Maid For The Mafia by Alice T. Boone
Chapter Eleven
Someone told me it took four days awake before reality peeled away. If I believed it then, I sure as shit didn’t believe it now. It had only been 36 hours since I last slept, and I was already seeing her specter, imagining her presence in every room. Though, everything with Selina seemed to move quick. Feelings for her developed so quick they knocked me back; love crept into my bones before I could even fight it; she’d invaded every fucking room before I could stop her. So, maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised that her heartache moved just as swiftly.
Because I hadn’t been able to breathe since she left.
At first, I blamed her. It was easy to blame her, to lock myself away in this office and snarl, lick at my wounds like an injured pup, but that could never last. Not with her in the house, at least. Anger melted into a sick sadness within hours, and I hadn’t been able to move from my sofa in nearly 12. She was here still, packing her bags and attempting to wash me out of her hair. She was still in my fucking house, teasing me with the future I’d never have.
Years I’d spent begging for an opportunity to change.
Now that I had it, all I could do was fuck it up.
There were no upsides to these panic attacks anymore, no gratitude to be found in this suffocation. Drink didn’t seem to take the sting away at all, and truthfully, I didn’t really want it gone. Getting drunk was just another way to admit that something had fallen apart, and within the dark, I wasn’t quite ready for that. Not yet. Instead, I spent hours trying to focus on my work, staring at blank papers as though they held the answer. I didn’t move to the couch until Valerie slunk in that morning, asking the quiet questions I didn’t have answers for.
Why was Selina asking for her plane ticket already?
Why was she packing in such a hurry?
Why were her eyes so red?
I was too tired to grumble anymore. My bones couldn’t even creak as I forced relaxation down my back. My feet ached despite being propped up on the arm of the couch, my head ringing despite the silence. This thing in my gut demanded that I storm out of the room. It wanted complete control, wanted me to snarl that she could purchase her own ticket if she was so dead set on leaving. Not that it mattered. All this thing wanted was control over the uncontrollable, an answer to the fear that had built inside of me. I’d grown so desperate to hang onto everything that I forgot how to hang onto myself.
How fucking pathetic was that?
When the door to the study opened again, Selina’s perfume was nowhere to be found. There was no sympathy to fill my chest as light filled the room, and I deadened any hope that dared to live inside me. Valerie was the only one brave enough to approach me anymore, the only one who valued her pay cheque. Not that I was sure I could blame her.
Ego was the only thing that forced me up, my head falling to my hands when the light seared my head. “Valerie, I already said—” Instinct twisted my throat long before I laid eyes on her, my bones smarter than my heart would ever be. By the time I noticed the fear etched into Val’s face, all I could really feel was numbness. At the very least, that had to be better than the misery, better than the panic, better than the anger. “What happened?”
“We can’t find Jemma.”
Lips parted, but the snarl wouldn’t come. As badly as I wanted to feel that anger alive in my stomach, the phoenix wouldn’t rise. Val knew better than to disturb me with this shit— not if she wasn’t certain.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Another pause, another whimper of worry, another attempt to choke out a response.
“We checked the video, but no one can find her leaving,” she finally breathed. “She came home early from school and then she just—”
“Don’t fuckin’ tell me she vanished.” My bite straightened her spine, but guilt couldn’t cloud the worry. Muscles that were once too tired to twitch jerked into action, tugging my phone out of my pocket. “Did you call her phone?” A curse fell from my lips as the low battery signal jumped to life, rushing to my desk before Val could even get an answer out. The damn thing probably died yesterday, and I was too pathetic to even notice.
“It’s shut off.”
My hiss filled the room as I tossed my phone on the charger. “Fucking Christ.”
Valerie’s body crumbled beneath my touch, shoving the woman to the side as I raced down the hall to Jemma’s room. Her name was already tumbling from my mouth as a palm slammed against her bedroom door, a lock doing nothing to keep me out. When all I could find was an empty room, another strangled cry came from my lips.
She’d vanished before, but this was different.
This time, she’d taken more than just the clothes on her back.
Annoyance wasn’t going to get me anywhere. If Selina had taught me nothing else, she had at least insisted on reminding me that annoyance only bred more annoyance. It wasn’t the right answer, but when you were drowning, you grabbed anything you could sink your teeth into. It was easier to feel anger than it was to feel dread, and I wasn’t ready to face this thing in the back of my head. I wasn’t ready to face the truth I already knew.
My daughter was gone.
My daughter was gone, and I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to even notice.
“Jemma!” A roar built in my chest as I tore through the rest of her closet, desperate for a sign of the teenager, a sign of where she’d gone. When my attention finally caught Valerie standing in the door, face paled and hands clasped in front of her chest, I did the only thing I’d become any good at: I snarled out for control. “Call her again.”
“I’ve already—”
“Call her again!” I snapped, pushing my way past her again in order to shout down the stairs. “Jemma!”
