Page 148 of Obsessed by My Ex's Mafia Uncle

Chapter Twenty-Four

Robert

We know where you live. Leave Robert before you and your child get caught in another fire.

My heart hasn’t stopped pounding against my chest since last night.

I suck in a deep breath, struggling with the zipper of the suitcase again. I drag it harder across the suitcase, the teeth grinding against fabric like the bag itself is fighting me on this.

“Christine…”

“Not now, Aisha.” My voice comes out bristly, clipped around the panic sitting in my throat.

I push down harder on the suitcase, forcing the clothes inward with my forearm while trying to pull the zipper across with my other hand.

It catches again.

“Come on!” I seeth.

Everything feels difficult this morning: the air, breathing, and even thinking.

I slept maybe an hour or less light night, and every time I closed my eyes, I saw the message again.

I yank the zipper harder and this time it gives with a violent jerk.

Finally.

“There.” I exhale, but the relief doesn’t come with it. Because the moment one thing is done, another rises immediately behind it.

Blue’s backpack is still sitting open on the armchair by the window.

The fear is still gnawing at my insides.

“Christine.” Aisha steps further into the room now, her voice softer this time, careful in the way people get around frightened animals. “You need to think for a second.”

“I am thinking.”

“No, you’re not, you’re spiraling.” She counters.

“You should tell the police,” Aisha continues. “Or Robert.”

At his name, something clenches deep inside me.

“Robert?”

“Did you also hear the part where I said to tell the…?”

“Yes, but what help will that be right now?”

“Christine.”

“I need to run first and think later. “ Everything in me feels pulled in different directions, and one more pull, I’ll split open right here on the floor. “You don’t know what this is,” I whisper.

“Then explain it to me.”

“I can’t.”

“Because you don’t know either!” She flares.