Page 23 of Only Fools Rush

“Chiara Tommaso.”

“No shit.” It couldn’t be a coincidence, right? That Chiara was texting hernow, shortly after we learned Volpe was hiding out in her father’s estate?

She looked up at me. “Should I reply? Tell her it’s me?” Her voice shook just a tiny bit, and it made me want to wrap her in my arms and hold her close. But that was insane, so I didn’t. “I haven’t seen her since my birthday. God, I’ve missed her so much.”

Something about this didn’t feel right. Obi’s earlier words about Volpe outsmarting us turn after turn seemed to scream through my head.

But it was also her best friend.

There was a version of me in my past that would have snapped the phone in half and crushed it beneath my foot because of even the tiniest risk it posed to us all. Butugh. Feelings and emotions and that traitor organ once again thumping a quick beat.

“You’re sure that’s her number?”

She nodded. “I’ve had it memorized since I was sixteen, and my dad took away my phone for sneaking out. I used to call her on our landline when everyone went to sleep.”

Her thumb moved across the keyboard, typing a response, but I blocked it with my palm. There was a simple answer to this. “We need to show Ciel first.”

She exhaled. “You’re right.”

8

LEONA

Ciel stared down at my phone, having run all his tests just to confirm it was actually Chiara. All of us stood around the island, locked onto the device like it was a bomb we were trying to diffuse.

The message taunted me.

Leona?

It felt like her. I couldn’t explain how, but just that it did.

Why would she be texting me? Maybe to tell me that Max was hiding there?

She had to have learned what happened between us the night of my birthday party, right?

If she got caught in the middle of all this, I would never forgive myself. That failure would wrap itself around my neck until it strangled me.

“It’s her number,” Ciel confirmed. He had explained earlier that sometimes hackers try to replicate phone numbers to get backdoor access into a device. “But that doesn’t mean we know who sent it. It might not have actually beenher, on her side of things.”

My mind raced through possibilities. “Cas destroyed my old phone. How would she have gotten access to this number?”

Ryuji crossed his arms over his chest, and Obi sipped from his coffee mug. My eyes locked onto the muscles of his forearm and the bobbing of his throat, trying to understand the complicated emotions swirling through my chest.

Things were weird between us right now, and I hated it. His eyes were too careful and all I could read was judgment. How could I regain his respect? Show him that I wouldn’t fail again?

Wynn’s hand brushed against my back. I leaned into his chest and caught Cas’s eyes from the other side of the island.

“Did they take your phone when Max had you?” I asked, hating to force him back to that place, but that would have been the only time I could imagine Max getting hold of this information.

A shadow passed over his face. “I smashed mine before Max’s men grabbed me. I don’t know what happened after that. Ciel gave me a new one a few days ago.”

Obi looked at Ciel. “Is it possible they got the number from the pieces of Caspian’s phone?”

He pulled his glasses off his face and rubbed his eyes. “Yeah, but it’s unlikely.”

“Then how did Chiara get my phone number? Assuming that it is, actually, her.”

The rest of us waited for some sort of response, but all I was met with was silence. We were all exhausted. Max was slowly sucking the life out of us.