I pretended not to shiver when I noticed her door open at the end of the hall, pretended it didn’t kill me to watch her features transform the way mine had. My shouts had pulled Selina out of her room, and I hated my inability to take my eyes off her. She’d pulled her dark hair into a messy bun, lack of makeup broadcasting her freckles and splotchy skin. Even as a mess the woman would rival Aphrodite, and when her spine straightened with concern, the hole in my chest grew.
“What’s going on?” I couldn’t choke out the words to respond to her, my attention instead shifting to something I could do. As I raced back into the study, Selina followed behind me. “What’s happened?”
The tremble of my hands wouldn’t distract me from what needed to be done. I needed to prioritize. I needed to find my gun first, needed to protect myself no matter what mess awaited me on the other end. Then, my jacket.
“Jemma’s gone,” Valerie finally replied, voice growing thin as the room filled with water.
“What? When?”
“She got home at 4 and then just—”
A sob choked back her words, and I smothered the shudder that ran through my body. I wasn’t going to allow myself to get caught up in this, to play out this game of What If. I would bring her home. She was my fucking daughter and I would bring her home.
“A few months ago, I caught her sneaking out from her window and over the back wall,” Selina rushed. “The security camera gets sort of laggy once the sun—”
“You what?”
The chill in my bones ran through the rest of the room, the only form of life coming from Selina’s knitting brow. Her arms wrapped around her torso, her eyes avoiding my own as she chewed on her lip.
Another glimmer of hope lost, another moment of appreciation tainted, another stupid mistake.
“You caught her sneaking out and you didn’t tell me?”
“I obviously didn’t think it would escalate to—”
“No, you didn’t fucking think at all.” My dark laughter forced my fingers through my hair, finally tearing Selina’s eye off the ground.
“If I told you, she never would have trusted me.”
“Lot of good that did.”
Practiced breath quieted this thing in my chest. My attention couldn’t be divided anymore. I couldn’t waste the breath berating a woman who had no intention of staying— not when Jemma was out doing God knows what. Urgency carried my corpse back to my desk, tugging my phone off at the first chance I got. 5% battery would be enough to make it out to my car.
Just one thing at a time.
Before I could make it towards the door, Selina stepped back in my life of sight. “Where are you going?”
“Where the fuck do you think?”
“I’m coming with you.” My hiss only softened her gaze. “Terry, be reasonable.”
An alert on my phone tore my attention off the pout of her lips, off the softness of her features. Now, all I could see was the voicemail alert, all I could feel was the guilt pooling in my stomach. Frantically searching my phone, I noted the blocked number, of the time the call came in, of the stabbing in the back of my neck. As I pressed the phone to my ear, everything else fell silent.
“26 Nathan Crescent. 11:45. Come alone. $120k for your daughter’s safe return.”
As my stomach tightened, I stopped being able to feel much of anything. A shaking hand rubbed over my face, but that had gone numb long before. Vision washed with darkness, with hopelessness, as Selina pried the phone from my hand. Panic bubbled through my throat, bile building behind it, and I’d never been so ashamed in my life.
My uselessness could cost Jemma her life.
I was the one who put her in danger.
I never should have left her alone.
“Terry, please.” Selina’s voice hardly broke the scream in my head, her hand on my cheek hardly warming the ice. Her soothing tone pulled me back to reality, but her questions only threatened to drive me back. “Who is this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why would they—”
“I don’t fucking know!”
The panic in my voice echoed off the walls, shame activating frozen muscles. When my vision reduced to a pinprick, I had never seen things clearer. If they wanted money, then they’d get it— no matter the cost. If I left now, took the money I had in the safe, I could make it to the city within a few minutes.
All I had to do was move.
Now.
“Terry, wait.”
Selina’s plea fell on deaf ears as I tugged my desk out of its position. I was on my knees before I had even torn the carpet back, revealing yet another moment of shame. Combinations ran through my head as I unlocked the only safe in the house, pretending I didn’t hesitate when I felt Selina crash to the ground beside me. By the time the dial slid into place, I’d already tore the door open, tugging the duffle bag out of its hiding place. I’d have to pay the money back eventually, have to pretend I funneled it into another business to buy myself some time. No one stole from the mob and survived, but I was smarter now. I’d make this work. I’d figure this out if it meant Jemma’s safety.
As I tore open the zipper, my fingers sliding over the bundles of bills, I let Selina’s words slip past my defenses.
“Why do you have all this?”
This time, when her fingers dug into my arm, annoyance didn’t prickle my skin. All I could do now was shake her off. “Travis dropped it off to be washed.”
“Travis dropped this off?” My teeth wouldn’t ground together, but I was certain she felt the tensing in my shoulders. “When?”
“When he came in to show me your fucking pictures.”
I expected a look of hurt. I expected to see guilt, that same disgust for me she held earlier. I expected another punishment, but Selina had never been any good at giving me what I wanted. As my teeth sunk into her throat, Selina remained unmoved. Her concern didn’t falter, and as I remembered how unstable, how selfish I’d become, I forced my attention back onto the cash.
“This is exactly 120k?” As I jerked to my feet, Selina rose beside me. While I sunk in the sand, Selina found another plank to walk. “You don’t think that’s—”
“Go back home, Selina,” I snapped, pushing my way past Valerie and down the staircase.
