An Oath In Blood (Book #3)

Chapter 11: Death On The Threshold

CORVINA HAWKE

"I don't have your phone, I'm afraid." Cecily Johnson offered me a sheepish smile, which had all the color draining from my face.

"Excuse me?" I blurted out before I could stop myself. I was currently standing on her front porch, staring at her with a dubious expression on my face. "What do you mean you don't have my phone? You are the woman I swapped it with at the airport." My social awkwardness went out of the window as I spoke. Sebastian would be proud.

"Yes, you did." Cecily nodded. My heart beat a mile a minute in my chest, this interaction almost draining the life out of me. I really needed to get out there and talk to more people. "My boss, Warren Hale, said that he knew you and would give it to you. I think he must have forgotten about it." She hummed under her breath as if the whole situation was Warren's concern and her's, leaving me out.

"Y-your boss has my phone?" I stuttered, the social awkwardness returning in full swing. I could no longer find the words to speak with her. So, apparently fear made my tongue lose. Now, that was weird.

"Yes, he does." She smiled. I wondered if this woman knew that her boss had just lied to her. He didn't know me. He couldn't know me.

But then another thought occurred to me, leaving me breathless for a moment. Did Warren recognize me in the lobby that day after all? Did he realize that I was Raven?

"I am sure Mr. Hale is on his way to return your phone to you." Cecily assured me and still with that constant smile on her face, disappeared into her house. I stood outside dumbly, still wondering if Warren remembered me, if he still remembered Raven.

The sky darkened, clouds rolling in and I began walking back to my car. My head was buzzing with a million thoughts. Did he look at me with that look of shock on his face that day because he recognized me as Raven? Or was it because he understood that I was the woman who was trying to kill him?

I slipped into my car and pulled out onto the road. There was only way I could find out for sure if Warren knew who I was. It was to face him myself.

So, I headed toward his hotel, swallowing the nervous bile in my throat. How do you let go of a life-long obsession with an idea of a man? And what do you do when that man re-enters your life?

......

I sat in the car outside Warren's hotel for what felt like ages but were probably only fifteen minutes. My fingertips tapped against the steering incessantly, gaze trained down the road where people and cars passed me by. Memories blinded me until the people and cars morphed into a dark room, until the sound of the horns turned into my desperate screams, until my fingers let go of the tapping and gripped the wheel instead, knuckles turning white.

"Let me out! Mom! Dad! Please take me home! I don't want to be here!" I scream, fists banging against the door made out of metal. "Mom, please! I want to go home!"

My throat is parched, needles stinging at the back of it until my voice turns hoarse and tears prick my eyes. I keep calling for my parents but no reply comes from their end. I don't know if they are still outside, or if they have left me here.

This place, I don't know what it is. I had been at a party only hours ago. Now I am trapped in this room which is too small for me, the air weighing down on me until my vision blurs and my heart thunders in my chest.

"Let me go!" I scream again and this time, the door clicks open. A woman walks inside and I take a step away from the doorway. The back of my knee hits the bed frame as I look up at the woman who has entered the room.

"Corvina Hawke," She says my name like no one has ever said it, with an indifference that I find insulting, as if I am nobody, as if I am not worth existing. "You have not been here an hour and you're already a menace." She rolls her eyes.