My tough talk doesn't make me feel any stronger if anything thinking about my mom makes me feel even more alone. Laying huddled in the darkness, I listen to the sounds of the highway whistling by and let myself wonder if he has realized yet that I am gone. I wonder if he misses me at all.
Being alone is nothing new. I have always been a fairly solitary person. Moving a lot with my mom and having a dad in the mob kind of made it hard to make friends. This should be easy to do. Just more of the same old routine. Work hard, stay out of the way, and try not to draw attention to myself. I can do this.
I don’t really want to get in my car and drive back to Vegas. I tell myself that again and again until finally, my pulse settles, and my stomach stops hurting, and I’m able to sleep.
I wake up before the sun even begins to brigh
ten my faded hotel room ,and I huddle forlornly under the thin blanket. The central air chills me more than it should, even curled up under the covers. I try to convince myself that I'm not already having second thoughts about running away, but… well, actually I am.
Waking up knowing that Vince, my friend Ellie, and even Xavier are hours away, drive home more than anything exactly how alone I am right now. More alone than I have been since my mom died, and I didn’t know where I was going or if my father would even want me. He didn’t, but he kept me, and I’m missing even that tenuous feeling of being connected to someone.
Prodding myself into motion, I slip from the cold bed and rush into the bathroom to shower and change into my last clean clothes. I can’t help the pang of regret that I feel over not being able to bring more of my belongings with me. I know I never would have even got to the curb if I had been carrying more than my oversized bag.
I briefly consider the cash tucked safely in the inside zipper pocket and how much it would cost to get more clothes. I only have a couple thousand dollars, and there is no telling how long that will have to last. Finding a job that won’t require me to go through background checks and fingerprints is going to be difficult enough. The fact that I don’t have any work experience other than waitressing will make it even harder.
I have taken business management classes online, but I'm not going to be able to use my associate's degree under a fake name. Every job I've had since I was 16 was approved by the Cerelli’s since Vince was one of theirs I was too. Vince made sure that I have always been aware that I owe everything in my life to them. He wanted me to be grateful to the “family” because they provided everything, even my job. Even though what I really want out of life has nothing to do with them, and in reality, being theirs has been much more of a hindrance than a help.
That’s just one more reason why breaking free of Xavier, and his whole damn family, is necessary to me. I don't want a job that is given to me because of who my father is associated with. I want to earn it. I want to do it on my own accord. I want to save enough money that someday I can open my own little shop. The money in my purse was my savings toward that goal. That and the piece of paper from the community college were everything I was banking my future on. Until Vince, I can’t even call him dad anymore, gave me away and stripped my dream away from me.
The shower runs out of hot water making me realize how much time I’ve wasted thinking about lost causes. My five-year plan is on hiatus, and I don’t know when I will be able to get it back on track. “I will”, I promise myself. Saying it out loud somehow makes it a real promise. One I will do anything to keep.
Carefully folding my dirty clothes, I tuck them into my bag along with the small bottles of shampoo and conditioner. Might as well keep them since I’m going to have to spend some of my money once I get there on necessities. I probably should have taken more with me when I left. If I get moving now, I can be in Spokane before it gets too late to start looking for a place to stay. And a job…
Xavier
I haven’t slept. I have barely eaten. I can't. Every bite tastes like ash on my tongue. Every bed in my apartment smells of her. She has been gone for almost 24 hours. The longest fucking day of my life! The only person I can bear to have around me is Grayson. He’s been my best friend since we were both in diapers. I’m on the edge of losing control, and there is no one else I trust to see me in this state.
I’ve reached out to everyone I can think of, looking for some clue to where she might have gone, but even her friend Eleanor has no idea where she is. She never gave any hint that she was planning to flee. If Geno wasn’t so sure that no one in Vegas wanted to get their hands on her, I’d believe that someone had taken her. Instead, I have to face the ugly reality that she wanted away from me so badly that she was willing to leave her small circle of friends and family to get away from me.
Vince said that she lived in San Francisco until her mom died, so I hired an investigator that Geno recommended to look for her there. Vince and the rest of the guys are searching Vegas. Grayson was able to track down the Uber driver who picked her up yesterday. All she was able to tell him was that she dropped Analise off at the Bellagio yesterday morning. There are over a dozen cab companies here in Vegas, and God only knows how many individuals driving for Uber or Lyft. I will personally talk to every single one of them if I have to. Someone must know something about her whereabouts and I will do whatever it takes to get that information.
