The sun is starting to set, and the sky is a brilliant shade of orange. The clouds drift through the dying light like monstrous flames.
It fills me with an oppressive melancholy.
Memories of the romantic night that Aiden and I shared intermingle with the destitution and desperation of my father’s pleas.
In the garden below, there’s a cellphone. Somewhere on this property, there’s an ally. My best guess is that it’s Tara—I told her about Felix, after all—but even if it’s not, I still have her.
A real chance to escape lies before me. But I don’t know if I can take it. Hell, I don’t know if I want to take it.
Part of me does want to run. But that same part of me wants to escape for a very different reason than what motivated me just last week. Everything has changed.
There’s a new hazy fantasy that drifts through my mind. In it, I earn my freedom on my own. I run and I find myself. Then, when the time is right, I come back and meet Aiden again. This time, not as a prisoner.
He’s not mad. He’s not upset. He doesn’t crave to lock me up again. Instead, he understands that we have something real, something that exists beyond the reality of what brought us together.
He realizes that we can start anew. The foundation has already been built. We care for each other. But now we can strip away the dark bars of the cage that once bound us in favor of something more normal.
Another part of me knows that this is impossible. Aiden isn’t that kind of man. I’m not that kind of bride. We aren’t normal. There was never going to be any dating in our relationship, no real proposal, no fairytale marriage. We occupy a completely different world than most. And the only way two people like us were even going to meet in the first place was like this. The only way we were going to fall in love was like we did.
But how does that evolve?
What comes next?
I fear for my future. Continuing down this road means that any of hope of happiness is so mangled and twisted that it’s hardly recognizable from the rest of the dark forest. We’re both being held down by the roots of how we began.
Our only real hope is to begin again. That naïve part of me believes that escaping could signal that restart. From outside of this gilded cage, I could negotiate. I could make Aiden see that our care for each other is corrupted by the circumstances it arose from. I could make him understand that leaving was the only option. It was the only way to salvage what we’ve managed to build in the face of it all.
But in reality, I know that if I betray his trust, there’s no going back. I’ll be running from him for the rest of my life. And I don’t doubt that he’ll be chasing me.
A knock at my bedroom door knocks me out of my somber rut. For a second, I hope it’s Tara. She’s been M.I.A all day and I could really use someone to talk to.
It quickly becomes clear that she’s not the one who knocked. Usually, knocking for her is just a warning that she’s about to come in. But no one enters.
I have to leave my place by the window and go the door myself.
I’m stopped in my tracks when I see what’s waiting for me. The door is still closed, but an envelope has been slipped underneath.
I approach it with great caution. The sleeve is blank and without any address, but when I pick it up and check the opposite side, a lump of fear catches in my throat at the words scribbled there.
BURN AFTER READING.
It instantly becomes clear that I’m not supposed to have this. My betrayal has begun, because there’s no stopping myself as I tear open the top of the package.
The first thing inside that catches my eye is the white lighter. I take it and stuff it inside my pocket, then I take out the photos that are bundled up behind it.
At first, it’s unclear what I’m looking at. The photos seem like still shots from a security camera. Each frame is filled with enough people to make it confusing. Whose arm does that belong to? Does that leg have a partner? There’s so much flesh that it takes a second to differentiate it all. But the longer I look, the clearer it becomes.
A gaggle of nude and half-nude women crowd around a chair. On that chair sits a man in a suit. With each passing photograph, the image zooms in until I recognize the man in the middle of the veritable orgy.
It’s Aiden.
Knots of envy tie up in my gut as I rapidly flip through the rest of the photos. Each one seems more damning. There’s a red-head on Aiden’s lap. Her lips get awfully close to his. Is that his hand on her thigh?
When I get to the end of the flip book, it looks like they’re about to kiss. I throw the photos on the floor and stumble away from the pile. Jealousy rips through my chest like a wildfire.
