When I look up, he’s studying me and there’s that feeling again. Something familiar and warm. Like I’m safe.
“I knew you before. A long time ago. I used to bandage your knees when you cut them. Tie your shoelaces.”
He said he’s Dante.
I remember Dante. Remembering the feeling that belongs to that memory. But he’s lying. He’s not Dante. He can’t be. Dante is dead. They’re all dead. I saw their bodies. Saw the blood. I don’t think I’ll ever get the sight of it out of my head. Ever forget the terror in Lizzie’s eyes when her killer advanced on her. She was just a little girl. We both were. She didn’t even have a chance to scream.
“Mara. I need you to relax, okay?”
I blink, remember where I am. I’m hyperventilating.
He lets me go. I move away from him. But I don’t run to the exit. There’s no point. He’s right. Where would I go? Besides I’m outnumbered. Not to mention they have guns.
“Matthaeus,” the one claiming to be Dante says as I sink onto the floor and hug my legs. I close my eyes, hide my face in my knees and think about the song Flora taught me. It helps a little at least. If I can see the words and hear her sing the song. I just have to see the words and listen for her voice.
“Mara.” Dante’s voice sounds urgent. He’s close but I don’t open my eyes. Not even when I feel his big hand cup the back of my head. He’s gentle. But some pretend to be gentle and those are the ones you really have to watch out for. They’re the ones who hurt you the most.
“Here.” Another man says. I still don’t open my eyes.
“Just a pinch, Mara. It’ll help relax you and when you wake up, I’ll be there with you,” he says as the hand that was cupping my head pushes it slightly to the side.
I register his words then. They creep in along the edges of the song, and I realize what he means. What he’s going to do.
The pinch. An injection.
The one that makes sure I don’t fight.
My eyelids fly open, but when I try to push my head back and get away, his grip tightens and a moment later, I feel the prick of the needle and I know it’s over. I’m done for.
3
Dante
Her body relaxes, arms falling away. I wrap her in my arms as she slouches. I stand. She weighs nothing. Like a little bird. A broken little bird.
Dried blood smears her face. Her lips are parted just slightly, hair hanging over my arm. It’s long and needs to be washed. Golden strands are crusted with the blood of the asshole I killed in that bedroom. One of her arms rests on her stomach and the other hangs limp.
“Shit,” I mutter.
“You had no choice. It’s better if she sleeps anyway, given what we need to do. When she wakes up, she’ll see she’s safe,” Matthaeus says. He’s been with me for the last five years. Cristiano hired him as a bodyguard when I couldn’t defend myself and he’s become a friend. Someone I trust.
“I don’t think it’s going to be as simple as that,” I tell him.
“When is anything simple?” he asks. Never when it comes to me, I think. “But you have her back. Get her settled then I need to look at your arm.”
“It’s nothing. The bullet grazed me. Idiots have bad aim.”
“Still.”
“Fine. After.” Matthaeus has some medical training which, given what we do, is a good thing.
The men start the music again, but it’s not as loud. I carry her into the back bedroom. My room. It’s the quietest and the most comfortable. Matthaeus lives here too, and the men have rooms when they need them. It’s our base in the northeast. My uncle used to own the building. I should burn it down, except that I like this one.
But wait. No. He’s not my uncle. I have to get used to calling him dad.
A feeling of disgust turns my stomach at the memory of Uncle David. The only image I can ever conjure up anymore is that of him sitting at the desk in that hotel room. His hands pinned to it with a steak knife and a letter opener, head blown half off.
I did that.
Patricide.
Although does it count as that if you hadn’t really processed that the man you killed was your father, not your uncle? That he’d been lying to you all your life.
That he’d raped your mother.
Which explains some shit at least. Not that I can blame mom. She tried to love me. Maybe she even did.
Fuck.
My steps slow as I grit my teeth, steel my spine. I shove those thoughts aside. Now isn’t the time to wallow. I need to take care of her. She needs me. And I haven’t been there for the last fifteen years when she really needed me. I need to get my head out of my ass and be here for her.
