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"No, we need to play it more carefully than that," I replied, shaking my head. "He had her at gunpoint when he took her from me. If he sees a whole group of them coming down on him at once, he’ll panic. And a guy like that, panicking, with how he’s treated her in the past … It’s not something I want to risk."
My heart twisted in my chest. I couldn’t believe I had to even talk about this, about something that dark. It felt as though she had only just arrived here, and now, we were talking about her being dragged back into her old life.
"I’ll go stake out the place myself," I replied. "See what we’re dealing with. He might have security there, men who are going to protect him. I don’t want to lose any more of our guys, not after the night of the fire."
A dark shadow flickered across Alex’s face as he remembered that. He nodded.
"Right," he agreed. "You sure you can handle it? You’re not going to let the emotion get on top of you?"
I gritted my teeth and shook my head.
"I know I can handle it," I replied. But, if I was being honest, there was a part of me that just wanted to go alone, because it meant I would be able to confront Stefano and make him pay, once and for all, for everything he had done to her.
Chapter Seventeen – Selina
I pulled the covers up over my head as I heard his footsteps marching back and forth, back and forth up and down the corridor outside. I knew what he was trying to communicate to me. I knew what he was trying to tell me.
That I was running out of time, and he wasn’t going to wait much longer to take what he felt as though he was owed.
The thought of it sent a sick, twisted shiver through my entire body. I didn’t even know how long I had been here at that point—hours, days? I had laid in this bed, left the lines intact on the bedside table—I wasn’t ready to get rid of them yet, just in case Stefano made good on his promise to fuck me again before I could get out.
Rape me. That was the word, rape. I had forced myself to see it through a different lens for so long, but here, now, in the cold light of my sobriety, I knew there was no denying it—he wanted to assault me, and I was terrified to think of how I would survive if he did.
The door was still locked, mercifully, and I prayed it would stay that way for a little while longer. Stefano’s footsteps served as a reminder that I didn’t have a way out of this; if I opened that door, he would be there, ready to pounce on me, and I knew he would find some way to convince himself that I wanted it.
Maybe I did. I hadn’t screamed or fought when he had touched me before, my body had just shut down, every inch of me frozen as my mind went somewhere else entirely. And, as I lay in this familiar bed, surrounded by this familiar nightmare, I couldn’t believe that I was meant for anything else.
Why would I be back here if this wasn’t where I belonged? Stefano had come for me, over any of the other girls. He had come for me, because he knew this was where I belonged. This was where I had spent the majority of my adult life, and it wasn’t as though I had anything in the way of skills that I could use to build a new life outside of this one. Was I always doomed to come back here? Was that escape, that brief break from this reality, meant to show me nothing more than that this was where I belonged, this was where I would always be?
I pulled back the covers and stared at the lines on the bedside table. It would have been so easy to just take them, call Stefano in, and get this over with. Give in to the familiar. I might have hated it, but at least I knew it. What lay ahead of me if I left or resisted, that was terrifying. I had no idea what it looked like. How could I put my faith in that? How could I trust in what was to come?
Just do it. I couldn’t hide from it any longer. I needed to just give in and let this happen. I got to my feet and knelt next to the table, like I was taking a sacrament—signing my life away to something. Something I knew, at least. I was about to lean down, close my eyes, and take the hit, my body already tingling in anticipation of the high, but all at once, I heard a voice downstairs, and my eyes widened.
"Selina!”
There it was again; I was sure of it. A voice I knew.
Paulo.
I sprang to my feet and rushed over to the door, pressing my ear against it. I could hear someone moving through the building, footsteps hurrying up the stairs. I parted my lips, wanting to call out to him, but nothing came out, the sound choking in my throat. I didn’t know if I deserved it; if I deserved someone like him coming to my rescue right now.
"Where the fuck is she?" Paulo demanded, and I heard a thud—presumably of him collaring Stefano. The walls shook, and a smattering of dust fell from the ceiling above me. I wrapped my arms around myself, the adrenaline pumping in my system, and managed to slam my hand against the door beside me.
"Fuck," Paulo muttered, and I heard him pushing the lock back. The door fell open, and I tumbled out of the room. Paulo caught me, pulling me in close, and pressed his head into my neck.
"Are you okay?" he asked me. I didn’t even know how to respond. I didn’t know if I was okay or not. I didn’t know what I wanted.
Some part of me was crying out to hold onto him, Paulo, to beg him to take me away from here and get me to safety, but there was another part of me that felt like I was just going to drag him down with me if I did. I had already forced him to contend with me drunk, and it could have put his own sobriety at so much risk.
"Get your hands off her," Stefano told Paulo, his voice etched with fury. I turned to face him and found him leveling a gun at us.
I jumped back from Paulo, not willing to risk his safety at the end of that barrel, but Stefano didn’t move his weapon, keeping it trained on the man by my side. Paulo lifted his hands slowly, glancing over at me, as though silently telling me that it was all going to be okay.
"Just get out of here, man," Stefano told Paulo, and his voice almost sounded … reasonable. Calm. Like he already knew he had gotten what he wanted.
"I’m not going anywhere without her," Paulo growled back at him, his voice low. I could see the gun in the holster at his hip, he just didn’t have time to reach for it before Stefano would have gotten the shot off.
"You can take her, if you want," Stefano told him, letting out a snort of amusement. "But she’s always going to come back to me. Aren’t you, sweetheart?"