But I force myself to stop. To think. Why the hell were these brought to me? This must be some sort of tactic to get me to make my final move. But it’s sloppy.
It’s no secret that Aiden is a stud. Sure, seeing him surrounded by lustful women might stoke some envy in me, but he existed out in the world before he ever dragged me into his. Forcing me to confront this only makes me feel more special. He gave that life up to focus on me.
Or so he says.
The knots tighten. Did I see a date on the photos? What if they’re recent?
With great trepidation, I step back towards the pile. Some of the photos have flipped over. On the back of one of them, a message is written.
You saw your father at Calligastaro’s yesterday. This is Aiden today. He is a liar. He is a cheat. He will never change. Leave while you still can.
Nothing else is written. There are no dates on the security stills, but I’m not even sure what date it is today anyways. Whoever sent this envelop must know that I’ve lost track of time, because they’ve made it clear that this is where Aiden went after he sent me back here this morning.
My heart stutters as my brain tries to make sense of what I’m seeing. There’s no doubt that this envelop was sent by someone working for my father, if not by Father himself. It echoes what he said last night, but unlike his empty words, this message contains supposed proof.
Again, two sides of me gear up for a war. One side wants to thoughtlessly believe the accusations. It’s an excuse to leave. The other side of me remembers falling asleep in Aiden’s arms last night. The way he held me, he made me believe I was the only one for him.
I gather the photos, carefully going over them for clues as to when they were taken. I find none. He’s not wearing the same suit he wore last night, but I was in his closet this morning. He has countless suits. It wouldn’t suspend belief to think that he changed into a new one this morning before he went out whoring.
Before I can tuck the photos back into the envelope to be burned, I see one last message scribble on the inside of the package.
Find the phone. Burn the photos.
Then, in hand writing so small I have to turn the whole envelope inside out just to read it, I see something that punches me right in the gut. Something that makes me believe it all.
Trust me—Felix.
My heart drops like a stone.
Felix did this. The one man who fought to keep me from being dragged into all of this darkness. The one man who actually cares for my soul.
Insecurity erupts inside of me like an atom bomb. Aiden’s been cheating on me. Those scratches. All that time away. He says he doesn’t lie, but he has been.
My father is no different. How could I believe either of them?
The men in my life are scum. But Felix has proven himself to be different. Time and time again, he’s shown that he actually cares about me as a person. He was ready to take on all of Father’s men along with all of Aiden’s men when he saw me being dragged away. But he was unprepared. Father didn’t tell him about the plan to sell me because Father knew that Felix would do everything in his power to stop it from happening.
Well, Felix is prepared now. He’s been gathering proof. Father must have told him that it looked like I was falling for Aiden last night. But Felix knew better. It’s probably why he sprang into action today.
Lighter in hand, I run to the bathroom and burn the envelope, photos and all, above the open toilet. The ashes drop into the water along with my tears and I flush the evidence away.
I’m going to leave.
There’s only one man I can trust in this world. Felix. And he’s telling me it’s time to go.
When the last bits of cinder have disappeared, I rush to my closet and pick out my warmest pair of sweats. There’s no telling where I’m going or what the climate will be like in the tunnels. I keep my nightgown on underneath it all, just in case it gets too hot.
I take nothing else.
An illogical thread of me wants to drag along my boxes of books and journals, but I fight that desire off quickly enough. All of those notes and highlights I’ve made over the years might disappear forever, but I know that medicine is a dream I can always recapture later on. My dream of freedom, on the other hand, can’t wait a second longer.
No one stops me as I make my way through the halls, down the stairs and outside. The light grows dimmer by the second, but I figure the dark will only help conceal my betrayal.
As I try to keep my composure, I also look desperately for any sign of Tara. This journey will be easier if she can lead me to the pale tree.
The security guards don’t dare look me in the eye when I pass them. They know all too well the wrath of Aiden’s possessive jealously. Right now, it’s working in my favor. I reach the garden without interruption.