I open the bedroom door and step in, closing it behind me. Inside is a large mattress set on crates with a heavy comforter. The makeshift bed is unmade. Instead of a nightstand I have a crate turned upside down but most of my shit is on the floor. A charger for my phone. A laptop. Another gun. Candles too. Sometimes the power goes out here.
The walls are bare brick, the beams exposed, and there’s a decent size bathroom attached. Instead of a dresser I have my clothes stacked on a table set against the far wall. Shoes underneath it. Two chairs, shoved against another wall beneath the huge windows, hold my books.
The furniture David had in here was very different. Top-quality custom-made shit. Just like in all the rest of his houses we had no idea he owned. Ever since the reading of his will, where he left me everything, I’ve celebrated my inheritances with a bonfire. I have one at each property I claim. First the furniture. Then, after I’ve looked through every possible place he could have hidden more information from my brother and I, the houses themselves. The two penthouses will be harder to set fire to, but I’ll figure it out.
I lay her down. She really does weigh nothing. Her head lolls to the side a little, but otherwise, she doesn’t move. God. I haven’t seen her in fifteen years, but I swear, out there, when her lip began to tremble and the dimple on her chin deepened, I glimpsed the girl she was. The little girl with the crush on her best friend’s big brother.
Cristiano used to laugh when she’d come to me for the slightest thing. When she and Lizzie fought over a toy or when she fell and hurt herself. She rarely went to her grandmother. Always came to me instead as if I were her hero.
But that was a long time ago. She doesn’t remember me. Not to mention the sight of me probably scares her half to death now. And I can’t blame her for forgetting. Some days I wish I could forget. Or at least I used to. Now, I make myself see it all again. Make myself remember. Because what happened, happened because of me and I owe it to them to remember.
I take my gun out of its holster and set it on the makeshift nightstand then think better of it and put it on the stack of books across the room. I put my dagger next to it.
I look her over, her small, bare feet pale against the dark bedding. She’s too thin, I can see it even with the dress on, her face gaunt. Even so, she’s beautiful. There’s no hiding that. And I remember how bright and blue her eyes were just moments ago. Full of life. Full of fire.
But I also remember how she crumpled after her attempt at an attack. How quickly she gave up.
With a shake of my head, I walk into the bathroom, switch on the lights, and run the tap. I scrub my hands and splash water on my face, studying myself in the mirror but only momentarily. I never look at myself longer than I need to. I pick up a washcloth and soak it with soapy water, then return to her.
I clean her face first. I can’t wash her hair until she’s awake but at least I can clean the dried blood off her cheek and lips. I take in her features, see how she’s developed. I notice her high cheekbones, wide forehead, eyebrows shades darker than her hair, lashes thick and black and impossibly long. Her lips are parted slightly, the top lip fuller than the bottom. She looks like a doll. An angel. Fucking beautiful. A sleeping angel who has woken up to a nightmare every fucking day for the last fifteen years of her life.
My mind return
s to what they did to her. How they took the innocent girl and dirtied her. I swallow hard, almost choking on the lump in my throat. The green dress is stained with blood and dirt. At least the blood isn’t hers.
Suddenly I can’t stand the thought of their blood on her.
I look at her again and consider for one moment not doing it. Not cleaning her. Because when she wakes up wearing my clothes what will she think I did? Given what I saw today and what I know must have happened to her over the course of most of her life, I can’t blame her.
But I won’t allow any part of them to stain her, so I undo the few buttons on the dress. Then, not having any way to pull it off her without moving her, I grip the two sides and rip them apart with one tug. I tear away the thin straps, set the pieces of it on either side of her, and look at her.
She’s naked underneath. I knew she was. But seeing her like this, in my bed, this woman with breasts fuller than her frame would suggest, her stomach flat, skin stretched tight over protruding bones, pale, flawless skin right down to the V between her legs, it’s fucking with me.
