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My gaze is snared by Damian’s father, and I can’t drag it away.
“And congratulations are in order as she’s just agreed to become my wife.”
Apart from ice clinking against my uncle’s glass as he swallows the entire contents, the room remains silent.
What I’m about to do I’m doing for your own good.
I meet my uncle’s shocked eyes with my own. I want to tell him to help me. To take me away. To do something. Isn’t he supposed to protect me? He’s my godfather. My only living relative apart from Liam and Simona.
But he remains seated, that flush on his face making me wonder how much he’s drunk and understanding slowly dawns on me. Resignation perhaps.
“Business stands as usual. No change to our arrangement. My fiancée will not be involved in the day-to-day…” Damian goes on, but I tune him out. Because I need to process what just happened. What is happening.
He’s going to force me to marry him.
Yet Damian Di Santo is my only hope.
He won’t let these men hurt me. He’ll want to do the hurting himself. Because he’s fooling himself if he believes he doesn’t do me harm.
And as the ring sears my skin, the thorns like sharp little teeth every time I make a fist, I sit here unable to wrap my brain around this. To understand this new turn of events.
I’ll be his wife? Why? What’s the point? Isn’t he going to kill me when my year is up?
“Time for you to go, sweetheart.”
I gasp. Damian’s mouth is against my ear, his breath tickling it.
He draws me to my feet as the men begin to chatter among themselves, only a few watching me as I rise, and I wonder why he chose this dress for me. This dress which leaves me vulnerable in its delicacy. Chainmail would be more appropriate around these men. I wonder why he had me primped and readied all afternoon for these few minutes.
But I realize I don’t care about that as much as I do about getting out of here. Getting away from them. All of them.
When I’m on my feet, Damian turns me to face him. His expression is shuttered, but in his eyes, I see something. A sort of delight, victory perhaps.
I don’t understand.
He takes my face in his hands, and I close my hands around his forearms. Instinct with him. He draws me toward him and brings his mouth to my cheek, and he kisses me.
A traitor’s kiss.
A murderer’s kiss.
I look up at him when he pulls away. After a moment, he hands me off to Cash who leads me out the door. I hear his father’s voice before the door closes.
“What happened to Arthur’s boys? Why aren’t they here?”
“Arthur Clementi will represent his family tonight.”28CristinaWe don’t go back to the apartment in the city.
After the whirlwind day I’ve had, I’m driven back to Upstate New York, and I’m so tired, my mind exhausted from trying to make sense of my new circumstances, that I fall asleep for the time it takes to get there. I’m disoriented when Cash opens the door and the overhead light and cool air wake me.
I sit up, rub my eyes. My hands come away smeared with black.
He had me made up for just those few minutes. Hours in that chair having my hair and makeup done for those moments.
Cash doesn’t touch me as I slide out of the SUV. I wonder if that’s on purpose, considering he’s barely allowed to look at me, according to Damian.
The dress under which I’m naked feels like nothing. Makes me feel strange, light as I wrap my arms around myself and enter through the Gates of Hell into the dark, empty house.
Is anyone here apart from Cash and the other soldiers? Elise probably. His father at least is not. He’s still at the party.
Party.
What the hell kind of party was that?
The door closes behind me, startlingly loud. It’s chilly inside, and I shiver. The fireplace is empty. The only lights that are on are along the stairs.
I’m alone. No one is locking me in a room. Aren’t they afraid I’ll run away? No, not with the army outside, and the woods and empty roads between me and any living person who might help me.
Exhausted and defeated, I walk to the stairs and up toward my room. I don’t know where else to go or what else to do.
I’m alone.
That reality hits me. In a way, Damian keeping such tight control over me has given me boundaries, walls to contain myself in. It’s the strangest feeling. Walls to exist in.
Now I’m back in this dark place in this white gown that floats like air around me making me feel like a ghost.
Like I don’t exist.
And I don’t understand.
My eyes are open, but I don’t see. I’m in my head and make my way from memory through the dimly lit corridors trying not to think about the darkness, the emptiness. The utter stillness.