When I’m finally hidden beneath the shrubbery, the tears return. A deluge of sorrow and anger flows out of me as I search for the phone that should be hidden behind Bree Kilpatrick’s plaque.
I feel dirty and despicable as I desecrate the garden that I worked so hard to clean up. But then my hands feel the cold plastic of a cell phone and, without hesitation, I pull out my first means of contacting the outside world in almost a month.
My heart is beating so hard behind my chest that I worry I might pass out. My tears are clearing, but the apprehension is still as strong as ever.
As I scroll through the phone, I find that it is almost entirely empty of information. There is, however, one name in the contacts list.
FD.
Felix Difrancesco.
My thumb hovers over the call button.
Before I can press down, a box pops up on the screen. It’s a new message. Number: Unknown.
Anxiety ravages my nerves so badly I almost don’t have the strength to click it open. Somehow, I manage, but dread sits in my gut like a stone, waiting expectantly.
There are no words to the message, only a blurry box. I click the download button and the image comes into focus.
My heart stops.
This time, I Immediately recognize what I’m seeing.
Aiden’s penthouse living room. The same one we spent last night at. The color photo seems to have been taken from a security camera, much like those in the envelope.
But this scene is much more gruesome.
Four men stand around a chair. Aiden is among them. So are his two brothers. I recognize the fourth man as Mr. McCabe. From this angle, I can barely see half of each face, but it’s clear that they are all pissed off. Their stances are aggressive, their fists are clenched. Aiden looks like he’s been through hell and back. But still, he doesn’t look anywhere near as bad as the man strapped to the chair in the center of them all.
Felix.
“No…”
No one is around to hear my plea, but the gasp escapes my lips nonetheless. They’ve captured Felix, and they’re fucking torturing him.
Someone must have come across him while he was dropping off the envelope to his mole. But when was that? Am I getting a real time photo or is Felix already dead?
As if my mind is being read, another message pops up from the same unknown number. Again, I hesitate to open it. Part of me doesn’t believe that the person sending me these photos is on my side. It could even be Aiden taunting me. What if this next photo is of Felix’s corpse?
Then all hope would truly be lost.
But I have to know.
I’m met with confusion as I click the download button and the same photo I just received comes into focus. Nothing has changed.
But then I look closer. A thin red circle has been photoshopped around something just behind my bloody Felix. But I can’t quite make it out.
Almost immediately, another photo is sent, and this time, I don’t hesitate. When it comes into focus, I see that the photo has been zoomed in on the red circle. An arrow now accompanies it.
My breath hitches when I see what it’s pointing out.
My cocktail dress from last night. Right where I left it in the throes of passion, tossed over Aiden’s couch. One of the straps is torn. My father’s doing. Probably on purpose.
This is him texting me. He’s showing me that Felix is in danger.
Save him! I furiously text back.
It doesn’t take long for a response to appear.
Only when you are safe. We are waiting beneath the pale tree.
A shiver runs down my spine.
This is happening now. Felix is being tortured this very moment. If we don’t act quickly, he could die.
… And my father is using that fact to threaten me into obedience.
Nothing has changed.
An impenetrable sorrow falls all over me. I want to collapse onto my knees and scream, but I can barely move. Somehow, I know that if I leave now, if I do as my father says, Felix won’t survive. He’s being used as a distraction. A dispensable distraction.
It’s despicable.
This is the man I’m running to. My father, who is just as cruel as Aiden said.
But what Father said about Aiden seems to be true as well.
I’m more trapped than ever. My only route of escape is blocked off by someone I don’t want to see anymore, and it’s all my fault. I told him.
Suddenly, my freedom isn’t what’s most important. I need to save Felix.
A chain of barbed-wire wraps around my heart as I realize what I need to do to make that happen. Father won’t listen to me. He never has and he never will.
But Aiden might.
