He nods.
Scarlett rolls her eyes over his head.
I straighten as a door opens and Charlie comes out of Cristiano’s study. “Sorry, I had to wrap up a call,” he says, eyes on Mara.
She stiffens as he approaches but her reaction to him isn’t what it was to Cristiano, my men or me. Still, he stops a few feet away. “It’s very good to see you, Mara. Welcome home.”
“Thank you,” she says, then turns to me and I see the plea in her eyes.
“I’ll take Mara upstairs. We’re all pretty tired.”
“I made up her room at the far end,” Lenore says, clearly a little disappointed by the reunion. Cristiano puts a hand on her shoulder.
“I’ll show you which one it is,” Noah says. “It’s right next to mine.”
Mara smiles at him and I watch him lead her to the stairs. I turn to Cristiano. “You have a room for Matthaeus?”
He nods. Matthaeus has a house on the mainland. His family home. But he usually stays here when he’s in town. I get the feeling he doesn’t like being in that old house with all its ghosts. The ghosts in ours aren’t his. They don’t bother him.
I turn to Lenore. “She just needs to adjust. It’s all a shock.”
“I know,” Lenore says, eyes misty.
Cristiano rubs her back and Alessandro takes her hand. “Make me a snack?” he asks. He’s a sweet kid and instinctively knows to distract her.
I pick up my duffel and Mara’s shopping bag and walk up the stairs. After dropping my bag in my room, I walk down the hall where I can hear Mara and Noah talking. I notice Mara’s room is just a few doors down from Lizzie’s old room. I wonder if that was a great idea but with all the guests, we’re running out of space. Lizzie’s room has been turned into Alessandro’s room in any case.
The door is open, and I see the pair of them standing at the window. Noah is pointing something out. I clear my throat and they turn.
“I’ll take it from here, Noah.”
He hesitates, then nods. “Sure thing.” He walks out of the room. I close the door and go to her.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m not sure. I barely remember my grandmother. I mean, I don’t. Not really.”
“You were five. That’s understandable.” I open a dresser drawer, see the clothes inside. Scarlett took care of buying clothes for her so everything would be ready. She did it before I even went to get her never doubting that I’d bring Mara home.
Since all that happened with her brothers, Rinaldi, her own uncle, she’s been working with trafficked women all over the world. Helping to get them home and reintegrated within their families and society. Mara has always been top of mind for her. I wonder if that’s because it was her brothers who took her to begin with. I wonder if Mara’s put that together yet.
“There are clothes. Everything you need.” She nods and I go to her. “Listen, why don’t you have a shower then get some rest. You don’t have to come downstairs yet if you don’t want to. You just take your time. We all just want you to feel okay. All right?”
“What happens now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Felix. Why did he come after me? Why does he want me back?”
I consider how much to tell her, my mind split between here, her and what I need to do. I need to talk to St. James. Figure out if he had anything to do with the attack at the warehouse. I need to talk to Charlie and Cristiano about what went down and find out about this new buyer. Tell them what St. James said about this alleged recording. There’s so much to do but taking care of her, making sure she’s okay, it’s the most important.
“He’s going to sell me again, isn’t he?”
Fuck. I wasn’t going to tell her that. “It doesn’t matter what he thinks he’s going to do.”
“Was he planning to get me back all along? With Samuel giving me that bracelet, he’s known my location for a long time.”
“Don’t worry about Felix, Mara. I’m not going to let him near you.”
“You don’t know him. You don’t know how determined he can be.”
I brush a hair behind her ear. She looks tired. “Try to relax. Get some rest.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I head back tomorrow,” I say, knowing she won’t like it but biting the bullet and getting it over with. “Matthaeus and I.”
“What?”
“You’ll stay here.”
“Here? Without you?”
“You’ll have Noah,” I can’t help but say.
She looks confused. “You can’t leave me here. I don’t want to be here.”
“This is your home. This is where you’re safest.”
“No, you said…You said I’d be safe with you.” She shakes her head, panic making her eyes wide and bright. “And this is where it happened. Where it all started. This is where…just…” she stops, squeezes her eyes shut for a long moment as she drags in a deep, shaky breath. “Down the hall, a few rooms away, it’s where they did it. Where they…”
I take her arms, rub once, hold tight. “That’s over. Years in the past. It’s safe here now. You’re safe here, Mara. There’s life in this house again. Laughter. A life for you.”
She shakes her head violently and tries to pull free of my grasp. I don’t let her go. “I can’t be here. Not without you. I won’t.”
“You will,” I say with a finality that surprises even me. “You don’t have a choice.”
She shoves against my chest. “Let me go.”
I do and she takes two steps away. “You drugged me again.”
No luck she’d forget that. “That was a mistake,” I say, no sense in mentioning it was Matthaeus, not me.
“What if I hadn’t woken up in time. What if he’d—”
I go to her, take her arms again. Squeeze. “He didn’t. And you did wake up and we got to you in time. You’re safe. No more what-ifs.”
“I’m not safe! Don’t you get it? I will never be safe again!”
I give her a shake. I can’t help it. “You’re tired. Overtired. And stressed—”
“I’m stressed because you brought me here!”
