Page 83 of The Housemaid
He jerks his head up at the sound of my voice. His face drops when he sees the look on mine. “What happened?”
“He found one of the safe deposit boxes.” I pause to catch my breath. “It…it’s over. I can’t leave.”
My face crumbles. Before I started talking to Enzo, I had accepted that this would be my life. At least until Cecelia turned eighteen. But now I don’t think I can do it. I can’t live like this. Ican’t.
“Nina….”
“What am I going to do?” I whimper.
He holds out his arms and I fall into them. We should be more careful. Somebody could see us. What if Andy thought I was having an affair with Enzo?
We are not having an affair, by the way. Not even a little bit. He thinks of me like Antonia—his sister he couldn’t save. He hasn’t touched me in a way that is anything other than brotherly. It’s the absolute last thing either of us is thinking about. Right now, all I can think of is the future I thought I might have had being flushed down the toilet. Another decade living with that monster.
“What am I going to do?” I say again.
“Is simple,” he says. “We go to plan B.”
I lift my tear-streaked face. “What’s Plan B?”
“I kill the bastard.”
I shiver because I can see in his dark eyes that he means it. “Enzo…”
“I will do it.” He pulls away from me and his jaw is rigid. “He deserves to die. This is not right. I’ll do for you what I should have done for Antonia.”
“And we both go to jail?”
“You won’t go to jail.”
I smack him in the arm. “I’m not okay with you going to jail either.”
“So then what do you suggest?”
And then the idea hits me. It’s so beautifully simple. And even though I hate Andy, I know him very well. This will work.
FORTY-NINE
Step Eight: Find a Replacement
I can’t pick just anyone.
First of all, she has to be beautiful. More beautiful than I am, which shouldn’t be hard since I’ve deliberately let myself go the last few years. She has to be younger than me—young enough to give Andy the children he so badly wants. She has to look good in white. He loves that color.
And most of all, she has to be desperate.
Then I meet Wilhelmina Calloway. She’s everything I wanted. The dowdy clothing she wears to her interview can’t conceal how young and pretty she is. She’s desperate to please me. And then when the simple background check I run reveals a criminal record, I know I’ve hit paydirt. This is a girl who will be desperate for a decent, high-paying job.
“I am not on board with this,” Enzo tells me when I come out to my backyard to ask for the name of the private detective he knows. “This is not right.”
When I told him my plan a few weeks ago, he was not happy.You would sacrifice somebody else?But he didn’t understand.
“Andy controls me because of Cece,” I say. “This girl has no children. No attachments. Nothing he can hold over her. She can leave.”
“You know it doesn’t work that way,” he grumbles.
“Will you help me or not?”
His shoulders sag. “Yes. You know I will help.”
