That night, I dressed in clothes that felt more like me than the ones I’d been given, courtesy of Ronan Black, when I got out of jail. Black jeans and a t-shirt, a leather jacket over the top, and steel-capped boots. I dressed slowly and methodically, with a sense of ceremony. It was a special occasion, after all. Tonight, I was done waiting. Tonight, I’d play with my prom queen again, finally. Her time was up.
We’d both been playing Sofia’s game for seven years.
It was my turn. Tonight, I’d finally take it.
Her house was designed for men like me. Isolated, unsecure, and dark. I went in the back where she had no motion-activated lights to blind me. The sliding door to the back garden was locked but slid open easily under my magic touch. Seven years in prison, and I still had the knack, just like riding a bike or hogtying a hostage. Some tricks are never forgotten.
Her house smelled like the sea and the forest, and another hint of something I’d long ago given up hoping to smell.
Her. Sofia.
My shoes were silent as I made my way across the polished wooden floors of her open-plan sitting room. It was a modest house for a millionaire’s daughter, prettily furnished in creams and blues. I made my way up the stairs, my ears straining for the sounds of someone awake.
I felt like I was walking through a dream. Really, hadn’t I been dreaming since that day in the visiting room, when my brother had told me that the only woman I’d ever loved had died? I shouldn’t forget Irina, of course, another woman I’d loved and failed to save.
At the top of the landing, there were several closed doors. I ignored them for the open one at the end of the hall. I could feel her in there. Like that string that had been tied between us when we’d only been kids in a brutal, uncaring world, it had never been severed. She’d carried her end into the afterlife and made me a walking dead man. A body without a heart, existing, but never living. But it had all been a lie. My little prom queen had gotten good at lying, it seemed. She needed to be reminded that we didn’t lie to each other. She could lie to anyone she wanted, but not to me. Never to me.
I prowled down the hall silently, and when I reached the room, the scent of my dreams filled my head.
She was asleep, unmoving in a big white bed, her short dark hair spread out in strands against the pillow. I was at her side before I could stop myself, looking down at the woman who had haunted me nearly my entire life. She was sleeping soundly and showed no sign of waking when I reached out to touch her. I had to touch her to know she was real.
My fingers met the plush velvet of her cheek.
A shock went through me at the contact. A pulse of life, soul-deep. It struck against my bones. The storm inside me quieted for a moment.
I dragged a painful breath through aching lungs. I couldn’t tear my eyes from her.
Sofia De Sanctis. My ghost. My love. My greatest triumph and biggest failure. Her skin was like cream under my fingers. I couldn’t stop running my hand up and down her bare arm. It was dangerous. It might wake her. I didn’t care. Let her wake up to a dead man, dressed in black, with empty eyes, looming over her bed.
She shifted in her sleep, rolling onto her back and throwing her arm over her head. I couldn’t stop staring at her. My hand fell to her face, and then lower, circling her neck. All the times I’d held her right there, her precious pulse fluttering against my palm, flashed through my mind. Now, I needed it more than anything. I needed the visceral proof that this woman was real. Alive. I circled her neck. Her pulse pounded against my hand with reassuring regularity.
I found my hand pressing against that slender column, pinning her to the bed. Warmth crackled across my chest, white-hot, burning my frozen insides. I gasped out a shuddering breath. It felt like the emptiness inside me was on fire, melting my bones and boiling my blood. I pressed more firmly, and she let out a small breath. One of her hands fell to my hand. In her heavy sleep, she pulled ineffectively at my grip.
Her head turned from side to side, but she didn’t wake. I could strangle her to death right now, and she wouldn’t even fight me. Her life was in my hands. I could correct this bizarre twist of fate, and leave her body tucked up tightly in bed, and try to forget that in the end, she had betrayed me.
She hadn’t died; she had only let me think she had. My little swallow had flown her cage after all. She had freed herself and never looked back. I hadn’t realized that she wanted to leave me behind as well.
She gasped. Her hand scrabbled at my wrist, and I let go. She pulled a deep breath into her tortured lungs and turned on her side. She was really out of it. I assumed she hadn’t been sleeping that well lately. Our games were keeping her up at night.
