Page 106 of Masked Hearts

MyhandsshakeasI dial the number again.

It’s been an hour and a half of the same process. Call Valerie’s phone. Call Ambrose. Repeat.

There’s less than fifteen minutes left of this flight, and the only thing I’ve had for company is my thoughts. Thoughts that have only grown louder as time has gone on.

The voice plays on repeat in my head.

“You knew the consequences for betraying us, Antonio. It’s time you learn your place in all of this.”

My eyes singe as I push back the tears that blur my vision for the hundredth time this flight.

I was so ignorant, so distracted.

I should’ve listened.

They all knew.

Every. Single. One of them told me not to get in too deep.

Paris was my idea, but I should’ve seen this sort of retaliation coming.

Do they have Ambrose, too?

How did he find out?

Where is everyone?

My head spurts out questions as the minutes tick down. By the time the wheels touch the tarmac, I’m already pacing near the door—against the cabin crew’s instructions.

I try their numbers one more time. Valerie, Ambrose, Augustus, Adriano, Mattia, my mamá. Anyone.

But nothing. I dash across the tarmac towards the black vehicle waiting for me. I left everything but my phone and wallet in Paris.

Everything. Including her.

I can hear a voice screaming at the back of my head that all of this is stupid. I worked so hard to get away from this exact thing, where Valerie and my brothers sit in the centre of my world.

It’s probably comfortability, or the years of not knowing any better.

“You’re loyal to a fault, and it’ll be your greatest downfall.”Theá’s words ring through my head, but I shove them down.

I’d rather be loyal to a fault than watch the people I love get hurt, knowing I could’ve done something to prevent it all from happening.

Oh, so ironic.

The gates to the old manor creak open beneath the moonlight, the house barely visible aside from the parts lit up by the car’s lights. The air is cool and crisp as I jump out of the car and dash up the stairs, flinging the door open.

The house is dead silent, almost eerie. No movement, not even from the usual guards.

My feet glide across the wooden floors on their own accord, as if they knew long before me exactly where Gabriel would be.

The door of his office is open a crack, and light gleams out. I push the door open with one finger and stand in the doorway.

A chuckle rips through the air.

“An hour and forty minutes,” Gabriel says between laughs. “You were right, son.”

I stare between the two men in front of me, heart pounding and hands clenched into fists at my side.

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