My phone rings, startling me and making me stop my restless pacing between the living room and our empty bedroom.
“Cerelli.” I grind out between clenched teeth, gripping the phone tightly in my hand, pissed when it isn’t the ringtone that I assigned to her number years ago when I first got it from her employer. Unethical yes, but I adored seeing her name in my phone, even though I never called her, and she, of course, never called me.
“Hey, boss. Vince here.” His voice is excited. Almost too excited. That pisses me off too. “I found the cab that picked her up from the Bellagio yesterday. The driver says he took her to a used car place out by the highway.”
Before he can say anything more, I cut him off abruptly. “Where is it?”
He hurries to give me the details, and I hang up, ending the conversation when he starts to ask me what I want him to do next. I don’t fucking know. Right now, I don’t even care what he does. All I know is that I’m in the elevator heading for the parking garage sending a text to Gray letting him know where to meet me. Usually, I get a thrill out of starting my black Dodge Challenger, the big engine, and the power of my car firing me up like little else does. Not today. Today all can focus on is finding Analise. SHE is all that is on my mind. This whole damn mess is my fault. Just one more fuck up in a long line of things that I have fucked up.
I had hoped that the car dealership would be the break that I needed to find her, but true to form, it is almost a complete dead end. She was there. She did buy a car. Grainy black and white security footage shows her walking into the offices and leaving a little later in different clothes. Clothes that are the style that she wore before she came to live in my house and started living in athletic wear. The knot that formed in my stomach when I realized that she was gone coils tighter with the confirmation that she left of her own accord. I’m not sure why her clothes bother me so much, but they do. It’s like she was someone else while she was under my roof, and by leaving is becoming herself again.
The car she purchased, using a false name, is an older model Kia Rio. Cheap, but at least it’s a safe little car. I know she doesn’t have much driving experience and doesn’t particularly like to drive. I think back to when she was sixteen and got her license. I had stopped by the cafe where she waitressed to get dinner one evening and struck up a conversation with her. Vince being one of my father’s guys, meant that I was familiar with her. No one would think anything of me talking to her, and I knew as long as I kept my cool, no one would ever know that the sweet, sunny blonde had captured my attention. I was too old for her anyway, already twenty and painfully aware of the four years between us and how my father would use her to control me if he knew.
She confided to me how scared she was to take her test and that she hated driving, but that Vince had insisted that she learn. She didn’t see the point. New York has plenty of public transportation she had insisted. The recollection of her indignation makes me smile, before it strikes me that she wanted away from me badly enough to buy a car and use it to escape from me. I rub my hand over the ache that knowledge causes in my chest. I don't think that she has driven more than a handful of times since she was a teenager and she chose driving as her means of escape.
The salesman who sold her the car remembers her, a leering smile on his face as he reviews the security tape with us. When he calls her a “hot little blonde’ and comments on how she asked to have the license plate information blacked out on the paperwork, all I can think is that it’s a good thing Gray is here with me. His heavy hand clasps my shoulder, his fingers digging in, reminding me to keep calm, no matter how badly I want to destroy the suggestive smile on the sleazy fuck’s face.
At least I know what she is driving now, and that she was heading in the direction of Highway 93. That doesn't help much without a license plate number. She could be anywhere from Canada to Mexico, depending on which way she went once she was on the highway. A quick text to Vince assures me that she doesn't have a passport, so I know she won't be leaving the country. At least not yet.
Chapter Five
Ana
It’s just another day. Approximately one hundred and sixty-five of them have passed since I left Vegas. They all sort of blend together in a blur of sadness, loneliness, and nausea. I hate that I still wake up in the middle of the night, expecting to find warm arms around me, my face pressed against a thick, grooved chest. Every freaking night! I might be okay with it if it was only once a week or something, but every damn night is less than acceptable.
At least the morning sickness wakes me up early every day and shakes me out of that particular misery. Not sure it’s an even trade though. As sad as dreaming about Xavier makes me, I’m getting pretty damn tired of the daily puke-fest. I seriously haven’t been able to eat anything but tea and toast before noon since not long after I got here. It’s just my luck that I got pregnant the only time I ever had sex. I can’t help but laugh a little when I wonder what the odds of that actually are. I must be one of the most unlucky people ever. I miss my mom, she would know what I should do.