There were too many secrets. All I needed to do was a bit of unraveling.
Dominic was one of the hardest people to get information from. You had to work him, convince him you were onto things when you actually weren’t.
“Why are you even asking about her?” came his cool reply.
“Because whatever is going on with her has to do with me.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
I hit the gas, taking a quick right just before the stoplight in front of me turned red.
“Maybe not directly, but...”
“No.”
I ground my teeth together and fought the urge to lash out at him.
“Just tell me this. What’s her job? I know being a DJ is a cover for something.”
“You know everything you need to know, Angelo. Stop sticking your nose in places it doesn’t belong.”
“It’s important.”
I couldn’t tell him anything more, couldn’t let him on to the forbidden romance I was getting deeper into by the moment.
“Please,” I said, using the word I’d probably said to him maybe twice in my life.
I gulped, ashamed at begging. This wasn’t like me. I didn’t ask people for things, didn’t plead for what I wanted. I took what I needed, and if it wasn’t easy enough to get I just walked away. Most things weren’t worth keeping long term anyway.
But now was a time I couldn’t just mosey off into the sunset.
“Fine,” Dominic snapped. “If you must know, Sophia is in the Western Europe Burn Unit. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to bed.”
“The...”
There was a muffled noise, and then silence. He’d hung up on me.
I still held the phone pressed against my face, my ears buzzing from shock.
Paige
Somewhere nearby voices murmured softly, rising and falling, none of them familiar. Something creaked and made a rolling noise.
I opened my eyes to see a strange window in front of me, the curtains fully drawn. Next to it sat a small couch.
Where the Hell am I?
Panic rose in my chest and I quickly sat up.
“It’s all right,” came a familiar voice.
I whipped my head around to see Angelo sitting in a chair on the other side of the bed I was in. He leaned forward, hands folded and resting on his legs, his eyes wide and uncertain.
I took in a shaky breath and adjusted to my surroundings. The lighting was soft, coming from a small light next to the bed. Nearby, the door sat shut, a thin slice of glass not doing much to show what was on the other side.
By now, though, I’d figured out we were in a hospital.
“How are you feeling?” Angelo softly asked.
I took another long inhale just to test it.
“Good.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Uh...”
“It’s okay. Don’t think too hard.”
I ran a palm across my temples. “It’s fine.” My voice cracked a bit.
“Here.”
He poured some water from the pitcher on the bed side table and handed the glass to me. I gulped half of it down and then passed it back.
“I was in the hallway,” I explained. “I know I passed out. I knew it when it was happening. I was going for my inhaler. And then… there were some people.”
“Paramedics. I found you unconscious in the hallway and called for an ambulance.”
“Oh.”
Heat washed over me. I was ashamed to cause so much trouble. And all because I couldn’t get to my stupid meds fast enough.
That never happened before. No matter if it took me a few minutes to get to it, I always made it there without passing out. In fact, this would be the first time it ever happened.
Because the circumstances had been different. What I had wasn’t a normal asthma attack.
The way I couldn’t get so much as half a breath in... The way my heart fluttered and my hands shook…
“I think I had a panic attack,” I dumbly said, staring at the blanket covering my legs.
“A panic attack? Does that ever happen?”
My head slowly swung from side to side. “No. It’s never happened to me before. I…” The full memory of what went on in the living room washed over me. I held my breath. “Oh my God.”
Angelo rested his hand on my leg but I barely felt it. He seemed a thousand miles away, a faint memory, less real than that horrific day I suddenly remembered. “Paige? Are you all right? Do I need to call a nurse?”
“I’m fine,” I muttered. “I just…” My eyes burned and I took in a sharp breath. It racked my chest and a dry sob escaped. “I remember why it happened. Why I started hyperventilating.”
Angelo opened his mouth, probably to question me some more, but I cut him off.
“I need Sophia,” I rasped. “Please. Call Sophia. I need to talk to her.”
“Okay. But...”
I stared him down, silently begging him. He nodded and pulled out his phone.
My eyes fell back down to my lap.
All these years… How could it be I forgot about something so big so easily?
And then, even more crazily, how could it be I remembered so quickly?
I tried to swallow the lump in my throat, but it didn’t budge.
I needed my sister. She was the only one I could talk to. The only one who understood. The only one who had answers to my questions.
“She’s not answering,” Angelo announced. “I’ll send her a text telling her to get in touch. Should I tell her about the asthma attack?”
“Just tell her it’s important,” I quietly said. “I don’t want her to freak out about me being in the hospital. Thank you.”
What time was it anyway? Maybe Sophia was still asleep. Or maybe she didn’t want to talk to Angelo. She’d pretty much kicked him out of our apartment. Would she answer if a call came in from my phone?
Maybe not. We hadn’t exactly parted on good terms.
It didn’t matter anyway. My cell was back at Angelo’s family’s house along with everything else I packed.
