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His eyes were like twin fires, his grip on my shoulder getting even tighter. ‘You’re hurting me,’ I said, wrenching my shoulder away and stepping back.
He turned and left, and the cocky bastard didn’t set the lock when he slammed the door behind him.
Was he giving me a chance to escape?
Or was he testing my loyalty?
Emilio had found countless ways to test my loyalty ever since I’d been painfully initiated into the Il Sangue Cartel, and by default, the Gypsy Brothers.
I didn’t leave. I didn’t take my chance to escape.
No, I re-programmed the lock myself (now that I knew the code) and sat on my couch, drinking vodka instead. You could say that I was weak, that I was suffering from Stockholm syndrome, that I was the worst kind of victim because I refused to help myself when the opportunity arose.
And I’d say fuck that. I’d made a deal with Emilio Ross, and at least four lives – my mother, my father, my sister and my brother – hung in the balance every single time I made a decision. Five, if you counted Luis. Oh, and then there was the small fact of my own life. That hung in the balance every single day, and everything always felt so goddamn temporary.
So I didn’t leave. I sat, and I waited.
John came back an hour later with a box. Plain, brown cardboard packaging.
‘What is this?’ Did I even want to know?
He took a knife from the rack and made a slit down the side of the packaging, pulling out a cellphone. I eyed the small black phone dubiously, pulling my own cellphone from my pocket.
‘For you,’ he said. ‘A burner phone. Nothing to identify you. Nothing to trace back to you. Nobody listening to you. But you have to keep it hidden, okay?’
‘I have a phone,’ I said.
John’s eyes flicked to me, soft and with the hint of a smile. ‘Your phone,’ he said, ‘is bugged. But you knew that already, right?’
I looked around the apartment nervously. Last thing I needed was for Emilio or someone else to overhear this conversation and decide I was getting too dangerous to keep around.
‘How do I know you haven’t bugged this phone?’
He smiled. ‘You just saw me open the packaging. Plus, you should know by now that I don’t have time to eavesdrop on your calls. I’ve got too much other shit to do.’
I had been standing stiff beside him; I felt the tension melt from me piece by piece as he held out the phone.
‘You can trust me,’ he said softly. ‘I’m not like them. I’m not like Emilio.’
I nodded, looking away, salt tears burning my cheeks at the weight of his kindness.
‘Mariana,’ he whispered. He put his finger underneath my chin again and tilted it up, so I had no choice but to meet his cerulean gaze.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘If you change your mind – if you decide one day you need to leave – you tell me. And I’ll help you, okay? I’ll make sure they can’t find you. Dornan’s my friend – my best friend. But he’s also Emilio’s son, and there are things he cannot control.’
I burst into tears, covering my face with my hands. I’d been theirs for six months by then, six months where the only visitor I got was Dornan, and the only person I spoke to every day was myself, in the mirror, talking myself out of doing something crazy like killing myself. And I loved Dornan. But I hated my life.
‘You don’t understand,’ I said finally. ‘He loves me. He saved me.’
John looked at me sadly, the smile fading from his face.
‘You call this saved?’
* * *
Two weeks later, Dornan showed up with Guillermo. A Gypsy Brother. Dornan figured out I’d been operating the locks without him. It was only to get out onto the balcony, to smell the salt air rolling in from the waves below, a welcome refuge from my gilded cage. I had the code now, but I’d never try to run. I wasn’t an idiot. I didn’t dare try to leave, not even for a moment. And then I couldn’t have, even if I’d wanted to, because somebody suddenly decided that I needed a full-time bodyguard. Dornan might have loved me, but he didn’t trust me – he didn’t trust anyone.
