Chapter Twenty-Six

Cora woke to the unfamiliar sensation of being able to breathe. Air freely flowed in and out of lungs, unrestrained by the usual weight pinning her to the mattress. The unnaturalness of it had her eyelids prying open to squint at the room.

“James?”

Silence greeted her.

Bemused, she pushed upright, wincing as all her muscles and orifices panged in brutal reminder of the sexcapades she’d endured the night before — and part of the morning. She pushed back the blankets and started to climb out, when she spotted the note tucked against the lamp on her nightstand. Her name blazed across the fold in James’s oddly neat handwriting.

My Dearest Cora,

You’re free.

Yours always,

Captain James Crow

Not a single word more.

No explanation.

No reasoning.

Ten little words that sealed the latch on her lungs and sent the room spinning.

“No...”

Floors bobbing beneath her feet, Cora threw herself at the dresser. Clothes were torn from their hangers in her desperate, clumsy clawing for something to throw on. Only part of her mind grasped the lack of his things amongst hers. Her numb fingers closed around a bathrobe and she twisted it around her chilled frame.

Then she was running, feet pounding on carpet all the way downstairs.

“Mom!” Her voice echoed off the walls. “Dad!”

She found them in the parlor amongst a small mound of blood soaked tissues and gauze. Leon, the butler, knelt at her father’s side, nimbly sewing the gash in his thigh while Giovanni sipped scotch at ten in the morning, a blanket over his naked lap.

“Where’s James?” she panted.

Her mom rose off the sofa, her eyes wielding every ounce of remorse and sympathy in the world.

“Cora...”

“Where’s James?” she repeated, words torn around jagged emotions. “Did he leave? Is he gone?”

“Baby girl...”

“He left,” her father stated evenly. “He’s not coming back.”

“Gio!”

Her mother’s hiss was lost in the buzz swarming through Cora’s skull, the relentless assault of vertigo threatening to take her to the floor.

“No,” she gasped. “He wouldn’t ... he wouldn’t leave me.”

“I’m sorry, love,” Elise started.

Cora shook her head. “No, I don’t believe it. Why ... why would he...?”

“It doesn’t matter why,” Giovanni broke in. “He’s gone. He’s not coming back. It’s time to get over this whole ridiculous notion.”

“Giovanni De Marco, what is the matter with you?”

Cora wasn’t listening.

The world kept swimming in and out of focus.

It kept shifting around her as if in a dream.

Maybe it was a dream.

Maybe James finally suffocated her and all of this was her brain struggling against a lack of oxygen.

It was the only explanation she could think of that justified him just leaving her.

It’s because I told him I loved him, she realized with sickening horror.

He left because she’d broken her promise.

He’d given her a chance the night before to recant, to take it back, but she hadn’t.

So, he’d left.

“He left because I love him,” she breathed out loud, the words coming out without any consent from her, each one torn and bloody spilling from her lips. “The thought was so horrible that he couldn’t stand to be with me anymore.”

“What? No!” Elise hurried towards her. “No, that isn’t it at all. I’m sure of it.”

“That’s it,” Cora croaked. “The idea of loving me back ... the thought of being loved by someone like me, someone he couldn’t even stand the idea of having children with ... of course he left.”

“You stop that this minute!” Elise grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “You listen to me, Cora Elizabeth Harris, you get that nonsense out of your head.”

She tried to fight the hold off, but her mother’s grip only tightened.

“Why?” she snapped. “It’s true. I repulsed him.”

“He loves you!” Elise shouted back at her. “I heard him say so with my own ears. Gio,” she turned her head to where her husband sat. “Tell her.”

Drink halfway to his mouth, Gio paused. His brown eyes met Cora’s over the rim. The harsh lines around his mouth softened even as he sighed.

“He left because he didn’t want to hurt you anymore,” he grumbled. “He’s gone back to his ship.”

“And?” Elise prompted.

Gio rolled his eyes heavenward. “He may have mentioned something about loving you.”

