Curled up in bed, I toss and turn, my restless body unable to calm after the recent flood of information. Even though I’m in a warm and cozy bed, it feels like I’m lost in the shadow, unable to focus on finding some peace or at least catch some sleep.
It doesn’t help that I’m stuck in this room, either, but I was going to wait until tomorrow to tackle that problem.
I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in ages, and now that I’m finally in an actual comfy bed, I should be happy to get some, especially not knowing what’s in store for me.
Yet the more I twist around, the more confused I get, as the blanket reminds me of a snake wrapping around my neck, choking me alive.
I want to scream, but for some reason, my mouth refuses to open.
That’s when I feel it …
The hand covering my mouth.
I gasp as a warm breath hovers close to my ear. “Hello, Kitten.”
Marcello?
How is that even possible?
I didn’t see or hear anyone come in.
My eyes go up to the window, but that too has a lock with the key missing.
“How—?”
He places a finger on my lips and shushes me. “It doesn’t matter.” His hand snakes around my waist, pulling me closer. “What matters is that I’m here.”
The warmth of his hand is something I’ve missed more than anything, more than I dared to admit, even to myself. Feeling it on my skin right this very second as it slithers underneath my shirt makes me wish I never left his side.
He knows just how to touch me, how to make me forget, how to make me beg.
And I bite my lip as his mouth lands on my shoulder, his teeth sinking into my flesh.
“Fuck,” I murmur, but my voice is so quiet that it’s barely audible.
“You’re mine, Kitten,” Marcello groans against my heated skin while he palms a handful of my breasts and squeezes them hard. “All of you.”
I can’t help but moan in delight at his touch, whimpering from the sheer force of his body against mine. Right now, I don’t even care that I should hate him for what he’s done, that I ran because of him … that he’s here in this very room without telling me how or why.
I don’t care … as long as he keeps touching me, kissing me, chasing me. Making me his.
His lips roam my skin, my back, my neck, every nook and cranny of my body that I once thought belonged to no one. And I know I should fight; I know I should push him away. But as my hands try to find his body, he suddenly pulls his hands out of my shirt and locks my wrists in place.
“Don’t fucking move,” he growls.
His words should anger me, frighten me.
Instead, they make me even more excited. Aroused.
I’m like a girl addicted to the exhilarating rush of being captured. Taken. Owned.
It’s so wrong … yet…
“Say you’re mine,” Marcello whispers into my ear, pushing himself up against me with a rock-hard cock. “Say it out loud, Kitten, and I might save you twice.”
My lips part. “I’m yours. Only yours.”
Why do I give in so easily?
What’s the matter with me?
I’m trapped in my fake mother’s house with the man who stole me away from my entire life.
I should … I should …
Suddenly, he lunges over me, one hand still clenched firmly around my wrists, the other clutching my chin, and before I know it, his lips land on mine.
The sudden passion in his kisses has me overwhelmed, and my eyes burst open.
His lips vanish.
Along with his eyes.
His face.
And his body.
I blink a couple of times, unsure what just happened or where he’s gone. Sweat drops roll down my forehead, my body soaking wet as I sit up straight in the bed. Sunlight bursts through the window, making me squeeze my eyes together.
Was he … even really here?
Or was it just my imagination?
A dream so real I swear I could taste him on my tongue?
I touch my lips, and a shiver courses down my spine. I look around the room but find no trace of Marcello, no scattered clothes, no unlocked doors, nothing.
It’s like he was never really here.
I sigh out loud and throw the blanket off, but as I clench my legs together, the wetness there catches me off guard, and I pause.
It was just a dream. A delicious, sultry, sinful dream I wish could’ve been reality, but a dream nonetheless. And I must remember that.
I get up and rub my eyes, forcing myself to move past my own deliriously lusty mind. There’s no point in lingering on old desires. I need to focus on the here and now. On being locked in my mother’s house.
I put on my shoes and grab a glass from the sink, filling it with water to drink so I can clear my mind and get to work.
There must be some way to get out of here.