Fuck. What is wrong with me? This is Mara.
But she is not a little girl anymore.
I already knew this, so what the fuck is my problem?
I force myself to focus on the damage. Because it’s not quite flawless skin, is it? Not really. I see the healed scars. Not too bad, but still, the fact they are there at all pisses me off.
I swallow, my eyes falling to the slit of her sex. My breathing is shallow, uneven and I make myself look away but only after noting the hair is gone. She’s been shaved bare for them.
For those bastards.
That’s the part I concentrate on. Not this woman’s body she’s grown into. Not the beautiful face made gaunt from malnourishment and constant stress. I focus my energy and my rage. Rage at those men in that penthouse. Rage at Petrov. And Felix Pérez. At all the men like them including my uncle-father. And I clean her, reciting their names over and over in my head.
I lift one arm, wipe it down. Do the same with the other. There’s a small gold bracelet on this one. I don’t take it off. As I move to her body, I try not to see her curves, not to feel the softness of her skin beneath the washcloth. Try not to watch her nipples tighten as I wipe away the filth of the men who’ve touched her.
I clean her legs, her feet, scrub the dirt from the bottoms. I keep my thoughts on those bastards as I part her legs and clean between them. This part is harder. But it’s when I’m finished with the front and roll her onto her side that I freeze. That my blood comes to a boil, and I fist my hands so tight the washcloth drips water onto the mattress.
“Fucking. Bastard.”
Because here, too, are more scars. Some deeper across her shoulders, her upper back. Her ass. But the thing that is getting this visceral reaction out of me, that has me gritting my teeth hard and vowing vengeance for the thousandth time is the mark on her hip. Fresh. Not yet healed. Probably infected.
A letter P branded into her skin.
Branded.
Fucking burnt into her skin.
4
Mara
Consciousness comes slowly. It’s like I’m in a thick fog at first. This is always the case when I wake from a drugged sleep. I think it’s my mind’s way of protecting me. Making me feel like I’m safe for just a little while longer.
I hear a sound, water running, and people talking in the distance. Or maybe a TV. I’m lying on a bed. A different bed than mine. And I’m warm, the blanket over me comforting for its weight. I don’t recognize the scent around me. Petrov always smelled faintly of food masked by too much cologne. This isn’t that smell. This is the smell of a man. Of leather and sandalwood and something almost tangibly dangerous. But this scent doesn’t turn my stomach. It makes me want to inhale deeply.
I blink, my eyelids heavy, and slowly open my eyes just as the sound around me changes and a door opens.
With a gasp I bolt upright and stare at the man entering the room. Because I remember where I am. That warehouse-like building. I remember the soldiers who stormed the penthouse and killed everyone in it. Remember this man, the one with the leather eye patch—the one claiming to be Dante—who rescued me from that hell.
Who then drugged me and put me in this bed.
“Good morning,” he says with what I can hear is false cheer.
Morning? I glance to the windows, see the gray sky, the heavy clouds. It doesn’t look like morning.
“Well, evening, really,” he corrects as if reading my mind.
I turn back to find him watching me. Steam bellows out of the bathroom behind him. He must have been showering. That’s what the water was. The other sound is a TV. A sitcom maybe. I hear the audience laugh on cue.
“There’s a bottle of water for you. You’re probably thirsty.” I glance at the bottle of water on a makeshift nightstand beside the bed but don’t touch it. “And hungry. Just let me get dressed and I’ll make us something to eat.”
I turn back to him. I am both thirsty and hungry. But I’m not sure if the water is drugged.
“It’s not drugged,” he says, and I wonder if he can read my mind. “I don’t want to drug you again.”
Then why did you? I want to ask but don’t.
He looks at me for a moment longer and I wonder about his eye under that patch, wonder how he got the deep gashes across his face.
