Page 12 of Forbidden Eyes
The hot water is bliss on my skin. Washing off twenty-four hours of travel doesn’t take long at all. I change, repack my bag, and count my remaining money—just under two-thousand dollars after the bus fare and hotel stay. That won’t last long if Uncle Quinn doesn’t let me stay with them.
My sudden defiance and departure might not be in my nature, but this has been building for years. Years of unanswered questions and refusals, and the dam has burst. I need to experience freedom for myself. This is, in a funny sense, the first step on that path of discovery, and so far, I've done just fine. Nothing bad or sinister has happened. I want to see what Sofia Vico—or rather, Winters—is outside of her academic career. And if Benjamin Vico won’t let me, I’ll find someone who will.
After a much-needed coffee and breakfast, I head out and find the nearest store to buy an old model iPhone. I hook it up to the shop's Wi-Fi and restore some of my contact data from the cloud. This way, I can go online and use my phone without tipping off Uncle Nate or whoever else my dad has got trying to track me down.
I send a quick thank you text to Terrance and let him know I’m okay. The pull to hit the call button for Mom is so strong, I have to stow the phone away. This is my chance to do something, anything, on my own for the first time and get some answers. I don’t want to waste that within the first day.
The sun shines brightly through the towering buildings of the city, and I want to test my new-found liberty from my previous life. But that needs to wait until I'm settled.
It’s Monday morning, and I hope Uncle Quinn will be at work. I don’t want to arrive at the house unannounced, although I’m sure Aunt Emily would be pleased to see me. However, it's Quinn I’ve always gravitated towards, who I’ve always wanted to ask questions of. He's also the person my father has always wanted to keep me away from, more than any of our other family members. Another sign of defiance, perhaps.
The Cane head office is listed as downtown, probably in some swanky building. I’ve never been to it before. All of our family gatherings have been in hotels in various resorts or back home. I’ll try there first, and if luck isn’t with me, I’ll grab a taxi and try Emily. I walk to the office listed on the website and navigate via my phone to arrive at a wall of glass. The lobby has the Cane insignia etched into the wall, six gold plaques marking different levels of the building—marketing, finance, operations, corporate headquarters and ...
“Can I help you, dear?” A polite but stern looking woman wearing an earpiece raises one arched brow at me.
“I’m here to see Mr Cane.”
“Do you have an appointment?” She eyes my casual look and bag, making a judgement in her own mind before she’s even heard me out.
“No. I don’t need one. Excuse me.” I raise my head, square my shoulders and head to the elevators. She doesn’t challenge me, and I have to wonder why that was so easy. However, which floor? I scan the buttons in the elevator, searching for something that might say his name. Nothing. But one button is gold. I press it,hoping.
When the doors finally open, they reveal another tidy lobby area and a corridor with a handful of offices on either side. Another woman sits behind a desk, but her eyes are sharp and threatening.
I march over to her desk. “Can you point me towards Quinn’s office please?”
“And you are?”
“A visitor.”
“He doesn’t have any visitors scheduled for today. If you’d like to make an appoint—”
“No, that’s fine.” I ignore her and walk off, hoping it’s in the right direction. I mentally study the distance between the doors on my right, calculating the width of the offices behind and hope that I choose the right one. My hand twists the shiny gold handle, and I enter the last office in the corridor.
As I sneak in and close it behind me, I mentally breathe a sigh of relief for guessing correctly.
“Sofia?” Quinn’s voice travels to me over the sparse room.
“Hi, Uncle Quinn,” I chirp back at him, stepping closer to his desk.
“Is everything alright? Is Hope okay?”
“She’s fine. At least, she was when I left.”
“Why does that sound like you’re up to no good?” His eyes narrow at me as he stands. He buttons his jacket and then fetches a bottle of water from the bar to hand to me.
He perches on the edge of his desk, eyes still trained on me.
“Look, I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Oh God. Sofia, please tell me that Hope knows you’re here. Benjamin?”
“Not exactly.” I shrink into one of the seats opposite his desk.
“Jesus,” he murmurs, bringing his hands to his temples. “At least tell me your dad knows you’re out of town. At a friend’s?”
“No.”
“Fuck, Sofia, are you out of your mind? What the hell are you thinking?”