“I’ll try texting Dominic,” Angelo announced, standing up and typing away on his phone.
“Dominic?”
“To see if Sophia is on a job. He’ll know if she is.”
“Oh.”
Angelo didn’t look at me. Instead he paced about the small room, keeping his head turned away from mine. Something about his body posture was off.
Was there something he wasn’t telling me?
He lowered his phone but still didn’t look at me. Instead he went over to the window and fiddled with the curtains.
“Do you want some light? I can open these a bit.”
“No, it’s fine. Thanks.”
“What about food? Are you hungry?”
“No.”
He finally turned back to me.
“The nurse said I could call her once you woke up. They ran some tests on you once you got here. Everything is fine.”
“Okay,” I rasped. “Uh, but let’s wait a minute. Did Dominic text you back?”
“Not yet.”
His phone beeped and he looked down at it. “That’s him.”
“What did he say?”
Angelo’s jaw clenched as he read the text. “He said ‘yes’.”
“That’s all?”
Angelo hit the call button and brought the phone to his face. We both waited in silence.
When his brother didn’t answer, he sighed and came to sit back in his chair. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. Thank you. Why didn’t he answer? Why was he so vague?”
“Dominic can be tight-lipped. About everything.”
But why Sophia, I wanted to ask.
Angelo slipped his phone back into his front pocket. “She’s probably busy. I’m sure she’ll call you once she gets a chance to check her phone.”
“Yeah,” I thickly agreed.
I didn
’t want to wait. I couldn’t wait. I needed to see my sister right now.
“I’ll call the nurse.”
He pushed the little call button next to the bed. The nurse came right away, checking me out and then leaving to bring a doctor in.
Angelo waited patiently while I got checked a second time.
“You seem to be doing fine,” the doctor, a tall, dark woman said. “You can leave today if you like, but I want you to stay here and rest a bit before you try to move.”
I pursed my lips. That would be hard when I was full of a drive to go and steal a car and head back to the city to find my sister.
“All right,” I reluctantly agreed.
They left, leaving Angelo and me alone again.
“Want me to go and get you something?” he asked.
“No thanks.”
“I know hospital food sucks, but I can sneak you something in. There are a lot of restaurants just down the strip from here.”
I shook my head. “I’m not very hungry.”
“All right.” He took his usual seat. “Do you want to talk?”
I licked my lips. “Not… Not right now.”
“All right.” His hands picked one of mine up, warm and strong. A wave of relaxation floated over me.
“I’m sorry I scared you.”
His lips turned up in a sad smile. “It’s not your fault. I’m just glad you’re all right.”
“Nothing like that has happened to me before.”
He reached up to brush some hair from my forehead. I probably looked like shit. Probably had sweat slicked all over my face and dark bags under my eyes.
“It probably won’t happen again.”
My last memories before blacking out came back. “I hope not...”
Angelo gazed straight at me and blinked rapidly. “I was really worried.”
I sighed heavily.
He squeezed my hand. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad. I just want you to know...”
That I care. Those were the last words he didn’t say.
I smiled at him, his attention making me feel infinitely better. With Soph off somewhere, who would have come to my aid? Who would come and stay at the hospital with me?
It felt weird that the answer was a man I’d only recently met.
But it also felt right.
“If you do want to talk,” he went on, “I’m right here.”
“Thank you,” I said, meaning those two simple words more than I ever had before.
Paige
“How about some TV?” Angelo asked.
He got up and brought me the remote from the cabinet on the opposite wall.
I couldn’t answer. There were no words to explain how I felt. A heavy weight pressed down on me, pushing me into the mattress. It kept getting heavier and heavier. Soon I would fall right through the bed, through the floor, through the earth. I’d come out on the other side of the globe and float away into space.
I didn’t want to watch TV at a time like this.
I needed to see Sophia. And if I couldn’t do that, what the hell was I supposed to do? I woke up a different person in this hospital room. Everything changed. I couldn’t just sit around and watch bad morning television.
There seemed to be nothing to do, really.
Other than talk about it all.
“I’ll tell you,” I said in a shaky voice. “About why I had a panic attack.”
Angelo froze with the remote in his hand. He set it back down and hurried back to his seat next to the bed.
“Yes. Of course. If you want to.”
“Yeah. I do.”
I looked down at my clasped hands. Were they always that white?
“I don’t know where to start,” I said in a voice so small I barely heard it myself.
“That’s okay. Wherever you want.”
“That photo...”
Angelo’s head cocked. “What photo?”
“That’s where it started. There’s a photograph in your house. My parents were in it. I saw it and I remembered...” Panic fluttered in my chest, half as real as it was that day so long ago.
A heavy minute passed.
Angelo spoke in a soft voice. “Is this about your parents’ deaths?”
“Yes.” I gathered my courage and tried again. As hard as it was to not talk about all of this, talking was just as hard. It was like pulling out a thorn. You knew you needed to do it, but the truth was that it hurt to let the thorn stay in and it hurt to take it out. One way or the other you were screwed.
