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“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you, I was just, uh—”
“Whatever you’re doing, princess,” she interrupts, in her low drawl, “is it gonna piss him off?”
I can only assume him means Salvatore. I nod tentatively. It will, absolutely, 100% piss him off.
“That sounds fun,” she says and looks back to her tablet, as if I’m not even there.
“You don’t care that I’m here?”
“His problems aren’t my problems.”
I eye the device in her hands hopefully.
“…Do you want to help me piss him off?”
“Absolutely fucking not,” she says with no emotion. She doesn’t even think about it. It was worth a shot. I stay posted up against the wall, listening.
Suddenly, my body tenses. I recognize those footsteps before I ever hear him speak. I’ve already learned the sound of his walk, and soon his voice carries through the hallway, speaking to what sounds like one of Vera’s children.
I dive under the closest settee, barely squeezing myself under it.
“Sal,” Vera calls.
My heart drops into my stomach.
I watch Salvatore’s shoes as they prowl by, followed step for step by Nate’s light-up sneakers that illuminate inches from my face. I’m dazzled by blue and green light.
“Do you ever get the feeling that you’ve misplaced something?” she asks.
“Not often.”
“No? You never get that feeling, when you should know where something is, and you think you know where it is, but the damn thing just isn’t where you last left it?”
No, no—why would she do this?
“What did you lose?”
“Me?” she laughs, taking too much satisfaction in this. “I didn’t lose shit. I’m not careless with my things.”
I brace myself for just how much Vera is going to tell him, but she holds her silence. It doesn’t take him long to figure it out. When Salvatore moves again, it’s almost at a run. Nate hurries along, shoes squeaking after him. When the footsteps fade, I scramble out from under the settee.
Vera leans back, tilting up her tablet again as I scoot out of my hiding place.
“Sorry, princess. Your problems aren’t my problems, either.”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
This is the one place Salvatore knows that I was seen, and once he confirms his suspicion, I expect he’ll come right back down to interrogate Vera. I do the only thing I can do—I make a run for it. I bolt through the house, trying to put as much space between me and Salvatore as possible.
While he goes up, I go down, taking the staircase to the main floor, where the racket from the kitchen muffles my frantic footsteps. The house spins me in circles as I run. There are a hundred places to hide in a place like this, but trading being stuck in my room to being stuck in some random storage closet isn’t how I pictured this going.
I veer around a corner—and find Nate at the end of the short hallway. I thought he had followed Salvatore up the stairs. I freeze in place, like a deer caught in headlights. I press my fingers to my lips, begging him to be quiet. He turns around and bellows for Salvatore at the top of his little lungs.
Like mother, like son.
Through the floorboards, I feel the vibration of quick footsteps, the ambience of the house falling into a hush. On every side, people stir and doors open, attracted to the sudden commotion. I have no idea where to go, trying to decide on a direction, a plan. I have nothing except the frantic pulse in my throat now.
Salvatore’s shadow darkens the end of the hallway.
