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I hold her against me and wait for the strength to come back to her knees. She clings to me, small and breakable. I could throw her onto the bed like this, push her past the edge—
My pulse is an angry red flicker in my vision.
I fight the urge, mask those wild thoughts beneath a cold, indifferent composure.
“You did well tonight,” I murmur against the top of her head. She shudders sweetly, as if those words set off another aftershock of pleasure, eyelashes fluttering.
She stumbles out of my arms, making her way to the bed. She sits on the edge of it and stares at the floor, her legs still open, hair wild. Her breathing shudders through her whole body.
She only looks up when I move for the exit.
“Wait,” she rasps when I am framed in the doorway. I turn back to her. “I’m not—I’m not done.”
“Your cunt says otherwise,” I say, fixing my sleeves.
“What’s wrong with me?” she demands. The question catches me off guard. “You have to tell me. I know you know.”
…I have no idea what she’s talking about. My silence presses her, forces her to elaborate as she’s still regaining her breath and her senses.
“I sat on your lap like a fucking dog. Looked out at all those other men, and wondered if any one of them could make me feel the way you do. But I know they can’t. Tell me why. What’s wrong with me? Why can I sit there listening to you talk about murder, and still want—” her voice breaks around the words “—still want you like this?”
Her words claw inside, through some part of me that is static and numb, like the girl is digging through old scar tissue.
“I’m not your fucking therapist.”
Her expression doesn’t flinch, inky strands of dark hair falling into her face.
“How many people have you killed?” she asks.
Her breath shakes in the silence that stretches between us. I’m not reluctant to confess but the truth is, I don’t know the answer. It was never about keeping a tally. An individual death has its own purpose, its own necessity. A number is just a number. Meaningless.
“More than one,” I say. “One kill makes you a murderer. How many you kill after that, what does it matter? The label doesn’t change. You knew I was a murderer the second you realized who I was.”
“It’s not about you,” she says. “Of course I knew, I just…”
“You can’t take on my sin like it’s some kind of disease. You’re not forgiving me with your cunt every time you come for me. So don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to. It doesn’t matter what number I say. You’ll come anyway.”
She flinches away from the sharp analysis. I reach for the door again.
“You aren’t actually going to send Cecilia away, are you?” She calls out, one last desperate question before the door is almost shut between us.
God, her heart really is soft.
“I told you I wouldn’t. I don’t go back on my deals.”
The door shuts between us, the lock clicking. In that last glimpse of her, the only motion I see her make is slipping the ring off her finger and throwing it aside.
I stand against the shut door for a long minute, my thoughts a storm, my pulse a frenzy. I don’t regret bringing Contessa here—I don’t think regret is something I can feel anymore—but it is a damn shame that I’m going to have to ruin her.
10
Contessa
I’ve always thought of myself as an optimist. These days, that’s starting to feel like a synonym for idiot. After the dinner with the Moris’s, I stupidly believed that something would change. It hasn’t. These plain walls get uglier and uglier by the minute, and I spend most of my time stewing over how I was so good for him, how I behaved just like he asked me to. I even wore the stupid engagement ring, which has been abandoned on my nightstand ever since.
I’m still trapped here.
I try to pretend it has nothing to do with Salvatore missing our usual dinner together—twice. The past two evenings in a row, I’ve eaten alone in my room. There’s been no sign of him.