“I brought you home!”
“This isn’t my home. I don’t have a home!”
“Fuck, Mara.” I take a breath in, count to ten. I shift my gaze over her head. I need to be patient. I know that. “You need to fucking help me out here. I’m doing the best I can.”
“The best you can?” She snorts. “You wouldn’t abandon me here if you were doing your best!”
“I’m not abandoning you.”
“You promised you’d take care of me. You promised you wouldn’t let anyone hurt me again.”
“And I won’t.”
“You said I’d be safe with you!”
Fuck. “Cristiano will protect you.”
“I don’t want Cristiano. I want you!”
Her anguish hits me harder than a kick to the chest.
“If you’re dead, you won’t be able to keep your promise,” she finally says, losing a little steam.
I look down at her, feel her small hands against my chest. “I’m not going to die. I’m going to keep my promise to you.”
“Don’t you think you’ve used up your lives?”
“What?”
She turns pitiful eyes to mine. “Please take me with you. I want to be with you.”
“I’m no good for you, sweetheart.”
“You don’t get it. You’re the only one I can be with. Don’t you want me?”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I run a hand through my hair, turn away momentarily, then back to her. “What we did, what happened between us, I shouldn’t have let that happen. That’s my fault, not yours. I took advantage—”
“You didn’t.”
“I want you to have a life, Mara. I want you to be happy.”
“Just not with you.”
I sigh. “Not with me. That can’t be.”
“Do you have someone else?”
&n
bsp; “What?”
She searches my face then lets her head drop. “Never mind. Nothing. I’m tired. You’re right.”
“Mara.”
She sits on the edge of the bed, rubs her face. She won’t look at me, but I can tell something has shifted for her. Like something else has broken. And this one’s on me.
“Hey,” I say, crouching down, taking her wrists, and pulling her hands away from her face. I don’t know what I want to say. What I should say. My feelings for her, they’re strange, wrong. Mara was a part of my life from the moment she was born. Lenore took over her care almost immediately after her birth. We don’t know who her father is, and her mother had died before she’d turned one. She’s always been a part of my family, too. And I love her.
But that love, those feelings for my sister’s best friend, for the girl stolen when she was too young to even start her life, have changed. And none of it makes sense, not to me. Not right now.
All I know, all I can focus on, is that she is safest here.
Without me.
My life is forfeit. And she deserves a good man who will love her without adding any more baggage. Not some monster. Because she was right when she told me only monsters enjoy the feel of blood on their hands. I do. I like the kill. And going after Felix is, in a way, exhilarating. That rage I feel, it’s what makes my heart keep ticking.
And I won’t let her waste the life that she has just gotten back on someone like me.
“I’m tired,” she says again before I can say anything, so I nod, pausing once more before rising to my feet. Not sure this is where I should leave it. Not sure I shouldn’t explain to her. Make her understand that I have to let her go because I do want her. God, how I want her.
And it’s more than that. I feel more than that.
But I can’t have her. So much has been stolen from her already. I won’t steal a love I don’t deserve.
25
Mara
I pretend to be asleep when my grandmother brings up a tray of food hours later. I can’t sleep though. I’ve been trying but it won’t come. There were nights Petrov used a drug that knocked me out completely rather than leaving me conscious but paralyzed. Sometimes I’d wake up in a different place not even sure how many days had passed. In a strange way, I miss that oblivion now.
It’s fully dark but for the moon. I look up at the ceiling, see how the moonlight reflects on the colorful glass of the Venetian lamp hanging there. The house is quiet. I heard Noah go to bed a few hours ago. And when Dante came to check on me, I didn’t move. Didn’t even breathe.
My heart hurts when I think about him. The feelings I have are strange, confused. I’ve never before felt what I’m feeling with him. Never wanted or needed to be so close to someone. Never felt the need for touch. The opposite, actually. I repelled it. Over the years my mind trained itself to shut down. To drift away. Be anywhere but there when it was happening.
Thinking about it now makes my throat close up. How did I survive all those years?
I learned about Petrov when I was eleven years old. It could have been years before that that he’d made the deal. That he’d bought me. Well, Elizabeth. He’d thought he’d bought Elizabeth. He’d required a certain education of me. I was never to speak Italian again. Never to speak Spanish either although I did learn that. I lived in Mexico too long not to. In a way I guess I should have been grateful to him. It was because of him that I wasn’t sold earlier. Wasn’t used up even if I was used. They were careful not to get caught. Not to take my virginity which Petrov paid for. But there are other things, other ways, and no one will ever know just how used up you are.
And I learned to disappear in those years. I sang Flora’s song in my mind and floated away. Flora was one of the women who was kind to me. She was a cook and a part of my life for several years. I’ll never forget her.
It didn’t always work but it was the best I had. And now, with Dante, everything is different. I think I love him. No, I don’t think it. I know it. From before, from when I was little. He was always different to me. Special. I didn’t understand it then but now that he’s back in my life, now that we’re older, I get it.
Dante and I are destined to be together. Like our souls are linked. We belong together.