Tears spilled down her cheeks, an overpowering rush of relief and desperation.

“I have to see him,” she blurted. “I need to hear him say he doesn’t want me to my face.”

“But, Cora—”

Unwilling to waste another second, Cora sprinted back down the hall. She grabbed the first set of keys off the hook inside the closet, and a pair of rubber boots, and threw herself out into the early morning frost.

There was no stopping her.

She broken every law in the book as she pushed the gas pedal down to the carpet. Her knuckles blazed white around the wheel, a death grip that matched the chaotic beat in her chest.

Please be there.

Please be there.

In the rearview mirror, lights flashed, the familiar blue and red of a patrol car. Cora barely shot it a second glance as she swerved around a bend, passing the sign marking the loading docks up ahead.

Sirens wailed behind her.

A gruff, male voice through the police cruiser speakers ordered her to pull over.

But she could see where she needed to go, the exit leading to James’s ship. Once she saw it, everything would be okay.

Tires skidded on gravel as she came to a fishtailing stop. She kicked open her door and ran the last twenty feet to where the parking lot ended at the ramps.

There was no ship.

The entire bay sat empty and too wide overlooking miles of ocean.

But no ship.

No James.

He was gone.

He’d left.

A sob escaped her that was swallowed hungrily by the wind and the thump of running feet behind her. Hands grabbed her. A voice shouted in her ear, but it all bled into the white noise of realization that he’d left without her and he wasn’t coming back.

Someone at the police station had called her father.

Maybe they’d run the name on the plate.

Maybe someone there knew her.

She didn’t care.

But he appeared in the doorway of the room someone had stuffed her into, beautifully groomed in a dark suit, his face shaven, his hair glossed back. He limped slightly as he crossed to take the seat next to her.

“He’s gone,” she whispered, her lips feeling oddly numb around the words. “His ship’s gone.”

Giovanni’s answer was his arm slipping around her. He pulled her into his chest.

Cora dissolved into tears, deep, gut wrenching sobs that wracked through her entire body.

Her father held her until there was nothing left and she was too exhausted for anymore. He kissed the top of her head.

“Tell me,” he murmured.

She sniffled. “I love him.”

Giovanni inhaled deep enough that her head lifted with his chest. “Okay.”

She didn’t ask what that meant.

“What happened to your leg?” she asked at long last.

Giovanni grunted. “Ask your husband when we find him.”

Cora lifted her head off his shoulder and peered at him. “I know you didn’t do it, the things he says you did to his sister. I don’t know who did, but—”

“Sal.”

Cora blinked. “What?”

Her father hesitated, as if regretting his decision to speak. But she was watching him, not giving him the chance to recant.

“Sal did those things to Crow’s sister,” he repeated with a grudging huff. “He and his men.”

“No...” Her hands went to her mouth, horror lancing through her. “No,” she repeated. “He wouldn’t. He taught me to defend myself. He taught me how never to get taken advantage of.”

“Probably because he’d done it to so many other girls,” he mused. “But it’s done. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

But it did matter.

It mattered a lot.

Sylvester had always been like a second father to her.

He’d raised her.

He’d protected her.

“Does James know?”

Giovanni nodded. “It’s been dealt with.”

“Dealt with ... oh! Oh!” she gasped, realization smacking her upside the head. “No, you didn’t...”

“I had no choice, Cora. He’s the one who helped you get kidnapped. He’s been working with Lionel for years trying to destroy me. He was the mole. He set your apartment on fire.”

Cora shook her head. “No, not Uncle Sal. I don’t believe ... he wouldn’t.”

His answer was to press a kiss to her forehead.

“Don’t think about that, okay? His plan was to kill me and Crow last night. He wanted to do it himself, so it was either us or him.”

“I just ... God, I can’t believe ... I’ve known him my whole life. He took care of me. I thought he loved me.”

“Me too, sweetie. But it just shows you never know a guy. Even family.”