Page 26 of My Dark Ever After

It was a new smartphone with fancy card stock attached to the box with a piece of tape.

To call home.

You have your space and your time, Vera.

I will return in a week.

—Rex Infernus

Even when I hated him, he looked after me.

I huffed out a frustrated breath and took the box with me to the bed, where I flopped back with a groan as my muscles twanged.

In the absence of my Raffa dilemma, I was faced with another.

Calling my parents.

The phone was already programmed when I opened the box, my wallpaper set as a photo Martina had taken of Raffa and me on the day we took the boat out in Livorno. We were both wet, hair slicked back, droplets like diamonds where they caught the sun on our cheeks and lashes. Raffa was smiling that closed-lipped, private expression of deep joy, and my teeth were bared in the widest grin I’d ever seen on my own face.

We were so happy together.

It felt both good and bad to see evidence of it, like pressure on a knotted muscle.

The only contacts he had inputted were Ludo, Carmine, Renzo, Martina, Leo, and himself.

My thumb hovered over his contact information and then pressed down to open a new text thread.

Guinevere:Thank you for the phone.

Guinevere:And the space.

He didn’t respond, but then I didn’t expect him to. He was probably busy doing whatever it was mafiosi did all day.

Besides, I was just delaying the inevitable.

The phone ringing sounded like a death knell.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mom,” I said.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, then louder but angled away from the speaker, “John! John, it’s Guinevere.”

There was a cacophony on the other end of the line, and then both of my parents started to speak over each other.

“Guinevere, where the fuck—”

“Honey, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said loudly, cutting them both off. “I mean, well, I’m okay now.”

“There was a break-in at the offices,” Dad said, voice gruff but discernibly relieved. “The night guard was killed, and there was blood in the staircase. They found two men dead outside the parking garage who seem to be the culprits, but when you didn’t answer your phone ...”

His exhale was shaky, so much pain in a single breath I could feel it through the phone.

“I’m fine, Dad,” I said softly, cradling the cell to my ear like it was his hand. “I was still there when they broke in, and they tried to hurt me, but a ... a friend ended up saving me.”

“A friend?” he said flatly.