Page 49 of The Voicemail

ELENA

Ibarely sleep all night. I keep waking up in a panic thinking I’ve accidentally left the pregnancy test out for Adriana to find. Several times I have to mentally walk through the steps I took to get rid of it. Before I threw it out, I wrapped it in toilet paper, shoved it inside an empty box, and carried the trash to the chute myself.

For whatever reason, I can’t hold on to that fact. Every time I close my eyes, I picture Alex finding it and confronting me. When it isn’t that, I think of Claire being taken outside the gallery.

Nothing makes sense anymore. Some switch flipped, and now everything that can go wrong is going wrong all at once. My body feels like it belongs to someone else. I guess in some way, it does. It’s home to a baby that’s half me and half Alex.

When dawn breaks through my window, I know I need to get out of bed. I have things to do. A messed-up life to live somehow. I shower and brush my teeth, then pull on the comfiest clothes I can find, because every one of my nerve endings is on edge. When I’m done, I sit on the edge of my bed with my phone in my hand, Maya’s name on the screen.

I should call her. I need her right now. I need to process all of this out loud with someone I trust, and she’s the only one I trust with this. But if I tell her, it’s real. Telling her will drag me into a reality I’m not ready to face. Not yet, anyway.

Thankfully, a sound from across the hall pulls me out of my stupor. I get up to see what’s happening. For the last few weeks, the room across the hall has unofficially been my personal storage unit. Everything that didn’t fit in my room went in there, ready to be sorted through when I have the presence of mind. If any of it needed to be moved, Alex certainly didn’t say anything to me.

I crack the door open and catch Luca walking into the room with a few of his men. What the hell? My stomach drops as they slip in quietly and shut the door. What could they possibly need to do in there?

I cross the hall and push the door open without hesitation. After all, the things in there belong to me. I have every right, and Luca certainly doesn’t. It swings wide. Luca stands there in blue gloves.

For a second, I don’t understand what I’m seeing. My brain finally registers that his shirtsleeves are pushed up and my canvas tote is on the chair beside him. I see a bunch of my folders stacked neatly on the desk, with a few loose papers spread out in careful rows.

Most damning of all, though, is that he’s holding my green notebook open in his hands. Everything in me goes very cold.

“What the hell are you doing?” I snap at him.

Luca looks up slowly but doesn’t have the decency to look guilty. “Hello, Elena,” he says calmly.

I glare at him and repeat my question.

“You really should speak to Alex,” he says.

I step further into the room, fury racing through me.

“I’m talking to you,” I say. “Or are you incapable of answering a simple question?”

He sighs heavily and closes the notebook, gentle with it, like it’s something precious. That’s when I realize this is deliberate. I look around. The handful of men are all easing through my things, careful, like they were hoping I wouldn’t notice. If I hadn’t caught them red-handed, or blue-handed in this case, I’d have no idea they’d done this at all.

That makes it worse somehow. At least when Tomaso broke into my apartment, I knew it. There was no doubt in my mind. The evidence was right in front of me and I could take the time to process the anger. What would have happened if I hadn’t seen this? Would I have just gone happily through my life believing my things were safe? This feels like a much deeper violation.

“Who told you to do this?” I ask coldly.

Luca says nothing to that. His silence speaks volumes, though. He wouldn’t do this on his own.

I laugh humorlessly, a loud, ugly sound. “Right,” I seethe. “Stupid question.”

I turn on my heel and walk out of the room, heading toward the kitchen to find Alex. He isn’t there, the coward. It’s almost like he knew I’d catch this little act. When I turn around, Luca is right on my heels.

“Where is he?” I demand.

He looks at me patiently. “Elena, you need to understand, this isn’t as bad as it looks.”

“You don’t get to tell me how something looks!” I scream at him. “You have no idea what I’ve been through the last few months. Don’t you dare minimize my experience!”

He nods slowly and gestures to his left. “He’s in his office,” he says quietly. “For what it’s worth, this was my idea. He just agreed to it. You mean a great deal to him and⁠—”

“No,” I cut in. “Don’t you dare defend him. I don’t care whose idea it was. You can both go to hell for all I care.”

He at least has the good sense not to follow me. That also means I have no backup when I storm into Alex’s office without knocking. He looks up immediately, but he doesn’t look surprised. I’d bet every one of my possessions that Luca texted him in the five seconds it took me to walk over here.

“Why the hell are they going through my things?” I demand.