Page 20 of Runaway Queen

Is she really out there somewhere?

Then I heard it.

A voice ripped from the past. It was annoying, upbeat, and perky.

“I’m just grabbing a coffee for me and Sofia. We’re all done here. I’ll pick up dinner on the way home.”

My entire body tensed. I listened without moving. The rest of the cafeteria was reflected in the window, highlighted against the dark evening outside. A short figure dressed like a gym bunny with waist-length, dark-blonde hair was walking past me, balancing her tray of two coffees with a bottle of water, and her phone.

Chiara, or Cici Salva, as she went by here.

She breezed past me, and I was on my feet and following in a heartbeat. She walked down the hall, totally oblivious to being followed. I prowled behind her.

Chiara headed downstairs to the reception area. I got close enough to hear her phone conversation.

“No, she’s not coming for dinner tomorrow. She’s got a date with Edward Sloane. Anyway, how’s my little man? Are you guys having a nice boys’ night?”

Chiara listened for a moment, nodding. So, Angelo and Chiara had a kid. Interesting.

“Good. Well, tell my little lion I’ll see him soon. I have to go. I’ll see you at home.”

She was standing beside one of the chairs in the waiting area, and as she hung up, she tapped the shoulder of the figure sitting there.

A dark head was bent over a book and spoke without looking up. Her hair was short, and I could make out her slender stalk of a neck and the tip of one ear which she’d tucked her hair behind.

“It’s not a date.”

Her voice.Sofia.

Chiara rolled her eyes and perched on the opposite chair. I couldn’t see the dark-haired woman as she was facing away from me. Even then, I knew. It was her. Mylastochka.

Everything seemed to slow. Time lost its meaning. I forgot how to breathe, to think. All I could do was watch. That whirling blackness inside me returned tenfold. The cage around my heart, the one that meeting Sofia had shaken, finally cracked. My mind might have cracked, too, right then. I wasn’t the man I was when she’d known me. Now, inside my chest, a gnashing, bloodthirsty monster, snarled at the world. That chaos had settled inside me, and I’d known that for as long as I lived, I’d live in the eye of the storm. It was the compromise my broken mind had found. I could function, talk, and eat and walk like a man, but inside, it was never still, never quiet. Inside, there were screams that never stopped.

I leaned against the wall, crossing my arms over my chest to stop myself from striding around the corner and hauling her to me. A handy floor-length information stand obscured me from their view, and anyone who thought it odd that a man was lurking just behind it received a death stare that sent them on their way.

“Sure, it is. Well, he wants it to be. I don’t understand why you don’t go for it,” Chiara sighed dramatically.

Sofia sounded over it. “Not this again.”

“Edward Sloane is rich, handsome. Everyone likes him, and pretty sure he’s never killed anyone. I know that’s not your usual type, but you shouldn’t discriminate against nice guys.”

“Very funny. Thanks for the coffee. All the paperwork is done, so let’s go. I need to go and do some work on that portrait before my ‘date’ threatens to fire me again.”

“Whatever, die alone,” Chiara muttered, standing.

The dark-headed figure stood as well, stretching her lithe body this way and that, before picking up her bag. “I won’t die alone. I’ll come to your house to do it.”

Chiara laughed and looped her arm around her friend’s, turning her toward the doors.

I caught the first glimpse of my obsession’s face. My ghost, made flesh.

Dark eyes, ringed by long lashes, smooth olive skin. Her hair was short, chopped at the chin. She had a dark coat on and a black scarf wrapped around her neck.

Her full lips were turned upward in a grin as she made her way outside.

Sofia De Sanctis. A ghost no more.

I followed them to the parking lot, sticking to the shadows. My natural place. Even if they looked right at me, they wouldn’t see me. I didn’t just hide in the shadows, I was the darkness.

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