Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 78491 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78491 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Was he rethinking things with me? Did that mean the deal was off with the Costas? Was I alone in all of this?
Tossing my phone back into a drawer what felt like a lifetime later, I got onto numb legs and made my way into my living room, not sure what I thought I was doing until I got to the phone, and found myself dialing the closest hospital, begging for updates on Judy, only to be reminded that I wasn’t next of kin.
Which only made me feel like I should have known Judy’s sister’s name and number, so I could call her.
I was in the middle of obsessing about that when there was a knock on the door.
My heart flew up into my throat as I reached for the knife out of the sink, and made my way silently across the apartment.
One look through the peephole confirmed my fears.
Not Deniz.
But Berat.
Pressing my lips together, not even daring to breathe, I took one step to the side so he couldn’t see my shadow.
Somehow, though, he knew.
He knew.
And he called somewhat softly through the door to me.
“Keep in mind that anything and everyone can be taken from you if you try to cause any problems. That’s all we want you to know. Trust us, and everything will be fine.”
I almost snorted out loud at the absurdity of that.
Trust him?
The man who had my neighbor who was innocent in everything but association to me attacked so badly that I wasn’t even sure she was going to make it.
I listened to his footsteps down the hall, then the chime of the elevator before I dared take a deep breath or move an inch.
Of course he wouldn’t come back. He wouldn’t try to attack me with the cops still swarming the building.
But it was ballsy even to come and see me, to threaten me.
Making my way back to the kitchen, I dropped the knife on the counter.
And it was right about then that I realized how bloody my hands and arms still were.
With a choked sound, I frantically grabbed for a clean dishrag, wetting it, then scrubbing at the blood.
Finished with that, I stripped out of my bloody clothes right there in the kitchen, for once not giving a damn about the cameras, just needing the blood off of me.
I was just pulling on my shirt when Berat’s words came back to me.
As their true meaning sank in.
Keep in mind that anything and everyone can be taken from you.
At first, my mind went only to Judy. And then Brio.
It took an almost embarrassingly long time until I recalled that they weren’t the only people who could be taken from me.
Oh, no.
I had two more, very vulnerable people. Ones who had no idea they needed to be on-alert, that they were in danger.
My mom and my sister.
I flew through the apartment, dropping the phone twice with my clumsy fingers as I dialed my mom’s home phone. Then the business.
But getting nothing.
Nothing.
On a desperate whimpering sound, I didn’t even think.
I grabbed my purse and I ran.
Right into the trap that had been laid out for me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Brio
Panic was such a foreign concept to me that it felt almost completely immobilizing as I stared down at my phone.
There were no messages.
No texts.
Just the frantic phone calls all in a row.
“Fuck,” I hissed, shooting up from the table, making the chair overturn and smack off the floor.
“Something up?” Cesare asked, already starting to stand.
“Tell Lorenzo I might have a problem,” I said, turning and flying out of the room, then the building.
My heart was hammering in my chest as I risked losing the tiny bit of battery I had to try to call her back.
To only have it ring and ring and ring.
“Fuck,” I hissed, running down the steps toward the subway, pacing back and forth, then changing my mind, rushing back up the steps, and hailing a cab.
My stomach about fell to my feet as we approached the building and I saw a cop cruiser out front.
I barely remembered to pay my driver as I rushed out of the car and straight through the front doors thanks to the distracted doorman.
I didn’t bother waiting with the small crowd for the elevator, taking the stairs at a dead fucking run, then bursting onto her floor only to feel the food I’d started to eat flip-flopping around in my stomach.
Because there was police tape on Judy, the neighbor’s door.
But not on Ezzy’s, I reminded myself, but it was a hollow sort of comfort. Because I knew Ezzy spent a lot of time with her neighbor.
Could something have happened while she was over there?
I rushed over to Ezzy’s door, finding it not even fully closed.
Not closed.
Fuck.
Fuck.
There was no way Ezmeray would leave her door open, not with the Polat brothers still alive and scaring the shit out of her.