Chapter 14: You Never Asked

For one second neither of us moved.

Then Gabriella screamed his name.

"Sergio!"

I stood up out of the closet I built.

I held my phone up between us, screen out, with the call timer running.

Nineteen minutes.

"Say hi, Annette," I said.

Annette's voice came out of the speaker at full volume.

"Hi, Gabriella! Love the robe! I'm downstairs with my fiancé and three guys from the firehouse, and one of them has an axe!"

Sergio filled the bedroom doorway.

He didn't look surprised.

That was the worst part.

"Sweetheart," he said. "You're in the wrong apartment."

"It's my closet."

"It's my building now. Or it will be." He smiled under his mustache. "Put the phone down. We'll talk like family."

"We just did," Annette yelled. "I heard you. You sound like a Muppet."

I bent down without taking my eyes off him.

I reached behind the boots and flipped the lid off the box.

My fingers found the top page.

I pulled it out.

"Put that back," Sergio said.

"Come take it."

He didn't move.

He was fifty-eight and heavy, and there was a voice in my hand that wasn't scared of him.

Gabriella grabbed for the page.

I stepped around her.

My shoulder hit hers, and she sat down hard on my bed.

"Take it," Sergio said, easy, as I went past him. "Take your page to him. He'll call me before he finishes reading it."

I walked through my front room.

I walked through my kitchen.

I opened my kitchen door and went out onto my fire escape and pulled the door shut behind me.

I went down one flight, through the storage room window, and locked it.

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