He buckles the belt on his jeans as he heads toward the table where a pile of clothes is stacked. I take the bottle, twist off the cap and drink as I watch him because I’m too thirsty not to. I take in his powerful, naked back. Watch how his muscles work as he moves. So different than anyone I’ve seen. I also see the scars. See the bandage wrapped around his arm with the faint pink of blood.
He got shot getting me out of that penthouse. That has to mean something, doesn’t it?
He chooses a shirt then turns and heads toward me. He slips his arms into the charcoal button down. He hasn’t wiped the droplets of water off his shoulders, and they leave dark spots on the shirt. He tucks the shirt into his jeans never once taking his eyes off me. I feel my face go hot.
“You slept all night and most of the day. Do you feel better?”
I look down at myself then, notice it’s not the dress I’m wearing but an oversized hoodie. I lift the blanket a little to peek underneath. Okay, that’s it. Just the hoodie.
“Mara?”
My gaze snaps back to his and I’m about to tell him I’m not Mara when I remember we’ve had this conversation. Remember what he’d said about Lizzie’s eyes being green. Mine are blue. And the birthmark. I remember that too. Lizzie used to say I must be special to have a star on the back of my shoulder. It was more pronounced when I was younger but it’s still there. We used to pretend that maybe my father was a king from a far-off land of magical beings.
Dante sits down on the bed. I draw my legs up and after buttoning his shirt, he rolls up the sleeves wincing when he pushes the one over the bandage.
“Did you touch me?” I ask, trying to keep my eyes level on his. Trying to focus on the good eye and not keep looking at either the patch or the scar. Not wanting to care that he’s hurt. I notice he tries to turn the good side of his face toward me. Like he’s trying to hide the damaged half.
“I cleaned you up as much as I could while you were sleeping then put you in one of my hoodies so you wouldn’t be cold. I have some clothes for you though. I thought you’d want to put them on yourself after a shower.”
“What does it mean exactly that you cleaned me up?”
“I cleaned the blood off you. Cleaned the dirt off you. I did not touch you in any inappropriate way. I would not.” His voice hardens at the last part as if I were accusing him of just that. Maybe I was.
But again, like with the water, I believe him. I don’t know why but I guess he doesn’t have a reason to lie. I’m here. I’m his. I can’t get away from him. We proved that last night. And he can do whatever he likes to me.
&nbs
p; “Why did you drug me then?”
“Because you were getting upset. I didn’t want you upset.”
I try to make out if that’s all. I feel like he’s leaving something out. I study his good eye. It’s familiar, like Lizzie’s.
But the Dante I knew was a boy. This is a man.
The Dante I knew was killed before he had a chance to become a man. This man is a cold-blooded killer.
“Would you like to eat something before you have a shower?”
I’m hungry but I want to be alone for a few minutes. I want to be sure he didn’t touch me or do anything else to me. I shake my head.
“All right,” he stands. “Bathroom’s in there. You’ll find everything you need but if I forgot anything, I’ll be inside, okay?”
“Is there a lock on the door?”
“Yes, there is.”
“Can I use it?”
He’s momentarily confused by the question but recovers quickly. It’s not so strange a question. Petrov would test me. See if I’d use the locks he’d put on and take off the doors. He said I was his. That I would always be available to him. And he’d punish me when I locked any door, even the bathroom. He always knew, too, even if it was for an instant. Just for one little second so I could feel a little in control. A little safe.
“Yes, Mara,” he says, smiling that sad smile. “You can lock the door. You can take your time and I’ll wait for you inside. You’re safe here. Safe with me.”
“No, I’m not.”
He opens his mouth to say something but changes his mind. He moves to pick up his phone from on top of a stack of books. He slides his finger over the screen and then types something quickly using both thumbs before turning back to me.
“Holler if you need anything,” he says, and walks to the door. He opens it and the sound of the TV grows louder.
“Dante’s dead,” I call out when he has one foot out of the bedroom.
He stops at that and turns, his hand on the doorknob.
Stolen: Dante’s Vow Page 3
