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Jeanie
It’s hard to stay focused when all my mind wants to do is wander. The light remains on, a steady glow, and I lie back on the mattress staring at the ceiling, willing my body to fall asleep.
I’m exhausted. It’s a tiredness so deep that I can’t crawl free. I feel it deep in my muscles, deep in my heart. There’s a cord around my chest, and each breath is a struggle.
I keep seeing Gavino’s face as he stands near the window in his suite from earlier this morning. The pain and focus. The hatred and hurt. The pure betrayal. I wish I could open up my mind and let him see into my thoughts so he’d understand that I never, ever wanted to hurt him, that I only kept the truth about my identity a secret out of fear.
He thinks I broke his heart and that kills me.
Even stuck in this place, it comes back to Gavino. Even knowing that my father is going to feed me to his pet shark, I still keep thinking about the man that nearly gave me happiness.
It’s pathetic, I know, but I can’t help myself.
For so many years, I’ve only ever had struggle and misery. I watched my mother succumb to addiction. I dealt with rapist stepfathers. I endured abuse, neglect, assault. My body was barely my own for so many years.
And finally, I had something.
But it’s gone, and I’m alone.
I’m half drifting, pretending that I’m back in bed in Villa Bruno waiting for Gavino to come back upstairs, wrapped in heaven and buzzing with anticipation for his touch, only minutes before I was thrown crashing back down to earth. Those ten minutes in bed might’ve been the best ten minutes of my life. At least the best ten minutes without him around.
The door lock thuds and I open my eyes with a sharp breath. Benedict steps into the room, his face a puffy mess. His lips are both cracked and broken, and his teeth and gums are pink with blood. He looks like someone punched him repeatedly in the face, and for a moment my heart leaps at the thought of him taking a beating—
But the way he stares at me makes my stomach turn.
He steps into the room and closes the door.
“Hello, Jeanie.” He comes closer, hovering, dressed for the club in a black shirt and black slacks. There’s blood on his shirt, dark brown and barely visible.
“What happened?”
“Don’t worry about what happened.” He reaches into his back pocket and removes a knife. He flips it open and looks at the long, gleaming blade. The edge catches the light just like that knife back in my apartment did the last time Benedict stood over me like this and I know it’s sharp, razor sharp. I back away, pressing myself against the wall, fear pulsing down my spine.
“You can’t,” I croak, shaking my head as he comes closer. “Malcolm won’t let you. My father—”
“Don’t call him that,” Benedict snaps and for a moment, fury overtakes him. But he quickly gets himself under control. “You’re nothing but a bastard girl. You’re worthless. He’s spent his life trying to avoid you, and now you want to evoke his name like a shield? Oh, no, Jeanie, no, no, no, that won’t work.”
I groan as he kneels next to the mattress. The knife waves in the air and I stare at it, remembering the feel of its edge biting into my face. He’s going to carve me up, tear my skin from my flesh, push me deep into agony for hours and hours for his own amusement. He’s going to torture me, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
Unless.
Unless I end this.
Right here and now.
End it fast. Make it quick.
Maybe I can dive on his knife. Drive it into my throat. When he brings it close, I can jerk my neck and cut into my arteries. I can bleed to death, here and now.
Tears flood my eyes. Tears spill down my cheeks, big, soggy, and ugly. Benedict rolls his eyes, but it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m finished, I’m dead. This is how I end, on a dirty mattress at the hands of a psychopath.
He brings the blade toward my face. “Smile for me, pretty,” he whispers.
I can do this. It’ll be fast, better than what he has planned. All I need to do is act, right now, before he starts—
The door opens. Benedict jerks away from me just as I move and I end up slamming onto the mattress. He stands, ignoring me, and flips the knife closed as a scared-looking young man dressed in a white shirt and dark pants stands in the doorway.
“Uh, Mr. Benedict, sir? You told me to alert you if anyone came home?”