And no matter what he says, he feels it too, I know it. But it still hurts.
Frustrated, I push the blankets off. I won’t be able to sleep. Not here, in this room. In this house. There are too many ghosts. Strange how I can forget my grandmother but that night? The night those men came into this house and massacred the Grigori family? That I still feel deep inside. And it’s not just memories of Lizzie, of the moment of her death. Of how she died. It’s more. It’s like all their pain, their screams, their terror, it’s been swallowed up inside me, like it’s alive inside me. A part of me.
And I need to get away from it. From here. Because everything is so much louder here.
I slip my arms into the sweater I’d found in one of the drawers. I’m wearing a pair of loose-fitting pajama pants and a tank top. I go to the window, open it. A cool breeze blows in, and I hug my arms around myself. But it feels good to breathe in the fresh air. This house is stifling. Suffocating.
On the desk I see a stack of pretty, flowery paper. I pick up the pen lying on top and write a note. Because I don’t want my grandmother to hurt any more than she has. Any more than I’ve hurt her, even today, when I couldn’t be who she wanted. Who she expected. I don’t want to hurt any of them.
I write three words. That’s all. Because there’s nothing to explain.
I am sorry.
And I am.
I open the bedroom door and half-expect half-hope Dante to be sitting outside keeping vigil. My guardian angel. But he’s not there. No one is. I don’t let myself feel the disappointment that creeps up at the realization.
Sconces cast a soft light along the corridor. The house looks different than it used to although that could be my memory. I make my way quietly down the hall. If there’s one thing I’m good at it’s being quiet. Weightless. Soundless. Like a ghost myself.
I don’t let myself even glance at Lizzie’s room a little farther down the hall. I can’t. But when I get to Dante’s door, I stop. Because maybe I knew all along how this would go.
I stand there for a long minute. I think if I concentrate hard enough, I can smell his aftershave. I know it’s just my imagination though. I put my hand against his door, then lay my forehead on the cool wood. And it takes effort to keep quiet.
But exhaustion helps and I am exhausted. Exhausted of these unending, constant tears.
He will be sad, I think. Will he think I betrayed him? After he saved my life. After he risked so much and lost one of his men.
But I can’t do that. Can’t go there. My life is forfeit and I think some part of him knows that as well as I do.
I steel my spine, swallow down the tears, and turn away from his door. I go down the stairs without making a sound. So strange, after all these years, the house smells the same. Stranger still that I remember that detail when I’ve forgotten so much.
Downstairs is as dark as upstairs. No guards inside. But I see two smoking outside of the front door, so I head toward the kitchen. I remember the layout. Even some of the paintings are familiar, the one of Lizzie’s mom the most prominent. I pause in front of her. I remember that she was kind. Remember how we always thought she was a magical princess become a queen. She was so beautiful. Lizzie would have been as beautiful if she’d lived.
I turn and continue to the kitchen. It’s dark too and I’m only surprised when, before I get to the door to exit the house, I hear a small whine. I turn to find Cerberus, the hulking German Shephard, in his bed in the corner.
He lopes toward me, tail wagging even though his steps are slow. I woke him.
“Hi,” I say, crouching to pet him. He licks my face, lays his head in the crook of my neck and I find myself laying mine on his. “You’re so sweet,” I tell him, and am relucta
nt to stand, feeling a chill when I look down at him staring up at me with those huge brown eyes. It’s almost like they know.
I turn and walk to the door. When I hear a single bark behind me, I don’t look back. I just step out into the breezy night and only when my feet touch the cool rocks do I realize I never put on shoes.
But it doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing does.
In a way, I feel at peace. More at peace than I ever have. I let my feet carry me up toward the cliffs to the one place Dante tried hard to avoid earlier.
The Mausoleum. And then beyond.
26
Dante
I can’t sleep. I didn’t expect to, but I could have used at least an hour or two of oblivion.
A glance at the clock tells me it’s a little after two in the morning. I push the blanket off, pull on jeans, a hoodie, and a pair of boots then step out into the hallway. All is quiet, the hallway deserted. Cerberus gives a whiny bark from the kitchen. It’s out of place, not like him, but I ignore it and head toward Mara’s room.
Strangely, I can almost feel her presence here.
I pause at her door to listen but hear nothing. I don’t want to wake her, so I don’t knock. Instead, I turn the doorknob and peer inside. It’s dark, the curtains mostly drawn but not completely so moonlights filters in.
And something feels off.
The bed is empty, blankets pushed back. But the bathroom door is closed. Maybe she’s in there. Although I don’t see a light from under the door.
Cerberus’s low whine registers in the background of my mind as a strange sense of foreboding twists my stomach. I cross the room to the bathroom.
“Mara?” I ask, knocking once. When there’s no answer, I open the door.
It’s empty, though, and the memory of the last time we did this, repeated this exact scenario, returns. My heart rate accelerates but I stop, take a breath in. I look around the room, see the tray Lenore had brought up for her. It’s untouched. I knew that, though, from when I checked on her before going to bed myself. She’d been asleep. Probably too exhausted to eat.
Stolen: Dante’s Vow Page 15
