Chapter 18 Hope
AMELIA
I woke to the smell of coffee and the sound of someone moving around in the kitchen.
For a moment, I couldn't remember where I was. Then it all came rushing back.
Crimson. Jade. Being thrown out. Elena.
I sat up slowly, every muscle protesting.
"Morning," Elena's voice called out. "Coffee?"
"I don't drink coffee."
"Tea? Orange juice? Water?"
"Water would be good."
I heard her approach and felt a glass pressed into my hand.
"How are you feeling?" she asked.
"Like I got beaten up and thrown into the street."
She laughed—a genuine sound. "Fair enough. Your hands look better, though. And the swelling on your face went down overnight."
"That's good." I said, looking at my hand as if I could see it.
"So," Elena said, sitting down somewhere nearby. "We need to talk about what happens next. You can't go back to Crimson, obviously. Do you have any money saved up?"
I shook my head. "Marco was paying me, but most of it was going toward rent for the room. I have maybe forty dollars."
"Okay. That's... not great. But workable." She paused. "I have an extra key to this place. You can stay here while we figure things out. I work lunch and dinner shifts at the diner, so you'd be alone during the day, but—"
"I can't ask you to do that."
"You're not asking. I'm offering. Additionally, I need someone to share the rent with. This place is tiny, but there's the couch, and we can make it work."
"Why are you helping me?"
"Because someone helped me once," Elena said simply. "When I first came to the city, I was broke and scared and had nowhere to go. A woman at the shelter I stayed at helped me get my first job and my first apartment. She told me to pay it forward whenever I had the opportunity. She squeezed my hand. "So I'm paying it forward. To you."
I felt tears prick my eyes again. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. We've got a lot to figure out. Let's begin by finding you a real job. One that doesn't involve serving criminals in private rooms."
"I don't know what I can do. Nobody wants to hire someone who can't see."
"Then we'll find someone who does. Or we'll create something. We'll figure it out." She stood up. "But first, breakfast. You need to eat something."
As Elena moved around her tiny kitchen, making toast and scrambling eggs, I sat on her couch and felt something I hadn't felt in a long time.
Hope.
Maybe this was rock bottom. Maybe I'd lost everything again.
But I wasn't alone.
And somehow, that made all the difference.
MARCO
The Jersey meeting had been a waste of time.
I spent four hours driving round-trip to sit in a smoke-filled room with men who talked in circles and accomplished nothing. But such was the nature of business in our world—sometimes you had to show your face, make your presence known, even when nothing productive came of it.
I arrived back at Crimson just after noon. The bar was in its usual midday state—quiet, with staff preparing for the evening rush. The cleaning crew was finishing up, and I could smell fresh paint from where we'd been touching up the private rooms.
Everything looked normal.
I headed to my office, already mentally sorting through the paperwork that had probably piled up in my absence. The liquor order needed to be finalised, payroll was due Friday, and I had to review the new security protocols Antonio Santoro had insisted on after last week's incident.
"Marco." Nina's voice from my doorway. "Can I talk to you?"
"Give me five minutes," I said, not looking up from the papers on my desk. "Let me sort through this mess first."
"It's important."
Something in her tone made me look up. Nina wasn't easily rattled—she'd been working for me for five years and had seen everything. But right now, she looked worried.
"What happened?" I asked, setting down my pen.
She closed the door behind her and sat down without being invited. Bad sign.
"Amelia's gone," she said without preamble.
I frowned. "Gone where?"
"I don't know. She left yesterday. While I was..." She paused. "I had to leave. Emergency with my boyfriend's sister. I was only gone for a few hours, but when I got back, she was already gone."
"She quit?"
"That's what the girls are saying. That she packed up and left. Said she couldn't handle the work."
I leaned back in my chair, processing this. Amelia had seemed fine the last time I'd seen her. Nervous about the work, sure, but not ready to bolt.
"Did she take her things?"
"I don't know. I didn't check her room. I just assumed—I mean, the girls all had the same story, so I figured—"
"You didn't check her room," I repeated flatly.
Nina had the grace to look embarrassed. "No. I should have, but it was late and I thought she'd just decided it wasn't for her and—"
"Check it now." I said interrupting her.
She stood and left quickly. I sat there, tapping my fingers on the desk.
Something felt off.
Amelia had nowhere to go. She'd made that clear when she'd asked me for the cane. She'd been desperate enough to take this job, desperate enough to work with special customers despite being terrified.
People that desperate didn't just leave.
Nina returned five minutes later.
"Her things are gone," she reported. "The room's empty. Bed's made. Nothing left behind."
"What about her cane?"
"Not there either."
I considered this. If she'd taken everything, that suggested she'd planned to leave. But the timing was suspect.
"You said you had to leave yesterday. What time?"
"Around six. I got back close to nine."
"And that's when you found out she was gone?"
"The girls told me. Said she'd left a couple of hours before, around seven."
Right after Nina had left. Convenient.
"Which girls?"
"Jade. Ashley. A few others."
Of course. Jade.
"Did you talk to Amelia at all yesterday? Before you left?"
Nina hesitated. "I told her to stay in her room until I got back."
"Why?"
"Because I didn't trust the other girls. Especially with you gone. I knew they'd been giving her a hard time, and I thought—" She stopped. "I thought if she stayed in her room with the door locked, she'd be safe until I got back."
"But she didn't stay in her room."
"Apparently not."
I stood and walked to the window overlooking the street. The mid-day foot traffic moved past—people going about their normal lives, completely unaware of the predators operating in their midst.
"You think something happened," Nina said quietly behind me.
"I think it's suspicious that a blind girl with nowhere to go suddenly decides to leave the moment both of us are unavailable."
"You think the other girls did something."
"I think Jade has been gunning for Amelia since day one. I think she was jealous about the special customer position. And I think that, with no supervision, she saw an opportunity."
"To do what?"
I turned to face her. "What do you think? Scare her off. Make her leave. Maybe even force her out."
Nina's face paled. "Marco, if they hurt her—"
"We don't know that they did. We don't know anything." I moved back to my desk, already tired of this conversation. "All we know is that she's gone and took her things with her."
"Shouldn't we try to find her? Make sure she's okay?" Nina said with worry.