First, I check the door, but after wriggling the knob a couple of times, I know it’s no use. It’s locked from the outside, and guards are probably littered around the house, waiting for me to do something I’ll regret.
No, there has to be another way.
Maybe asking would help.
“Hello?” I call out, then wait, but there’s no reply. “Can someone hear me? I’d like to leave now.”
I wait for a few minutes. No response.
I knock on the door. “Hello? Is anyone out there?” I ask. “Please let me out. I’d like to talk with my mother.”
I wait for a few more minutes. Nothing happens.
Of course this wasn’t going to work. Why did I even think of trying?
Sighing, I close my eyes as panic begins to flood my veins.
No, stop it, Harper. No panicking. Not here. Not now. You’ve trained for this all your life. You can do this.
I nod to myself and walk away from the door. Next battle plan. Search the room for anything I can use to my advantage. A rope, a wire, a hidden key … even a hairpin will do.
I search under the dusty bed, behind the bath, in the closet, and inside each drawer. I even look for hidden bottoms, but there’s none to be found. But as my hands linger underneath the desk, I feel something stuck to the wood.
I go to my knees as my eyes follow my fingers. Something is wedged between two planks of wood, but I felt it. With both hands, I pry it out of there, and it drops to the floor.
My pupils dilate.
A key.
My heart pounds in my chest as I inspect it and rush to the door, but no matter how hard I pry it in, it won’t stick. This isn’t the lock it’s for. I turn around and face the other way, looking for a way out.
And then it hits me.
The window.
I swiftly make my way to it and shove the key into the lock. It clicks. Turns. Unlocks.
My heart skips a beat, and I hold my breath as I pull open the window.
A cold gust of wind hits me right in the face, making me tear up.
I peer down over the windowsill. It’s too high to jump, but I might be able to stand on a small ledge alongside the window and use it to slip over to the balcony on the lower left side that’s close enough to the ground so that my legs don’t break during a fall.
But is the escape worth the risk?
I swallow and push the window farther open so I can step onto the windowsill.
It’s dangerous … but so is staying here.
So I take a step and push over the ledge.
“Stop right there!”
My mother’s voice echoes through the room, and I almost fall just from her scream.
As I turn my head and peer at the door, I clutch the window with everything I have while trying not to die. Molly stands in the doorway while two guards storm straight at me.
I look back at the grass below, wondering if I should just make the jump.
If I am ready to risk losing the use of my feet forever just for the sake of fleeing.
Fear stops me from moving, my whole body shaking vigorously against the wooden frame.
Suddenly, two hands grasp at my arms, tugging me back inside, slamming me onto the floor so hard that the air is knocked out of my lungs.
“Easy!” my mother yells.
The two men towering over me with beastly stares and their nostrils flaring back away just a little.
I stare out the window at the blue sky beyond, realizing the time to escape has passed.
Fuck.
My mother’s eyes meet mine in a blaze of fury.
“How dare you?” she seethes. “After the warm welcome I’ve given you? The food, the bath, a comfy bed to sleep in?” Her face contorts. “Get up.”
I’ve never heard her this snappy before.
The two guards glaring at me remind me that I don’t have a choice in the matter. But as I get up on two feet, she slams the door to the window shut and plucks out the key like it means nothing.
“Where did you get this?” She holds it up to my face. “Tell me!”
Her sudden outburst makes me blink rapidly. “I don’t know. I found it.”
“Lies!” she spits.
I’m taken aback by her rage.
She never acted this way toward me when I was still a little girl.
What happened to her?
“You locked me in here,” I say, making a face. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”
“Well, I didn’t ask for a disobedient daughter,” she snarls back.
She clutches the key firmly, staring at me like I’m a disappointment.
“I thought you wanted to be back with me. With us,” she says.
“Molly, I—”
“Molly?” she interjects, snorting. “Don’t speak to me like that. Like I haven’t raised you myself like an actual mother!”
“You didn’t!” I yell back, unable to keep my feelings at bay. “I’ve been an orphan for so long. I am not the girl you once had under your roof. And I refuse to let you do this to me.”
