Chapter 8 Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

Aurora's POV

Sleep didn't come, the room light was still on. I lay staring at the ceiling, my head throbbing with the kind of ache that lives behind the eyes and has nothing to do with the body. My mother's voice filled the quiet the way it always did when I had nothing to push back against it with. Every argument we ever had followed the same pattern. She would start with my father. She always started with my father. His name in her mouth was never a memory. It was always a weapon, pulled out and aimed at whatever part of me was still standing.

I turned on the bed and faced the nightstand. The wall clock read 11:45. Too late to still be awake. Too much noise in my head to do anything about it.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand.

I picked it up and sat up. A notification from my mother. Six unread messages, the first one sent while I was still at dinner. I had not been on my phone all day. I sighed and tapped into it.

First message.

<Hello child. I have not eaten and my upkeep money has finished. Send more money.>

Second message.

<Aurora, Mrs. Stephan came yesterday for her money. She threatened to lock me up.>

Third message.

<Why are you not picking up? You are so selfish.>

Fourth message.

<I raised you alone and this is how you repay me. Your father would be ashamed of you.>

Fifth message.

<Fine. Don't reply. I know you have money now. Working for those rich people and you cannot send your mother anything.>

Sixth message.

<Aurora.>

I snickered and wiped my face slowly with the back of my hand. Six messages. Not one of them asked how I was doing, not one asking whether I had arrived safely or settled in or eaten. Every single one about money or my father or both, which had been the entire language of our relationship for as long as I could remember.

I dropped the phone back on the nightstand and lay back against my pillow and stared at the ceiling again.

I was not going to cry. I had made that decision on the bus yesterday morning and I intended to keep it.

I closed my eyes, then a scream came through the wall.

I sat up so fast the blanket slid completely off the bed. My heart was in my throat before I had even processed the sound, every nerve in my body pulled tight and waiting. It was raw and sharp and it cut straight through the quiet of the house like something tearing open.

Then Marco's voice followed it.

"Don't you wake my little sister with your screaming." Low,controlled in a way that has nothing to do with calm. "Behave yourself and tell me how that ship sank into the sea without a single piece of my goods found in the water. Start talking."

"Boss, I swear with my life." The man's voice was broken, the words stumbling over each other. "I don't know how it happened. It happened so fast. The immigration officers were there, even the ones that had been working for you at the office were present. The bomb exploded and everything just became"

"I did not ask you what happened fast," Marco said. "I asked you where my goods are."

"Boss please"

"Plug the electric shocker. I don't have time for his excuses. I spent fifty million dollars on those goods and I want answers."

"Yes boss."

I grabbed my pillow and pressed it hard against my chest, holding it there with both arms.

The scream that came next was different from the first. Shorter,cut off too quickly, swallowed into a muffled struggling sound that was somehow so much worse. Like something had been forced over his mouth. Like the sound had been folded in half and held down by force.

Sweat gathered at my hairline. I pressed the back of my wrist against my forehead and sat completely still in the dark and listened.

Marco's voice came again, quieter this time, each word landing with deliberate weight. "Who knew the route before that ship left port."

Silence.

"I will ask one more time."

"It was Ferretti." The man's voice cracked completely down the middle. "Ferretti gave the route to the immigration officers. I heard him on the phone two nights before we shipped out but I didn't think he would actually go through with it, I swear boss I didn't know he would"

"You didn't think." A pause, long enough to mean something. "Take him out. Don't bring him back until he has something useful in his mouth."

"Yes boss."

Shuffling, footsteps crossing the floor. A door somewhere down the corridor opening and then closing.

Then Marco spoke again, low. "Find Ferretti before sunrise. Nobody in this house sleeps until he is found."

"Understood boss."

Everywhere became silent.

I sat in with my pillow pressed against my chest and my breath coming in shallow careful pulls and told myself this had nothing to do with me. I was the nanny. I was here for Natalia. Whatever was happening behind that wall was not my business and had never been my business and would never be my business if I was smart enough to keep it that way.

I needed water.

That was a reasonable thing to need. A completely normal thing. I would go to the door, walk quietly to the kitchen, get water, come back, and tomorrow morning none of this would have happened.

I swung my legs off the bed and crossed to the door slowly, careful on the unfamiliar floor in the dark.

The corridor outside was dim when I last passed through it after dinner, one wall light burning faintly at the far end. The sounds had been coming from behind a closed door halfway down the left side, a thin strip of light still visible underneath it, still on.

I pressed close to my doorframe and looked out.

Empty. The whole corridor held its breath.

I peered a little further out.

My elbow caught the flower vase on the narrow table beside my door.

I heard it go before I could do a single thing about it. The ceramic edge hit the floor and shattered, the sound cracking through the silence of the corridor like a gunshot fired at close range. I gasped and pressed both hands hard over my mouth, my back going flat against the wall beside the door.

Pieces everywhere. Pale shards spread across the dark wood floor in every direction, catching what little light reached them from the far end of the hall.

I did not breathe.

I stood with my back against the wall and my hands over my mouth and my heart beating so hard I could feel it in my jaw and I looked at the broken pieces on the floor and I did not move.

Then slowly, carefully, I bent down, my fingers found the first shard.

Then the second.

I was reaching for the third when the footsteps started coming directly from behind the door at the end of the corridor, each step even and deliberate, growing louder with no hesitation in them at all. My fingers closed around the shard.

The door at the end of the corridor swung open.