Without allowing time to second-guess myself, I leap out of the garden. Tucking the cell phone into my pocket, I desperately scan the darkening property for any signs of Tara. She’s my only hope right now.
I need to call Aiden, but I don’t know his number. I could use this burner phone to call Felix, as I’m sure Aiden has already taken his phone, but I don’t want to incite him. One wrong move and Felix is dead. And all because he was the one person in this entire dark world who actually cared enough to help me.
There’s no sign of Tara in the kitchen or the laundry room, but I do spot Meave in the hallway. I try to keep calm as I approach the older maid.
“Hey, Meave. Have you seen Tara around?”
As if on cue, Tara pops around the corner. “There you are!” she announces. A big smile is painted on her face, but it’s clear to me that she’s panicking. “Trying to escape our little evening walk, huh?” She faux-teases, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. I let her lead me away as Maeve shouts after us.
“You two don’t stay out too late! If you get lost in the dark it will be my head!”
“I never get lost,” Tara calls back as we turn the corner.
The second we’re out of Maeve’s sight, Tara starts to speed up. “Did you get the envelope?” she asks, finally allowing the panic in her voice to become clear.
“It was you?” I ask, though I was already sure of it.
“Of course. I don’t know what was in it, but it was given to me by someone you’ve convinced me can be trusted.”
“Felix…”
“Yes. He was here earlier in the day. I met him out by the—’
“They caught him.”
Tara obviously didn’t know that. Her speed walk is immediately halted. The panic in her features turns to fear. “Shit, that must be why they’re increasing security.”
“They are!?”
Tara nods and suddenly we’re speed walking again, even faster now. “I overheard it about half-an-hour ago, I’ve been looking for you ever since. Where were you?”
“In the garden.”
“Why?”
We step outside and I slip the top of the cell phone out of my pocket. “Felix must have hidden it there. I saw my father last night. He said to check behind the plaque. Look.” I show Tara the pictures of Felix being tortured.
“Fuck.”
“I need to call Aiden. Can I please use your phone?”
Tara hesitates. We’re approaching the tree line. Soon, we’ll be under the cover of the forest. “Do you think that’s smart?”
“It doesn’t matter. If I don’t Aiden will kill him.”
“He might kill him just because you called. But then he’ll also have you immediately apprehended. He’s not stupid. The first question he’ll have is how you know he’s with Felix. Aiden will assume there’s been a breach.
“… And that puts you at risk.”
“I don’t care about me,” Tara sneers. “What it means is that we’ll go into lockdown. No more chance to escape. Our window is already closing. If we wait until the extra security forces arrive, this place will be too busy with Aiden’s men to take a step outside without someone stopping us. But if you call him now, everything will be even more immediate. This might be your last chance to escape, but I don’t want you making up your mind for someone else’s sake, Elisa. This decision needs to be yours and yours only.”
My heart pounds with a heavy thump, but my pulse is slow. “I need to try.”
Tara sighs. “Fine. But let’s keep moving towards the pale tree. If things go south, there still might be time to escape if we’re close enough. Just don’t let on that you’re even thinking about it. I’m sure, either way, Aiden will have an army after you the second you hang up.”
Tara hands me her phone. I find Aiden’s name on her contact list and my thumb trembles over it.
Tara is right. This needs to be my own decision. All of my life, I’ve been at the mercy of merciless men. But not now. Right now, I’m free to make my own devastating choice. They are the ones who hang in the balance.
In the distance, my old life of confinement waits for me under a pale tree. To my back, a black future looms large and dark, its gilded bars steamed by passion.
My mind is being torn apart.
In the middle of it all are two men. Two men who I care about in completely different ways. Two men who would fight for me. Kill for me.
But I only know one who would die for me.
Felix is at Aiden’s mercy. But Aiden is merciless… to all except for me.
Asking him to extend that mercy to someone else could save Felix’s life, or doom us both. My dreams. My freedom. Hell, even my life. It all rests on this choice. Everything does.
I already know what I have to do.
