AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Elio stands in the doorway, and flanking him all along the walls are shelf after shelf of slim books I recognize instantly as sheet music. And not just sheet music. There’s a sheet music stand, extra strings, duster cloths, and box upon box upon box of rosin for my bow. It’s like somebody searched the internet for what do violinists need? and then bought the entire list ten times over. I place down my violin and bow on a small, pretty desk and try to take it all in.
Did Elio do this?
I can’t imagine him doing anything even remotely like buying these things. He probably has people to do that stuff for him. But he would have had to have given the command in the first place…
“Like it?”
His question startles me. He’s leaning against the door frame, arms crossed.
“Would it even matter if I didn’t?” I sigh, because I do like it, and I don’t want to like anything he offers me.
Elio doesn’t answer, and I raise my chin.
“It doesn’t matter if I like it. I don’t plan on staying here long.”
His dark brows rise in mocking challenge. “Oh?”
I force my voice to remain steady, force myself to fully believe the words as I say, “My dad will find a way to get me out of this. He may owe you money, but there’s no way he’d leave me here.”
Elio breathes out harshly, his expression darkening.
“Stay here,” he mutters as he turns and heads back into the other bedroom. As he goes, my eyes land on the bandaging at his back, covering the wound he got standing between me and the gun that would have killed me. I hold tightly to all the reasons I should hate him so that I don’t start sliding into guilt again, into caring that he’s hurt.
When he returns, stalking into the room like an agitated wolf, he thrusts paper at me. Confused, I take it, letting my tired eyes run over the words.
No.
It can’t be.
It’s a contract. A contract dictating the terms of the loan Elio gave my father. And in the space beside the question of collateral, in my father’s handwriting, is my own fucking name. Deirdre Elizabeth O’Malley. My father’s signature is there, too, at the bottom of the document, as is a savage slash of ink that must be Elio’s. Between the signatures, binding the agreement, is a red wax seal.
“Still think he’s coming for you?” Elio asks. There’s cruelty in his question, a dark taunting that I’m ashamed to admit actually hurts me.
“You’re a monster,” I whisper.
Elio just takes the paper back from me and rolls it up, aloof and business-like.
“Never said I wasn’t. In fact, I’m pretty sure I already told you that I am.”
I stare down at my feet through a haze of heated tears. The roll of paper prods beneath my chin until my face is tipped up to Elio’s.
“Your father is the sort of bastard I am intimately familiar with,” he says quietly, his eyes twin black holes. “I knew he’d never pay me back when I gave him that money. From the very beginning, I didn’t consider it a loan, but an investment.”
“Why?” I croak. I don’t understand any of this. A multi-million-dollar investment into what?
He doesn’t answer me. He just leans even closer, tucking my hair behind my ear and whispering, “Happy birthday, Songbird.”
Before I can even try to figure out what sort of game he’s playing with me, he’s gone. The door closes softly behind him, and I can instantly see there’s no way to lock it from this side.
There are locks in this house. Locks and walls and bars.
But none of them are to protect me. They’re here to cage me.
And Elio is the only one with the key.
Chapter 10
Elio
