Page 56 of Cruel Hearts

She’s not impressed we’re talking about Italian royalty, and twisting her mouth into a grimace, plops down into a chair in front of my desk. “That’s not enough. You need to tell me everything.”

I start all the way back from when Zarah met Stella in the payroll department, to now, five years later.

“Where does your parents’ plane crash fit in with all this?”

Her question pulls me up short. “Nowhere.”

She scoffs. “Excuse me if I don’t believe that after all the bullshit you just threw at me.”

I bristle. “I know I’ve been stupid—”

Mel softens, and she brushes her wavy black hair away from her face. “Trust isn’t stupid—until it gets people hurt. Stella tried to explain, and you should have listened.”

“I know. It’s my biggest mistake.”

“That’s debatable.” She rolls her dark brown eyes. They remind me a lot of my mother’s when she was amused, but annoyed, too.

“Now what?” I ask. We know where she was yesterday, but twenty-four hours have passed between then and now.

“When I find Stella, what are you going to do with her? I won’t bother if what she has to say means less than zero to you.”

“Zarah needs her.”

“So Zarah Maddox is my employer? Should I be speaking to her?”

“No. I—”

“Again, I won’t bother unless you can tell me what you want from her.”

I lean against the edge of my desk, my lips pressed into a tight seam.

“I’m more interested in the prostitution business Ashton Black is running.”

“After Stella.”

Mel shrugs. Waits. Picks at imaginary lint on her dress pants.

I want to know what Stella tried to tell me at her apartment, but what I’ve believed, I’ve believed for five years. You have to understand, I’m not just going to all of a sudden believe whatever she says, but if I’m not ready to consider what she has to say, then Mel’s right. There’s no point in finding her.

Minutes tick by as I argue with myself. Mel buffs her already shiny nails on her blazer.

Every second I’m conflicted gives whoever is hunting her another second to find and kill her.

“Do it.”

“I knew you’d see it my way.”

Mel is out the door without a goodbye.

CHAPTER NINE

Stella

Max drives Denton and me to his apartment located near the older part of downtown. The Maddox Industries building towers over us, as does Black Enterprises. I can’t be this close to the place where I was kept a prisoner without feeling sick, and I cower on the floor in the back of Max’s car fending off an anxiety attack as we slowly roll down a narrow street filled with parked cars.

It’s full dark now, and I can still taste the river water. I want a shower and clean clothes.

A private place to cry.

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