Page 57 of Phantom Mine

I’ve misplaced my mask and I don’t even care, because Adriana’s going todiewhen she hears about this.

I’m itching to follow him back to his hotel, although a nameless ache hollows out an area in my chest when I remember that he’s leaving tomorrow. Annoyance with myself is quick to follow. I’m also heading home in a few days. There’s no use leaving any space for such pointless, impractical emotions to grow.

And yet the ache still remains, confoundingly bothersome and impossible to shake.

My trembling hand lifts to brush over my still tingling lips, my fingers rendered giddy by the mix of excitement and disbelief continuing to buzz through my veins.

When I reach the main floor, I head straight for the place I last saw Adri. The crowd has shifted so I don’t immediately spot her. I didn’t get a good look at the man she’d intended to flirt out of a couple shots, so I can’t tell if he’s here either. She’s probably on the other side of the bar, chatting up some poor bartender slash aspiring musician about some recently discovered plant-fungal interaction.

She’s not there either. Maybe she found herself her very own masked Phantom and is also getting seduced in the shadowycorridors ofFirenze. The bartenders shake their heads when I ask if they’ve seen her, barely paying attention to me with the crush of customers descending on them.

So I wait. I take a seat on a fortuitously empty stool and I wait for her to come back, excitement making me antsy in my seat.

When ten minutes trickle by, the excitement wanes to nervousness. I pick at the hem of my dress, checking my phone to see if she’s answered any of my texts.

When another fifteen minutes go by, my nerves morph into worry. By the time the clock strikes the hour mark, panic has replaced the worry and turned my stomach over. Hysteria is clawing at my throat and I’m no longer seated. I’m rampaging throughFirenze, screaming shrilly for my sister, demanding security get involved, and shoving at them when they tell me she must have gone home without me before proceeding to throw me out of the club.

Maybe she’s in the midst of the hottest makeout sesh of all time. Maybe she downed all the tequila shots herself and passed out somewhere on one ofFirenze’s comfortable velvet chairs. Maybe she grew tired of waiting for me and really did go home. I wasn’t gone that long though, butmaybe.

Not maybe, I fuckinghopeso.

Because I can’t face the alternative.

I take my heels off and run home. It’s forty minutes away on foot, longer when barefoot. It would be faster to just take the Tube but I’m devoid of rational thought. Sheer terror thumps in my chest, barrels down the walls of my mind, and fuels me down those empty streets until my feet are bleeding and I’m back at our Airbnb.

But Adriana isn’t.

She’s nowhere to be found.

She never comes back.

It’s while I’m standing in our suddenly unbearably quiet living room, earlier scenes of us laughing insouciantly flashing unbidden through my mind like my own curated torture reel, that I take detached notice of the exact moment my soul dies.

It’s all my fault.

???

Matteo

She doesn’t show.

She doesn’t fuckingshow.

Chapter Fifteen

Valentina

Present day

“How easily you forgot a man who had his mouth on your clit and his fingers in your pussy, cara,” Matteo continues, his voice nothing more than a sultry purr. “Is that something that happens so regularly you found it hard to remember me?”

I’m staring up at him from between his taut arms, my hand covering my mouth in shock as vignettes of that night flicker through my eyes.

It washim.

He’s the stranger. The Phantom.

The one that I don’t allow myself to think about.

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