Page 139 of Captivated

No, it was far better for Joe to be here, and for Cory to stay in Chicago at the moment. They could each focus on what they were good at without one feeling like they had to compensate for the other, and then they could meet together in the middle again at the end.

That’s it, that’s all.

“How hard was it to keep him in Chicago?” Joe asked.

“I threatened to lock him in a cage,” Theo muttered behind them.

Joe’s lips twitched.

An itch of a smile.

It didn’t come all the way.

Pain seared through his chest—a random sensation he had been feeling ever since he woke up in that hotel room, and realized Liliana was gone. The pain happened if he was thinking for too long, talking too much, walking too often, or shit, breathing.

It happened because she wasn’t here.

And he fucked up.

He should have never stopped looking for her from that point forward. He could have been on their trail, or caught up to them later. Instead, he followed the direction to get back to New York, and now he was even further behind Rich and Liliana than before.

This fucking sucked.

And he was useless like this.

Completely fucking useless.

Joe stopped in the hallway, and put his back to a wall. He stared up at the ceiling, and wished that if even for a second, it would come down and swallow him whole. Take him away to somewhere else where he didn’t have to think or feel, and then maybe his brain would work like it was supposed to.

Maybe then, he would find her.

Or he would know how.

“God,” Joe grumbled, dragging his palms down his face. “I need a second.”

“All right.”

Through his fingertips, he saw his father nod at Theo, and then gesture toward the hallway. The two men walked the rest of the way to Dante Marcello’s office themselves, and Joe only took his hands away from his face after he heard the door click closed.

He stared upward again.

He couldn’t see the heavens here, but then again, he wasn’t one of those people who looked up at the sky and thought that was it, too. He’d only ever felt close to heaven and God in church, and … well, with Liliana, too.

For entirely different reasons.

Give her back, he prayed, holding tight to the rosary hanging from this neck. Give her back to me. Please, give her back to me.

He didn’t bargain.

He didn’t offer this for that.

That’s not how God worked, anyway.

Besides, now that Joe had taken a second and said his peace to Him—for what felt like the hundredth time today—he was slightly better again. At least, for a time. That pain in his chest had stopped, but Joe knew it would be back.

It kept coming back.

He didn’t have time to think about it right now.