Page 16 of Monster

6

Mateo

The ride homewas nothing short of silent. I kept raking my eyes over Charlotte’s war-torn dress, making sure she wasn’t bleeding or concealing an issue that might require a doctor. But, she didn’t turn to look at me once. She hadn’t looked at me since I had collected her from the room all of those poor women had been stuffed into, actually.

And I wondered if she ever would.

I couldn't let her go because I knew she’d run right to the police. Or worse, straight back into her mother’s arms. She’d tell that snake of a woman everything that happened and we’d all be taken down, even from halfway around the fucking world. That’s the kind of pull her mother had. Gloria Pettigrew was an attorney feared around the world. And if Charlotte left to go back to her mother, all hell would break loose.

Which would most likely result in Charlotte’s death.

I wonder how much she knows about her mother?

“Where are we going?” Charlotte asked softly.

Her voice seemed oddly strong, considering all she had been through to get to this point.

“My vacation home. On the coast,” I said.

She nodded slowly. “What coast?”

I crossed my leg over my knee. “Do you know where you are right now?”

“No.”

“Well, Number Four, you’re certainly not on any coastline you’d be familiar with.”

“I believe the name you’re looking for is ‘Miss Pettigrew’.”

I turned my eyes forward. “You’ll be comfortable there. My vacation home is more of my home than anywhere else. You can have your choice of rooms, if you’re good enough.”

I watched her head turn in my peripheral vision, and I matched her movements. Allowing our eyes to meet before she raked her stare up and down my body.

“Why do you look familiar?” she asked.

Because we’ve met. “I have one of those faces. Many people claim to have seen me somewhere at some point in time.”

She blinked. “Uh, huh.”

Her stare was intense, so I turned my gaze out the window. “Like I said, you’re free to—”

“I’m in Italy, aren’t I?”

I paused. “What makes you say that?”

She snickered. “The islands, right? Aeolian?”

Not good, not good. “Do I even dare ask how you know that?”

She scoffed. “We just passed by the place I rented out for the next two weeks. Right there. See?”

I tossed my eyes out the window and watched a bunch of oceanfront villas whiz by in the blink of an eye.

“So, you were already supposed to be here anyway,” I said.

I heard her swallow hard. “Yeah. I was.”

The car fell silent once more and so many questions rushed through my head. Why was she brought here? Why the fuck was a woman like this kidnapped? The whole point of something like this was to fly beneath the radar. Surely, Gloria Pettigrew would send out the dogs the second she thought something was wrong with her own flesh and blood.

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