white beneath our feet, a light dusting, but it’s as if it’s a cloak hiding our proper path. That call felt like a cloak as well, a way to hide the truth.
I’m ushered into the rear of the Walker-driven SUV and Kace is right there with me, facing me, as the door is shut behind him. “Did you get a text message?”
I jolt all over with this reminder and reach for my phone, only to realize there’s nowhere to reach. It’s in my hand and I’m officially rattled. I glance down and inspect my messages, and find nothing. “Not yet,” I say, “but I wonder if there’s even a journal at all.”
Adrian slides into the driver’s seat with Adam in the passenger side. “Blake wants the recording you did of the call right now. Can I have your phone?”
I hand it over to him. “I need to see him.”
“He’s meeting you at your apartment.”
My apartment. He means my new home with Kace. The home I want to love and enjoy, but even outside all of this, Alexander lives there. My attention shifts to Kace. “Do we have a plan about Alexander?”
“Alexander isn’t important right now.”
“He is,” I insist. “He very much is. As that caller said, we are hunted, Kace. We don’t need Alexander in the mix. And we do need him out of the building. Or we need to move.”
He cups my face and tilts my gaze to his. “Let me handle Alexander. I promise you, I have him under control. I have a plan. Consider him a non-issue.”
“You know I can’t do that.” I pull away from him to make my point. “He’s a problem.”
“He’s handled, Aria.”
“How?”
“We really have to do this now?”
“Yes, we really have to do this now.”
“Crystal is selling him the wine and assuring him he would have been given a chance to bid.”
“And then?”
He leans in closer and lowers his voice. “I don’t know why you’re avoiding the topic of that call, but you are.”
I blink with the words. “I’m not.”
“You are.”
My lips press together, forming a tight reply. “I’m simply clearing the path for the call.”
“Then it’s cleared,” he assures me. “Who was your caller?”
“I don’t know. Her voice is familiar, but I can’t seem to place it. My father would not have given a stranger a journal to keep for me until I’m eighteen. My mother would have had it and she didn’t. And what of Gio? She acted like he didn’t even exist.”
“I noticed that. It was odd.”
“I need to talk to Gio.” My gaze shifts to the front of the truck. “Where is Gio now?”
Adam rotates to face us again and offers me my phone. “Call him. We need you locked down until we fully assess that call.”
“Are you sure he’s safe?”
“We have eyes on him,” Adam says, “and we’ll intervene if he needs us.”
I accept his answer because the truth is, I’m not sure what I think about Gio right now. I just need to hear his voice. I dial his phone and of course, it goes straight to voicemail. Why wouldn’t it? At the beep, I say, “What is wrong with you, Gio? You don’t take my calls but you show up out of nowhere and disappear again. And you proved nothing with that note, nothing. They knew when you left. All you achieved was this, me needing you and you not being here. Again. I got a call. Someone telling me they had Dad’s journal. A woman.” I hang up and sink back into the seat and Kace does the same, his eyes meeting mine, his fingers touching my jaw. “We’ll figure it out,” he says.
“I don’t want to play this game anymore.”
“I know,” he says, and that’s all he says. He doesn’t promise me this is about to be over. That’s something I’m coming to respect about Kace. He doesn’t make promises he isn’t sure he can keep. He doesn’t throw words at a problem. He doesn’t just disappear. Gio is another story and I tilt my face upward, eyes shutting as Adrian’s warning comes back to me. “It was him or me. And we were close, Aria, but money and power changed him. It happened and I never saw it coming.”
And just like then, my hand goes to my throat. I still don’t know what to say with that warning, but the answer isn’t killing Gio. It will not come down to me or him. I won’t let that happen.
My phone buzzes with a text message and I sit up, quickly checking for the text the woman had promised. And sure enough, there are pages of what looks like a handwritten journal, but they’re too small to read. “I can’t read the attachments.” I shove my phone at Kace, showing him the screen. “I can’t read them.” My voice is high pitch, vibrating. “I might well be looking at my father’s writing and I can’t read it. And I can’t text this crazy number back. I tried last time.”
“Relax, baby,” Kace says, his hand at my neck. “Blake can work miracles.” He forwards the text to Blake and hands me back my phone. “I’m calling Blake now.”
I intend to listen to the call but those words, “Blake can work miracles” spiral through me and I’m transported to the past.
I’m standing in my father’s studio practicing the violin, wearing a pink dress my mother got me for my eleventh birthday. I’m playing the song my father has been teaching me, working on his most recent lesson when I have to sneeze. I freeze and look at the light the way my mom told me. I don’t know how it happens but I fall forward. Yelping, I tumble, and my arm hits the ground hard. I gasp and sit up, only to forget my arm. The very special bow my father made me for my birthday is broken in half. The bow he said would make me play like a daisy. I burst into tears, and scramble for it, trying to piece it together, but fail. Scrambling again, this time to my feet, I grab it and rush out of the studio to run smack into Angelena, my mother’s assistant. I burst in
to tears. “I broke the bow!” I hold it up. “I broke the bow, Angelena.”
She kneels, a pretty woman with dark hair and eyes, and a gentle voice. “Relax, Aria. Your father can work miracles. He’ll fix it up in no time.”
“Aria, baby, we’re here. We’re home.”
I blink back to the present as Adrian opens my door, and the meaning of that memory comes to me, but here and now isn’t the time to tell Kace. A claustrophobic sensation overtakes me and I need out of this vehicle. I’m about to climb out of my own skin when I step out into the snowfall and hear, “Aria.”
At the sound of Gio’s voice, I look right. And when I see him standing there, looking like Mr. Tall Dark and Good Looking, Mr. Untouchable, Mr. Cool, Mr. I don’t even know who anymore, I lose it. I don’t know what happens. My control that I value so much snaps. I step around Adrian and I launch myself at Gio.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I have clearly lost my mind because I don’t care who is watching as I charge forward. In a few long strides, I’m in front of Gio, shoving him. “You asshole! What the hell are you thinking? Angelena’s missing? Liar. She called me. Your girlfriend’s mother called me.” I slap him and he curses, catching my wrists.
“What the fuck are you talking about, Aria?” he demands. “Angelena called you?”
Cold heavy snow melts in my hair, but I don’t feel the wet cold. I’m seething, literally seething. “You lied to me,” I accuse. “You said she was missing, and then she proceeded to repeat everything you said to me about me, Kace, and the formula. Funny how she didn’t even mention you. You’re not a target and we are.” I jerk against his grip.