Darkness backs away like it was poked. The sound of my dad’s voice, a constant reminder of how awful I am always on repeat like a bad record, pauses. His love was as fake as the fireplace. Mom was my only source of affection before Elijah, but hers was fleeting and his was predatory, and none of it was true.
But Lydia’s love for Talent is true. The regard I share for them, the warmth of a brother and a sister, is real.
Wilder and I are just getting started, but I love him. I do. I love him the best way I know how, with the fury of a world on fire. It smolders inside of me—this growing, tangible, and aching blaze that doesn’t burn me down, but lifts me up. It’s hotter than the sun and brighter than the stars, and nothing holds a candle to it.
And that’s it.
It was in me all along.
I’m Day One.
Iamthe light.
“We’re leaving.” Lydia stands from the couch. “Luca is at Ridge & Sons.”
“What about the girls and Lucky?”
“Talent sent reinforcements. There’re men around the building and in the hotel. They’re safe.”
I’ve been a paid escort for an entire year, but this is my first walk of shame. Lydia arranged to have our belongings sent home the next morning, refusing to let me go back to our room to change. That’s why I’m leaving The Marquis in Wilder’s underwear and six-inch Louboutins after midnight. No bra. No panties.
“That’s something you should have thought about before you whored around with my boyfriend’s brother,” she says with a half-smile.
The extra security Talent hired is polite enough not to make eye contact with me while Lydia and I wait for the elevator to arrive. The large man simply stands outside the presidential suite, on guard with his eyes pointed down. A second man appears with the elevator cab, holding the doors to allow us entrance. He nods politely, but otherwise blends in with the background.
On our journey down to the lobby, I spot the camera in the corner and wonder who it’s captured tonight. Was it Luca? One of his men? Perhaps it was only a delivery person hired by the underboss of the Coppola crime family, who didn’t know any better when asked to sneak through a back door.
Lydia makes her intentions to find out exactly who it was clear as we walk through the lobby. She doesn’t bother to slow her strides as she points at the hotel staff behind the guest services desk. Their faces glow from their computer screens. “I want that fucking surveillance footage now.”
“We’re sending it to Mr. Ridge as we speak, ma’am,” a man with thick-rimmed glasses says in a shaky voice.
“Ma’am?” Lydia grumbles, pushing through the revolving doors. “Dick. I hate this place.”
I didn’t expect to see Yael waiting for us outside the hotel, but the white-haired man tips his hat forward and opens the back door to his black Suburban upon our escape. We’re on the road back to Grand Haven in no time. City lights quickly taper off to shadowy woods and empty stretches of highway that expand as far as the eye can see.
My heart calms in this untouchable space between two cities, interrupted soon by Lydia’s burner phone. She flips open the screen to check the incoming text, pondering the message for a long moment. “Who the hell is that?”
“Can I take a look?” I unbuckle my seat belt and close the gap between us.
“It’s a screenshot from the surveillance footage Talent received. If Luca was at the hotel tonight, he didn’t drop off the flowers.” Lydia rubs her eyes like sleepiness is the reason why the faces don’t match. “I have no idea who this is.”
I do.
The hair on the back of my neck stands straight up, and my spine stiffens like I’m being watched. “That’s—” I fall short, trying to remember his name. It dances right on the tip of my tongue and then comes to me all at once. “Adam.”
Lydia’s expression wrinkles in confusion. “Who the fuck is Adam?”
The elevator doors had just closed on Wilder and Benny, and my purse was knocked out of my grip by a young man who looked better suited for the farmers’ market than Grand Haven’s business district.
“I’m afraid you’re another casualty brought on by my string of bad luck today,”I had said.
“Did you see those guys fighting in the elevator?”he replied.
Realization pours over me like ice water, and I shiver in my seat. I’ve crossed paths with him more than once. The brief encounter at Cros’ office was only the first time. The second time was on the evening Lydia invited me on a run, and I’d finally accepted. When I couldn’t cut it, she’d continued alone. The man in the photo—Adam—had driven by in a dark SUV on my walk back to the apartment, disguising himself in a baseball cap and sunglasses.
“I think he’s been following me,” I say.
Hazel eyes turn wholly green, and I shrink back from their intensity. I can’t tell if I should protect my neck from being strangled or hold my arms out to be hugged. Indifference is Lydia’s default emotion, but she’s nothing if not passionate about killing me right now. “Explain yourself right the fuck now, Camilla.”
