Kalista
I can’t believe that’s it. After all that time together, thinking I had been getting to know Griff, getting to love—
I don’t even want to think about how close I was to loving that con artist.
What a stupid waste of my time. I should have gone back to my parents from the start—or at the very least after my father had called me, begging me to come home.
Well, you can be damn sure, I won’t be making that same mistake again.
Griffin made it abundantly clear that I wasn’t worth his time or attention, so I’ll show him the same courtesy.
It’s time to get back to the life I so easily—and idiotically—gave up for him.
And so I find myself checking into a glamorous, very expensive hotel. I’ve missed hotels; as lovely as Griff’s pied-à-terre and safe houses were, nothing can really beat a good hotel.
Room service. A mini bar and clean sheets every day. Heaven.
And since nobody could possibly know how I got here or where I’m going in the first place, there’s no way the phone lines could be tapped.
Which means I can call my parents.
Which means I can go home.
I glance down at my jacket pocket where the Canary ring hides, innocuous and invisible. It kind of feels like I’m doing the ring a disservice—shoving it into my pocket like a gum wrapper—but it’s hardly as if I left Griff with any semblance of a plan.
I frown. I don’t want to think about Griffin. I don’t want to acknowledge his existence for the rest of my life, if that can be at all arranged.
I just want my parents, my old life, and to forget about everything Griff had been leading me to believe was real.
And yet my heart twinges painfully at the thought.
I hadn’t thought I was the type to be so easily hoodwinked, and yet here I am—a fool. A complete and utter fool.
I wipe away the bitter sting of tears from my eyes before they can fully form. I take a deep breath and close my eyes, anything to center myself once more.
Griffin’s code name for me was pretty apt, after all. Like a phoenix I will rise, reborn, as a new version of Kalista von Knopf.
A version who doesn’t know nor associate with Griffin Abernathy or his friends.
I check into the hotel without issue and head up to my suite, languishing on the balcony in the fading sunlight for an hour or so before making my way to the phone. I key in the number I’ve known since I was a child—my home phone number.
The phone rings once, twice, then three times as I nervously hold my breath. I hope my father picks up. I don’t know if I have enough of a hold over my emotions to speak to my mom right now.
“Hello?” a voice says.
I breathe out heavily—it’s my dad.
“Long time no speak, Dad,” I say with a laugh, already struggling to hold back tears. God, being on the run really has been so exhausting.
“Kalista! Kali, honey, how are you? Where are you?”
“In a hotel, Dad. I want to come home.”
I can almost see the relieved grin on my dad’s face at my words.
“Kali, of course! Just tell me where you are and I’ll arrange transport back home immediately!”
I frown at that. I don’t actually have a passport under my own name with me, after all. But I do have several under false names—not that I can tell my dad that.
“Dad, can you have someone pick me up in Barcelona instead? With my passport?”
My father must have realized that that means I don’t have my own identification since he readily agrees far quicker than I expected.
“Okay, honey. What time?” he asks.
I check the time on my phone: early evening. I could get a late flight and hang around Barcelona airport for a few hours until my dad picks me up in the morning.
“Let’s say eight in the morning? I’m going to book a flight now,” I reply, allowing a smile to color my tone of voice.
There’s a pause, and then my dad murmurs his agreement.
“Of course, honey. I just wish it could be earlier. I’ll be at the airport to personally pick you up.”
I know there are tears streaming down my face at the notion of seeing my dad again—I don’t bother to clear them away.
“Thank you, daddy. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Kali. So much.”
I take a few moments after I hang up the phone to collect myself. I can’t go down to the reception area with red, bleary eyes after all. I have an image to uphold.
When I do head down to speak to the concierge, my hair is flawlessly brushed and curled. My make-up has been touched up. And I have replaced my clothes with a tight-fitting summer dress that shows off my figure—despite the encroaching evening chill.
The concierge—a tidy and reasonably handsome man probably in his twenties—can barely keep his eyes off me. Talk about satisfying.
I don’t need Griff, I decide once more. I can charm anybody I want without breaking a sweat.
“Hi there,” I croon, smiling radiantly for the concierge, “I don’t suppose you can book me a flight out to Barcelona that leaves in, say, five hours or so? Suite 902.”
He doesn’t do anything for a moment, making no attempt to hide his eyes roving up and down my figure, before tearing his eyes away from me to type on his computer.
“It is a shame for you to leave so soon,” he says in heavily-accented English, glancing back up at me as he does so.
“It really is,” I reply, giving him a sorry smile in response.
He doesn’t pick up on the insincerity.
“There’s a flight leaving in four hours. Shall I book it?” he replies after a few moments of typing.
I nod in assent before thanking him, rewarding him with a beautiful smile before heading back up to my room.
I repack my belongings, order some food from room service, and then commit myself to an hour long nap before I have to head to the airport.
That was my intention anyway.
But, naturally, I can’t sleep. It was foolish of me to think I could.
I refuse to think about Griffin, so instead, I focus on how happy my mom will be when she sees me. I wonder what she’ll think about my hair—it hasn’t been this short since I was in grade school.
But, eventually even happy, hypothetical reunion situations aren’t enough to distract me. So, I shamefully allow myself to dwell on what happened earlier as I jump in a taxi to the airport.
Something still isn’t sitting right with me. Why did Griff wait until that exact moment to ask me what I thought my life was worth to my parents? What caused him to ask such a question in the first place?
I thought—I hoped—he was falling in love with me.
Clearly, I was dead wrong.
Such shameful, embarrassing thoughts are still swirling wildly through my head as I tip the taxi driver. I take my belongings out of the trunk and turn to walk towards the airport.
Such shameful, embarrassing thoughts are still in my head as I take out my burner phone—my final relic of the life I led with Griffin—and snap it in two.
And such shameful, embarrassing thoughts are still coursing through my head as I’m grabbed from behind and a cloth is wrapped around my mouth. Chloroform stings my nostrils as I fall into a sudden, panicked, and fearful state of unconsciousness.
If only Griff could see me now, right back where I started.