“You don’t think that’s a little suspicious?”
“Go home.”
When she rushed in front of me, it was hard to even feel the anger anymore. For the first time that night, I was forced to look at her, and Selina had never looked more focused in her life.
“Terry, she said he was older,” she bit, like she wasn’t burning my entire world to the ground. “And the other day, when Travis came downstairs, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. I thought he was just trying to avoid me but now—”
“Don’t suggest this shit to me if you can’t back it up.”
“He knew you had the money, right?” She pushed again, her finger on my chest keeping me in place. “And those pictures, he must have had them for weeks, Terry.”
“Selina.”
“Just call him!” she rushed, cheeks tinting. “Just call him and if he makes up some bullshit excuse—”
“I can’t waste time on this bullshit.”
“Then stop arguing with me,” the woman quipped. “Just call him, Terry.”
Another shift, another tug in my chest, another collapse of my chest.
I couldn’t keep the hurt off my face when I watched her— not this time. Selina’s shoulders softened again, her prodding finger shifting to a gentle squeeze of my arm. It was the final plea on her lips that had me tugging my phone out of my pocket, but maybe that was another lie. In our darkest moments, maybe we just needed something to believe in. My stomach didn’t fully turn until I dialed the familiar number, met with an unfamiliar answering machine.
It was an answer.
It was a lead, a direction, a hint of the truth.
It was a reason to keep her next to me— even if it was just a convenient excuse.
“Let’s go.”
* * *I’d never noticed how empty the halls of her high school were without her. Jemma had been enrolled in the damn thing for the better part of a year, and I’d never even bothered to notice how dismal the place was. Normally, Jemma’s scowled filled every square inch of the room, engulfing every sense and leaving me gasping for breath. Now that I was roaming the halls alone, hissing her name around every corner, a voice in my head whispered a new understanding.
This loneliness was why she hated it so much.
If my father had forced me here, I would have run away too.
By the time I’d made it back into the car, Selina couldn’t bring herself to speak to me. When I slammed my fists against the steering wheel, when I let out another pained cry, she wouldn’t flinch, wouldn’t breathe, wouldn’t blink. As I sunk into this awful place, Selina refused to cave in the way I needed most. She wouldn’t give me any ammunition against her anymore. She wouldn’t harden into a target for my anger, and with no direction, all I had left was the truth.
If I believed Selina, we were running out of time. We’d already run out of places to search. We’d already raced to every one of her friends’ houses, vetted them with Selina’s clairvoyance. We’d been to the bunker, been to Travis’ usual watering holes, been to every place I knew my daughter loved to hide. Midnight was racing towards us, and within the port city, we were running out of options.
Selina didn’t cave until my forehead rested against the steering wheel, until my breathing shallowed. Her hand slipped into mine as though it was designed for me, and the comfort left me with third-degree burns.
“I need you to think,” I managed, my growl coming out as another quiet plea. “You know where she is.”
“She didn’t tell me anything.”
“She’s told you everything!” Anger threw my body back into the seat, but my eyes couldn’t move from the roof of the car. I couldn’t watch her honesty anymore. “You pry into my life, force your way into my home, and now you can’t even put it to use?”
There was no avoiding the hurt this time, no ignoring the blood I insisted on drawing. Guilt pooled in my stomach as I watched her shoulders droop, and I hissed out the only surrender I had ever known. Even in the heat of it all, I knew better. Selina was the only one who had even attempted to stay in my corner, the only one who dared to touch the beast.
When my ego attempted to collapse my chest, I tried one last time.
“Selina, you’re the only chance I have right now,” I murmured out. “If she told you anything, I need to know.”
“She didn’t say anything else, Terry.”
Relaxing back into my seat meant relaxing back into destiny. If I met that shit head at the location on the voicemail, I was certain I wouldn’t come back alive. I’d be throwing away my life, my future, my security for an attempt at bringing my baby home. Travis wasn’t leaving loose ends. He’d lure me into some abandoned building, shoot me in the fucking head, and make off with the money before anyone even know it was gone— and that was the best-case scenario.
“That first day when she told me about the older boy, I told her this story about my dad,” she finally murmured, attention straight ahead. “When I was in high school, I used to sneak out with my boyfriend and Dad would come out searching for us all night. We’d wait in his car down the block, wait for Dad to peel out of the driveway, and then we’d sneak around and go back into my room.”
Finally, I allowed her words to sink into me, allowed them to feed this thing in the back of my head. When I swallowed the rest of it, it only left me with so much information. Every other time Jemma had run away, I tracked her down within a matter of minutes. She was sloppy, disorganized, predictable, but this was something different. This was something new.
If she’d gone with Travis willingly, then there was a chance Travis would listen to her.
If she wanted to go with him, maybe she was the one who had planned the hideaway.
A grumble lurked in my chest as I turned the engine over. I would never be the optimist Selina was. I couldn’t wear the hopeful grin she did. Though, maybe it didn’t matter. It was warming enough just to have it beside me. If we only had one shot at this thing, I was grateful to have the woman beside me.
I had to be.