Page 25 of The Voicemail

Then he relaxes and pulls me against him, gently rubbing my back. His hand settles between my shoulder blades, warm and steady. He doesn’t tell me it’s fine. He doesn’t say I’m safe. He just holds me and lets me cry.

When I finally regain my composure, I’m incredibly aware of him. His chest. His hands. The shape of his mouth. The bruise fading along his jaw from the fight in my hallway. He’s the last person in the world I’d consider comforting, but here he is.

He looks at me like he knows exactly what shifted.

“Thank you,” I say, because someone needs to break the spell that’s fallen over us.

“You don’t have to thank me.”

His hand is still on my back. Neither of us moves. The air changes so fast I barely have time to brace myself for it. His eyes drop to my mouth, and I feel myself angling my head. My pulse starts racing.

“Alex,” I whisper.

I don’t know if it’s a warning or a plea, but he must hear it as a warning. His hand falls away from my back.

“We should pack,” he says. “You obviously can’t stay here anymore.”

Right. We’re still sitting in my trashed apartment. I am still very much in danger, maybe even more than I have been in the last few weeks.

These are all excellent reasons not to kiss Alex Russo in the middle of my destroyed living room. They don’t make me feel less disappointed, though.

I pull back and wipe at my face, suddenly mortified.

“Yes. We should.”

He helps me go through the things that aren’t destroyed. He calls in his men to help us, filling boxes and then trash bags when those run out. I only have two suitcases, and those fill quickly.

While the three of us pack, he’s moving through the apartment, righting things that were knocked over and throwing away anything broken. He catalogs it all first, like he might find clues in the wreckage.

His men carry my things downstairs and load them into their SUV. When we leave, I lock the new door, wondering when I’ll see my apartment again. Wondering if I even want to see it again.

We drive to a different part of town and pull into an even more secure building than the one we stayed in last night. I don’t consider the implications of all these measures. I just move numbly as he walks me through his place and shows me where I’ll be staying.

His men bring my things in, bag by bag, then Adriana appears, helping to unpack my clothes and the few personal items I decided to bring. When it’s all done, the room feels almost cozy. It feels like mine.

Once I’m alone, I let my mind wander to the only thing that seems safe. Ironically, it’s probably the most dangerous line of thinking I can possibly dwell on. I think of his hand on my back, the shape of his lips, the way his eyes dropped down to mine.

What would it have felt like to kiss him, I wonder? What would it have felt like to have those arms hold me for something other than comfort?

I step into the shower and scrub the day off my skin, unable to stop replaying what almost happened. When I climb into bed, I’m too wired to sleep. My body is heavy, but my mind keeps turning the same images over until they blur together.

I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling. The images don’t stop. After all the stress and fear of the day, my mind won’t let go of the one slightly good thing. My hand slips beneath the covers.

I rationalize it by telling myself I just need a release. This is just the biological reaction to fear and adrenaline and exhaustion all crashing down on me.

I imagine his mouth meeting mine, his tongue slipping between my lips. I picture him pinning me against my ruined couch and hovering over me. I slide my hand beneath the waistband of my panties and pretend it’s his, working my clit, imagining his fingers pushing into me.

My body unwinds slowly at first, then all at once. I turn my face into the pillow and come hard and fast, clamping down on my tongue so I don’t accidentally scream out his name.

8

ALEX

The second break-in shouldn’t have happened. I had the door repaired. I had the locks changed. I had men watching the building before the new deadbolt was even fitted into place. No one should’ve gotten close enough to turn her apartment inside out, slash her pillows, and scatter her life across the floor.

Tomaso got past me.

That’s all I can think about while I wait for Luca to bring me anyone connected to Tomaso. The man is a ghost. He’s watching Elena, that much is clear, but he’s smart enough to stay out of our reach.