“Pack a small bag. I’ll have more of your things sent,” Romero said.
“Alessandro?” Tears started to flow down her face.
“Will you excuse us?” he asked. He took her hand and led her out of the room.
“She’s coming home with us?” Angel asked, astounded.
I nodded, “Yep.”
“Dare!” she was in awe.
***
We took her home and put her in the den for the night.
“I’m so worried about her,” Angel said, “What happened? How did it happen?”
“I know almost nothing. He asked us to take care of her for now but insists it’s temporary.”
“Do you think he’s really a good guy? Do you think he’s gonna clean things up before he comes for her? Get out of the skin trade?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I hope so.” Angel looked beyond hopeful, “Maybe I’m wrong about him. My feeling that he’s a really bad guy.”
I wasn’t so sure but I wasn’t about to burst her bubble.
“Thank you, Dare. Thank you for getting my sister back.”
“It might not be for long. This situation? I don’t---”
“For tonight, whatever it is, for now, I’ll take it.”
I didn’t know what was next. I didn’t know what the fuck to make of Romero.
Angel
Holly would only say she loved Alessandro and wanted to know why he’d sent her away. I didn’t get it, any of it. I wanted to think maybe I was wrong that he was a bad guy. I felt it in my bones when I saw him. I felt a vibe in that place. A Kruna vibe. I hoped I was wrong.
We’d only seen one lounge-like room and then his private bedroom / quarters but the size of the compound, the lavishness of it? For now, Holly was home with me. To go from wondering if I’d ever see her again to having her under the same roof? I was ecstatic.
I’d seen the look in Dare’s eye as we left and knew that we were on the same page. We’d figure out how to stop that guy from taking my baby sister. We’d stop him just like we’d stopped Kruna.
For now, get Holly home. Figure it all out later.
She was weepy and sad. She wasn’t rejoicing in being with us at all. Every time I told her something about Portland or about our place or the people in Dare’s family she’d meet, she’d give me a watery half-smile. She still had a face like someone had kicked her puppy with steel-toed boots on when I said goodnight.
***
After dinner with a few of the girls the night after we got home, a quiet dinner where Holly didn’t say much, but where Luc and Bianca’s chattiness made up for what would’ve been deafening silence, we left them to watch a movie at our place with Holly. Will also hung out. Will would be working full-time, for now, as Holly’s bodyguard.
Dare took me to the storage unit, the same building we’d gone to when we’d hidden at Luc and Eddy’s cottage. This time, Dare brought me in and took me to a unit that had a big wall of safes in it. He’d shut the garage-style door in the small unit at the end of a long hallway. There was a folding chair against the wall. He unfolded it and motioned for me to sit.
He wasn’t saying much, so at first I thought it was business but then he was so quiet and serious that I thought it was something fun, that he was going to surprise me somehow. But when he opened a safe and pulled out a smaller lock box and inside of it was a laptop. He lifted it out and put it in my hands.
“What’s this?”
“This is Jason Frost’s computer. The hard drive is filled with videos of you. From Kruna.”