She stares at me for a few seconds, then nods at her guards, and they quickly walk off and close the door behind them.
“No … you’re a woman now … a woman who has managed to enthrall a very special man.” She reaches for me with her index finger, caressing my cheek, and the sudden shift in personality chokes me up for a moment. “Tell me, what is it that you see in him?”
My cheeks flush. “I don’t see any—”
“Of course you do, honey,” she barks. “Why else would he be so infatuated with you?”
“I was his prisoner,” I say. “Nothing more.”
“Yet he’s been searching for you nonstop ever since you escaped his claws.”
My eyes widen. “How would you know?”
She cackles. “You really are naïve, aren’t you? You think Marcello is the only one with eyes and ears all over the city?” She raises a brow. “Or did you think one of my guards just happened to stumble onto you, hmm?”
It’s getting too hot under my feet, and I don’t like where this conversation is going. “What do you want from me?”
“Tell me about Marcello,” she says, grabbing a strand of my hair to curl around her finger. “Why is he so interested in you?”
“I don’t know … I …”
“Think hard,” she murmurs. “Because I don’t want you to regret what you tell me.”
I gulp and think back to everything Marcello told me, and something about the restaurant and his dying fiancée springs to mind. “I think he said I reminded him of Alannah.”
“Alannah?” Her pupils dilate, and her nostrils flare, but she instantly regains her composure and clears her throat. “Interesting. No wonder he took you in.”
I don’t like where this is going. She’s fishing for information, but it doesn’t feel right. Even if I once considered her my mother, I don’t think I can trust her. Maybe I never could. The more she asks me about Marcello, the less I’m willing to talk. I don’t want to betray him. Even though I know he’s a bad guy too, he somehow feels less dangerous than my mother right now.
I straighten my back. “I don’t understand why any of this matters to you. You have me back. That’s what you wanted, right?”
Her eyes narrow, and a tepid but dangerous smile spreads on her lips. “Come … There’s something I want you to see.”
She walks toward the door and says, “Unlock it.”
The guards open the door and let her out, and she glances at me over her shoulder with a deadly gaze. I don’t think I should defy her. Not now.
So I swallow my fears and follow suit.
She takes me downstairs and underneath, where there’s a hidden door that leads into a grimy-looking basement. The walls are covered in webs, dust litters the floor, and the lower we go, the harder it becomes to breathe. Doesn’t feel like they air this place out very often.
However, the moment I get downstairs, I stop breathing entirely.
There’s a man strapped to a chair, blindfolded with his arms locked in place behind him. Another guy holds a gun to his head.
“What’s going on?” I mutter as I clutch the wall with one hand to steady myself.
“Please … help me,” the man in the chair begs, his voice fluctuating in tone as the gun is pressed firmly against his temple.
“What are you doing?” I ask. “Release him.”
My mother glances at me over her shoulder and proceeds to laugh. “Release him? No, honey. He’s here for a reason.”
I stare at the guy’s twisted ankle, the bloodied mess at his feet, and the finger lying on the floor. Bile rises up my throat.
I don’t know who he is, but no one deserves that kind of pain.
“He defied my orders. No one defies my orders,” my mother says.
One flick of her fingers is all it takes to make the guy scream.
BANG!
The gun goes off.
I close my eyes.
Not in time to avoid seeing the bullet fly straight through his brain, lodging into the wall to the right. When I open my eyes again, the man’s body slumps sideways, still attached to the chair.
Panic unfurls inside me, and I swallow my vomit as it rises.
I can’t stop staring at the man in front of me who was tortured and then killed, regardless of his answers. At the man who probably didn’t deserve this fate that’s worse than a quick death.
And no one did a thing to stop it.
She had this man killed without showing an ounce of remorse.
My mother steps toward me, her lips pursed as she inches closer to my ear. “That’s what happens … when you betray me.”
My body begins to shake.
This wasn’t just an execution.
It was a threat.
Not to that man … but to me.
