Blood for my Rose |• Crimson Rose series✔️

Chapter 10

The remaining hours of the night flew by in a blur. It was a few minutes past ten and Rose was in her bedroom, morosely silent. It crossed her mind that Riley might be more than uncomfortable in these surroundings, and it made her hate herself and how everything went down. She was aching badly; never had such an issue presented itself before in their relationship. Now that it had, she was handling it in the worst way she could possibly imagine. Crying wasn't known to solve the tiniest problem, so her tears were of no use, yet she cried till her throat went dry.

Sluggishly, she picked her phone from the other end of the bed and scrolled down to Jane's number. Then she hit the call button.

"Hello, friend. After checking my phone a hundred times and saw no calls from you, I concluded you fell off the plane and died, so I didn't expect you to call at all," she quipped and giggled. "So tell me, what's the weather like in Sicily?"

Rose stifled a sigh and rolled her eyes as she looked at the ceiling, laying on her back. "Is that what you're worried about?" Her voice with hints that she'd been crying all evening.

"Oh dear," Jane gasped like it just dawned on her there was something more important to discuss. "How did they take Riley's arrival?"

"Terribly bad," Rose said through a sob. "So bad that I don't even know where he is right now."

Jane was silent for a while as she took in the news. "I'm so sorry, Rose. I really am," she pacified. "What was Giovani's reaction and your father's?"

Her sobbing intensified as she said, "I wish to not even talk about that now. I hate being here, Jane. I hate Sicily, I hate this house. I hate Giovani."

"Calm down. I understand," Jane said with a hushed tone. "It's okay to feel the way you do, but what's terrible is when you give up because of what you're feeling."

Candidly, she didn't know what to think. Everything felt awful. "You don't understand."

Jane breathed into the phone. "Trust me, I do," she told. "What do you want to do about it? Call him?"

Rose dabbed her face with the back of her palm. "If it were that easy."

"He shouldn't be far. Don't you think?"

"I'm too embarrassed to call him,"Rose admitted, tears seeping down her cheeks as she sobbed. "A lot went down here."

"It doesn't matter, dear, don't overthink. He loves you so much. None of what has happened would change that," Jane assured her with a voice that sounded equally broken.

"You think?"

Rose sniffed and could almost feel Jane shake her head as Jane said, "I know." Forcing breath out again, she continued speaking, "If you can, find out where he is and leave that fucking house to go patch things up with your man."

Rose took a second to contemplate those words and came up with an idea immediately. "I'll call you back, Jane," she stuttered, getting off the bed.

"That's the spirit, girl. Call me when you make a headway," Jane threw in and hung up right after.

Bang on time, she stood up and wiped her face with her sleeves. She was now in an easy t-shirt that fell mid-thighs, and she didn't bother changing into something better. If the plan was to track Riley down before he left for The States, now was the best time to leave the house, but her problem was more than calling Riley and getting Pedro to drive her to where he was; her door was so close to Enzo's quarter in the house. The scary thing was, they never slept at such hour of the night.