Coming Home (Morelli Family 6)

“So you didn’t wake up and flip your shit?” He says this like it’s obvious, and I’m the dumbass for not piecing it together.

This is the most frustrated I can ever remember being with him.

Until I look at my left hand and see my engagement ring is gone.

Now my heart stops and I feel panicky, like I can’t breathe. Oh, my god. Where is my ring?

“Vince, what’s going on?” I ask, a little shakily.

“We’re going on a little trip,” he tells me.

“Where’s my ring? What did you do with my ring?”

He rolls his eyes, like this question aggravates him. “You’re not fucking engaged, Mia. Engaged women are on a path to marriage—your path was at a standstill. You’re the second woman he gave a ring to and you’re both alive—for now, at least. That’s not being engaged.”

“Where is my ring?” I demand again. “I wasn’t asking for your judgments about my life—I just want to know where my goddamn ring is. That ring is important to me, whether you like it or not. It’s from the man I love. Now where is it?”

“Gone,” he says, simply.

Tears spring to my eyes. I knew that as soon as I saw it missing from my finger, but I don’t want to accept it. I don’t want to accept that Vince took something precious from me. I can see it, though. Not like a memory, not like a thing that actually happened, but I can envision the Vince I used to know slipping the ring Mateo gave me off my finger, chucking it out the window as he drives down the highway.

“Do you have it? What did you do with it? Please give it back to me.”

“Maybe you can earn it back,” he tells me.

Hope surges through me. “You still have it? You didn’t throw it out?”

He looks over at me and scoffs, not answering.

I hate this. I feel so helpless. I mean, I am helpless, but I so desperately want to be somewhere else.

Since I don’t even know what time it is, and my mind is leaping from one horrible thing to the next and back again, I look at the radio to see what time it is.

That can’t be right. The clock says 6:16, but that would mean no time has passed since I left the bakery. That would mean we never went for a drink. And it’s too dark. It’s too….

Oh my god, is it 6:16am? Is it the next morning?

“Where are we?” I ask, horror filling me.

“Nebraska,” he says cheerfully.

“No. No, no, no, no, no. Vince. Oh, my god. What have you done?” I yank at the cuffs again, feeling claustrophobic. “Let me out of these. Please. You have to turn around. Oh my god, he’s going to kill you.”

“He’ll have to catch me first,” he reasons.

I feel physically ill. I can’t breathe. I’m going to hyperventilate and throw up, possibly at the same time. “He will! You know he will. Vince, oh my god. Please, please turn around. If you turn around now, I can still get you out of this. It’s been, what, 12 hours? I can work with this. Please, for the love of God, turn this car around. Please.”

“I didn’t come this far to turn around, Mia.”

“Why are you doing this?” I ask, desperately. “Why? You know how this ends. We both know how this ends. I’m begging you, please don’t do this.”

A trace of bitterness sours the smile tugging at his lips. “You like begging, don’t you? I do seem to recall him mentioning that.”

I’m too horrified by what’s happening right now to even process the pain and embarrassment that memory should bring. “Vince, please. Be reasonable. You know you can’t do this.”

“It’s already done,” he says simply.

“Vince, please. Please,” I cry, anxiety and fear gathering in my chest. Tears burn behind my eyes, the rational part of my brain understanding it’s too late—Mateo already knows something is wrong. I would never do something like this. I would never fail to come home, and when they go to the bakery, they’re going to see my car there.

My loving, caring, wonderful Mateo is already gone. I may not be able to see it, I may not feel his wrath yet, but I’m going to. Vince is going to. I have no idea how we survive this now. I don’t know how I can convince Mateo not to kill him a second time—not after this.

“Relax,” Vince says impatiently, as I’ve now progressed to full on hyperventilation.

I can’t relax. I can’t calm down. Now I can’t breathe, and I’m trapped over here in cuffs. I can’t suck air into my lungs and I can’t breathe, and now my vision is getting spotty as I struggle to breathe and I can’t. I’m crying—or tears are leaking out of my eyes, at least. I don’t have enough air in my lungs to appropriately cry.