Chapter 199
“I was going to tell you-”
“When?” His voice was rising now, his anger barely contained. “After something else happened? After it was too damn late?”
“It didn’t seem like the right time,” I fired back, feeling my own frustration bubbling to the surface. “With everything going on, I didn’t want to add more to the mess–”
“Oh, so you thought keeping it a secret was a better idea?” He took a step closer to me, his whole body radiating fury. “You thought keeping something like this from me was the smart move?”
I didn’t back down. “I didn’t want to make things worse!”
“Well, congratulations,” he snapped. “Because you did exactly that.”
Vanessa, who seemed to be enjoying being the center of the chaos, threw up both her hands. “Whoa, okay. I did not anticipate this much drama. But for the record, I’m with Alex. You should’ve told them.”
“Stay out of this, Vanessa,” I warned, grinding my teeth.
She raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me? I had to help you escape them.”
I spun on my heel to confront Alex, chest heaving. “Faith is gone, Alex,” I said, my voice cracking slightly. “And now you’re yelling at me over something I had no control over-”
“That’s not the damn point!” He ran a hand through his hair, blowing out a sigh. “We could have done something, Raina. We could have figured out what the hell was going on before it got this far.”
Vanesa snorted. “Oh, please. If..”
“This isn’t your damn business,” Alex interrupted. “So why don’t you just leave? This isnt about you!”
“What? If they took Faith, what’s to stop them from taking your sister?” I folded my arms as I glared at Alex. “But you don’t seem to care about that, do you? Can’t you think about your sister for once?” The words spilled out before I could trap them.
The room slammed down into silence.
I felt the weight of my own words, felt them settle like a ton of stones in my stomach. My heart thundered in my chest as I realized what I had just said.
Alex was staring at me now, eyes unblinking, his jaw locked so tight I thought he would break his teeth.
For a long, painful moment, we just stood there, neither of us saying a word.
Then, without another word, Vanessa turned and walked out of the room.
And that was when it hit me–she was leaving.
I had been so caught up in my own anger, in my argument with Alex, that I hadn’t even noticed her slipping away.
By the time it fully sank in, she was gone. And my head was pounding too hard to even chase after her.
A sharp, pounding pain throbbed against my skull, each beat growing in intensity until I thought I might collapse under it. My body was on fire–heat rising under my skin, my hands clammy, my throat dry. My chest rose and fell with uneven breaths as the weight of everything pressed down on me like a boulder I couldn’t move.
Through the haze, Alex’s voice cut in. “You need to rest.”
I barely heard him. My mind was spinning too fast, my stomach curling in on itself in sickening dread.
“No,” I croaked out, shaking my head. “Has there been any-”
A shrill ring cut through the tension, slicing me off mid–sentence.
froze.
So did Alex.
It was Dominic’s phone, vibrating against the table where he’d carelessly tossed it earlier.
Dominic, lost in his drunken stupor, barely flinched. His head remained down, fingers gripping the arms of his chair as if he needed to hold on to something tangible, something that would keep him from flying apart.
Alex threw me a look before snatching up the phone. The screen was softly lit, an unknown number flashing on it.
My breath caught.
“Who is it?” My voice was hoarse.
Alex didn’t respond immediately. His jaw clenched as he turned the screen toward me, letting me see for myself.
