“No, Ms. Morelli. There’s no problem with you being outside.” The first one glances in my direction and doesn’t seem to see me. “It’s time to get ready to go. This way, please.”
Another SUV pulls in front of the alley, and I know what I’m seeing now. I underestimated them. The Morellis. I should have known they wouldn’t have her out here alone. I’ve never paid attention to the building across the street from her apartment. That’s where these people came from.
Daphne laughs a little, but her cheeks are red. “Can you wait at the alley door? I need a minute. Unless you have something to tell me.”
The first guard confers with the other one over her head. “We’ll meet at the door,” he tells her. Both of them jog across the street. One of them stays at the curb. If they both went to the alley door, they’d lose sight of her. Daphne doesn’t come close to the car again. She’s out of reach.
“I have to go.” Her dark eyes mirror the disappointment in her voice. She would have gone with me. She would have done it, if she had another minute. I don’t let this frustration show on my face. I won’t show it to her at all. It’s my patience that will be critical now. Daphne can’t get the idea that a minor disruption like this one will make me lose interest.
“Go, then, little painter.”
Her lips part. She takes a small, shivering breath. It’s too cold for her to be out here. She should be with me. The flush in her cheeks gets another shade darker. Fuck me, it’s perfect. Daphne hooks a hand in the neck of her hoodie and pulls. She could still get in. Could still run into my arms…
“Okay,” she says. The word makes almost no sound.
She makes a quick turn and checks for traffic, then darts across the street. As soon as she’s at the first security guard, he speaks to her. “Why?” I see her ask. I don’t see his answer.
“Enough,” I tell Logan.
“You sure?”
It won’t be enough, nothing will be enough, until I have her. I’m sure I want her next to me instead of walking up the stairs to her apartment. I’m sure I need her in my sight. That’s all I’m fucking sure of.
“Yes. Let’s go home.”
Chapter Twelve
Daphne
Gerard is waiting for me at Leo’s front door. It snowed on the way here, flakes swirling against the windshield. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel. Being irritated feels wrong, but then so does being happy. I didn’t have plans to come over today. I had a day off from the gallery.
And there was Emerson.
I was awake when his car showed up across the street. A dark-colored SUV that could not have been more conspicuous across from the gallery. At first I thought it might be one of Leo’s, but when it got brighter I could see that it wasn’t black, it was a really dark shade of gray.
Come with me.
The thing is, I wanted to go. I wanted to step out of my life for a minute and into his. Find out what he spends all his time looking at with those blue-green eyes.
I want to watch you paint it.
From a bedroom, I bet.
Emerson’s expression changed when I asked him if that was all he wanted. I was already shivering, or it would have sent a new shiver down my spine. His eyes darkened, a certain fire catching there. Whatever else he wanted to do, it was dirty. Reckless, probably. I’ve never done that kind of thing. I’ve never gotten into the car of a practical stranger and let him take me to his house. I’ve never done the kinds of things I saw in his eyes.
If Leo sent security to bring me here over Emerson, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Yell at him, maybe. Be furious. All I did was stand in the street and talk. But no, no—I’m not going to go in angry. That won’t help anything. Though it does piss me off, not knowing what’s happening. I’m once again in the dark. I won’t be mad. I’m irritated. That’s what.
I take the steps at a jog. “Hi, Gerard.”
“Daphne.”
He opens the door for me and we both step inside. Gerard holds my purse while I take off my coat. “Did something happen? Is that why I’m here?”
“No one went to the hospital.”
I fake a glare at him. When Leo got home from the hospital, Eva brought me with her to visit. I told Gerard I’d hold him personally responsible if Leo went to the hospital again and I was the last to know about it. Leo and Eva laughed at me for making threats. I guess they were right. I didn’t make a good one. I was too specific.
“He’s in the den,” Gerard says. I take my purse back and drop it on a table near the coat closet.
To the den I go.
The second I step through the door, all my irritation dissolves. Leo stands at the window, the courtyard behind him. He looks like shit. Eva wasn’t kidding about how bad things must have been. His eyes look too bright, like he might still have a fever. I saw him like this once. I hated it then, and I hate it now, and the only thing to do is go across the room and hug him. He’s wearing a sweater. Good. He won’t be trying to go to his office today. He shouldn’t leave the house.
He bends down when I get close. Squeezes me tight. You should have let me come over, I want to say.
“Oh my god, Leo, you can’t just summon me here. I’m fine. You could have texted me to ask if I was fine.” Instead of the whole show outside my apartment. I thought the guards were going to confront me about Emerson. Insist on doing a background check or something. I let go of him, and he turns me around with his hands on my shoulders and takes me to the sofa.
Haley’s there with a blanket over her and a book in her lap. She sits up as I come closer and tucks the blanket in tighter, like a shield. She also looks like shit. A sheen of tears is in her eyes. We’ve talked a couple of times, and I like her a lot. She’s good. It’s not good that she looks like this. That they both look like this.
“Hey, Daphne.”
My stomach turns. I feel lightheaded, off-balance. Doomed, almost. This is what I get for wanting to know things. “Something happened.”
“Caroline sent one of her people here,” Leo says. He’s leaned forward in his chair, his hands clasped in front of him. My mouth falls open as the words sink in. Caroline Constantine already sent someone here to shoot him. That wasn’t enough? Images of a gun battle fly through my mind, but that can’t have happened—everything looked normal when I came through the front doors.
“Did they come inside?”
“No. They didn’t have to. Caroline’s people put together a plan to cause a diversion and distract my security while Haley went out to meet her brother.” Leo’s teeth snap together. His jaw works. He’s trying to be calm, and it’s not working. “They took her when she stepped outside the gates.”
The blood drains out of my face, and I can’t look at him anymore. I look at Haley instead. She’s watching me, toying with the cover of her book with her thumbnail. “Took you where?”
“Caroline’s house,” she says.
My brain refuses to work. I thread my fingers together in my lap. “I don’t understand. Caroline’s your family. She sent someone to kidnap you?”
It makes more sense that she sent someone to kill my favorite brother. Their family hates ours. This thing Leo has with Haley—it transcends that somehow.