She barely moved as I bound her. When she woke from a pinch to her nipple minutes later, it was already too late. She jerked from sleeping to awake and stilled as soon as she sensed the constriction around her wrists and ankles.
Her eyes searched wildly, but she couldn’t move enough to turn her head. The tight connecting rope between her wrists and ankles stopped her. I kneeled on the bed behind her, out of her eyeline, and straddled her hips, reaching around her face from behind, a ball gag at the ready.
Assessing the situation, she made a moan of outrage and wiggled. I could have watched her rounded ass jiggle temptingly on the sheets all night, but we didn’t have time for that.
I tutted loudly when her struggle continued for more than a minute, growing more and more agitated.
“That’s enough, Sofia. You don’t want to tire yourself out. You’re going to need your energy, prom queen.”
She stilled at the sound of my voice. I climbed off her and moved slowly behind her, pacing where she couldn’t quite see.
“Tonight, my little swallow, we start our game.”
I circled around in front of her and crouched. Her face was finally in view. Her mouth looked sumptuous, propped open by the thick ball. Finally, for the first time in seven years, our eyes met.
It was like touching a live wire with my bare hand. Her dark eyes widened, panic washing through her, surprise. I was gratified to see guilt in there, too.
A long line of tears dashed from one of her eyes. My gaze traced the movement, transfixed.
I reached out and wiped away the tear. When my finger touched Sofia’s cheek, she closed her eyes. I could swear she pressed her face closer to my hand. I jerked back like she’d bitten me.
“Don’t cry, prom queen. You’ll hurt my feelings. I’m happy to see you. It’s the best fucking day of my life.”
Another line of tears escaped Sofia, and her mouth moved like a sob was trying to work out around the gag.
I stroked her hair. Just touching her in some capacity thrilled me.
“Don’t act so surprised. You knew I was coming for you, deep down. You knew I was close, didn’t you?”
Her eyes confirmed my words.
“Did it scare you, or thrill you?”
She swallowed hard, her slender throat moving with effort, given the way her head was pulled back. She was utterly beautiful, bound and helpless, with tears falling down her smooth cheeks.
“Now, let’s talk about the game, shall we? I didn’t realize that you’d already been playing with me all this time. Sleeping lions, was it? Well done. You got me. I can admit it. But your turn is over. It’s mine now, and I want to play another schoolyard classic. Truth or dare. Are you game?”
A torrent of protests sounded around the gag. I grabbed her chin and used it to nod her head, up and down, in agreement.
“Excellent. You’re going first, and I choose dare. I know that’s not how you play it here in this country, but this is the way I know. Your way is too easy. I choose, and you do it. You can choose next time for me. Okay?”
I nodded her head again, gripping her chin firmly as more tears escaped her.
“Stop crying, prom queen, or I’ll give you something to cry about.” I pushed her hair back off her forehead, where it was sticking to her tears.
She was staring up at me like I was the ghost and not her.
“Shh, it’s okay. Everything is going to be okay.” My voice was low and deep, hiding the chaos swirling inside me. “Now, you’re going to play with me, aren’t you?”
I smoothed her short hair down, wiping her tears with my thumbs.
“Did you miss playing with me at all? I missed playing with you.”
She sniffed and seemed to gather herself. She straightened.
“Are you ready to play?”
She shook her head, her eyes beseeching me. She wanted the gag off. She wanted to poison my mind with her lies again. I couldn’t let that happen. Not yet. The screaming inside me was too loud to hear her gentle words over anyway.
Blood demanded blood, and Sofia had let me mourn her for seven years.
Now it was her turn to cry.
“Good girl. Now, it’s my turn first, remember? Don’t worry, it’s a fun one. I dare you to live.”
Her eyes widened, locked on me, earnest in a way that tugged at my ragged mind. I pulled the chloroform-soaked rag I’d brought with me from my pocket and clamped it over her mouth. She sagged into my arms a minute later. I smoothed her hair back, allowing myself one second of weakness before we started the game.
I let myself feel relief, there, alone in the dark with her unknowing body, before I mastered my wild emotions and hefted her over my shoulder.
The game was waiting, and there was a box in the woods with her name on it.