“I was home,” I explained. “When my parents were murdered.”
Angelo said nothing. I turned my eyes from the wall to take in his face. He sat passive, not betraying anything.
“It was just me and Mom and Dad. Sophia was off somewhere. Probably at a friend’s house or something.”
Angelo’s hand scooped up mine. I squeezed it lightly.
“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”
I ignored his offer. I needed to get it all out. Needed to dispel the poison that had lived in me for too long. All this time this sick memory had been lurking inside me and I didn’t even know about it.
“Mom and I were in the back. Dad answered the door and we heard voices. They got kind of loud. Mom looked so scared...” I swallowed hard, seeing her pale face.
The face that was just as pale as my hands were now.
“She made me go into the false wall behind the closet in her bedroom. It was this small standing up place. There were a couple little holes in it, though, so you could see out a bit.”
I’d always wondered why my parents had that false wall, and thought they were just paranoid. Soph and I knew about it our entire lives. Mom and Dad always said that if something happened, if someone broke into the house, we were to go and hide behind it.
I took a moment. Telling the story, feeling all these things again, had me faint headed.
“She was starting to leave the room…but these men came in, pushing Dad in front of them. They had guns, and they said a couple other things, but I don’t remember what it was. They shot Mom and Dad. Right there.”
I shut my eyes, trying to escape into the blackness behind my lids. “I almost screamed out loud. I had to cover my mouth with my hands. It happened so fast. They left really quickly after that.”
Angelo’s hand tightened on mine. “Paige… I’m so sorry.”
My eyes fluttered open. It took some effort, but I managed to look him in the eye.
“What did you do next?” he asked.
“I stayed there. I was frozen. I couldn’t move. It never occurred to me that Mom and Dad might be alive. There had been so many bullets and there were no sounds. The men left right away. And then, I don’t know how long after, the police came. The neighbors called them after they heard gun shots.”
I gulped. “Even when the cops came I couldn’t get myself out of the closet. I couldn’t move my legs. One of the police officers heard me crying, I think. That’s how they found me.”
Angelo’s face was stony, his eyes cold. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe you had to go through that.”
I shrugged. What was there to say to that?
“I never remembered it.”
“What’s that?”
“I forgot all about that day,” I said. “I didn’t remember anything about it until today. I thought… I always thought I wasn’t home. And Sophia and I never talked about it.” My heart rate picked up. “But you know, I never remembered just where I was.”
“It sounds like you repressed the memory. People do that sometimes after traumatic events.”
“But Soph had to know I was there,” I murmured. “The police must have told her.”
“Yes, but she saw what it did to you. That’s why she never brought it up.”
“That’s why she let me think I was somewhere else when it happened,” I added, putting it together as I spoke.
“I don’t get why it would come back to yo
u today though. You keep photos of your parents, right?”
“Yeah, I do. I have one in my bedroom. It was the shirt.”
“Huh?”
“The shirt Mom wore in the photo. It was the one she wore when she was killed.”
I remembered seeing that shirt through the hole in the wall, the fabric she loved so much stained with bright red blood. I saw it as she crumpled to the ground, her legs giving way and sending her crashing to the carpet. After that I didn’t see much of anything else.
In fact, I don’t know just when I started functioning properly.
Hell, maybe I never did.
“No one ever suggested this to you?” Angelo probed. “No one ever said, hey, you’re blocking out part of your memory?”
I thought hard. “Maybe. But it’s been years. It wasn’t like I had anyone to talk to. Not about the murder, anyway. I mean, what’s the point?”
“What about therapy? Did you get any of that?”
“Yeah.”
I tried to think back, but just the effort made my head hurt. Slowly the memories trickled in. I’d been to a few different therapists over the course of several years. Though they were all only faint memories, I got the feeling I didn’t really remember the first one.
“I don’t think it helped,” I told him simply.
Angelo sighed. “I’m sorry it didn’t.”
“I didn’t speak for six months. That much I remember.”
Angelo ran his hand up my arm, attempting to comfort me.
“And the nightmares...” I took in a shuddering breath. “Those I remember. I kept seeing the murder happen over and over again. Sometimes Sophia would walk in and they’d get her too. Always there was just me left.”
“I can’t imagine,” he murmured.
“I bounced around to a few different therapists, but nothing really seemed to help. I had bad anxiety and depression for years. I got a prescription to help deal, but eventually the doctors told me I was not clinically depressed.” It took some effort to smile. “I can’t say that I had a problem with that diagnosis. I hated all those pills.”
“But what changed? Something had to change? You don’t seem depressed and anxious today.”
“Mostly, it was my writing that helped. And going to college. It got me in a new headspace. Being responsible for readings and projects got my mind off of being down all the time. And the people I met in college didn’t know about my past. That made a difference. It was a fresh start, you know?”
The Billionaire and The Virgin Page 16
