Page 60 of Conceal

I can tell the moment it registers, though, because she pulls in a sharp intake of air, her spine straightening.

Giovanni takes a swig from a flask, and I hate that he’s the one sitting next to her during this, pretending to be the doting husband that no one believes he actually is.

She nods imperceptibly. If you didn’t know her the way I do from having studied her for years, you wouldn’t have caught it.

How can we help? I sign again as the priest drones on about leaving the sins of the flesh behind.

She shakes her head ‘no,’ and I frown. This can’t be it for her. This can’t be it for all of us. Are we really going to spend the rest of our lives apart?

But as the ceremony finishes, I have to watch her walk away from us again, my heart breaking all over again in my chest.

Because I don’t know if that will be the last time I see her.

Chapter thirty-eight

Tatiana

The tears fall silently down my cheeks. I may not have loved my mother, but in the end I do think she wanted to save me from this. Which means there was a heart in there somewhere, right? That she cared enough about me to not want this for me.

I’m still so angry at her. Angry, resentful, bitter, hateful, confused, irritated, saddened. My emotions have been all over the place since Giovanni banged on my door the morning after the wedding and told me.

“Your mother’s dead. Funeral’s in a week.”

I’d been too afraid to turn my phone on, in case it was true. Without a call or a text confirming it, I could pass it off as a cruel joke. Until he banged on my door this morning, telling me it was time to leave for the funeral, with some colorful threatening language to go along with it.

I’ve spent the past week in and out of consciousness, sanity, depression, and reality. All I’ve had are a few granola bars someone snuck into my luggage and water from the tap. I’m too afraid - or maybe can’t be bothered - to find any real food.

I’m a coward.

But something in my chest snapped when I saw Mik, Ro and Lev again. It was small, but I’d felt the shift as if my bones finally snapped in with my soul.

I wasn’t going to live like this anymore.

I wasn’t going to give into this depression anymore.

I wasn’t going to self-medicate to avoid my life, like my mother had.

I wasn’t a Disney princess, trapped in a tower, waiting for a knight. My knights were standing in front of me at the funeral today, hands tied completely.

No, this princess was going to have to save herself.

How?

I have no idea.

But it starts with turning my phone back on.

I’m dropped off at the mansion while the car takes Giovanni, Lord knows where. But it’s not here, and that’s good enough.

Instead of making it to my room, though, I bee-line it to the kitchen and start shuffling through cabinets and drawers. Every kitchen has a junk drawer, right? With chargers?

I don’t find any phone chargers, but I do grab some food to squirrel back in my room. I’ll have to come out when Giovanni’s not home to get more. I’ll need to be strong if I’m going to escape.

Guards walk around the property, inside and out, palming guns of all types, but mostly they ignore me.

Finally, I pass by a French door with a guard stationed outside of it and only it. I make a mental note of that later.

Sneaking into Giovanni’s bedroom, I find a charger that fits my phone and steal it, rushing back to my room, slamming the door shut and locking it behind me.