And I’m not alone.
Moonlight shines in through the window, illuminating the form leaning against the wall, watching me.
It takes me a few minutes to fully open my eyes, to focus. I pull up to a seat, but it takes effort. I feel like I’m moving in slow motion when I look to the nightstand, to the cup there.
Water. I need water.
But I’m having trouble making my arm work the way it should, and I manage to knock the glass over, spilling the contents. I watch it roll off the nightstand, drop to the carpet soundlessly.
He moves, the shadow.
He peels himself from the wall.
I look up at him and as he comes nearer, I cringe back. When he’s close enough, and his face is illuminated, I see it’s Gregory.
He picks up the glass, goes into the bathroom and returns a moment later with it full. He sits on the edge of the bed and puts it to my lips and I drink, and I never take my eyes off him.
When the glass is empty, he sets it on the nightstand but remains looking at me.
“Was it you?” I ask.
“Was what me?”
“On the boat. Was it you?”
I think he narrows his eyes, but I can’t be sure because it’s too dark.
“You think I had some part in this?”
“Did you?”
He snorts, gets up off the bed and leans against the wall again. “If I wanted to kidnap you, you’d still be kidnapped.”
I don’t know if I believe him. He’s so casual, so relaxed. Like he’s part of this whole thing, but not. Like he’s watching from the sidelines. Waiting.
“What are you doing in here?” I ask.
He shrugs a shoulder. “Not really sure, honestly.”
“Where’s Sebastian?”
He puts a hand on his jaw, rubs the hard line of it.
“Want me to get him for you?”
I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic, but I shake my head no.
“Hm.” He walks toward me, and I pull the blankets up. “I don’t know what you said to him but take my advice and don’t say it again.”
“Why would I take your advice?”
“Because things are changing, Willow Girl.”
I swallow, and I think he hears my anxiety at his warning.
“You, me and Sebastian, it’s just us now. And things are changing.”
I shudder at his words. At the thinly veiled threat. “I don’t understand.”
“Were you paying attention in the mausoleum?”
“What are you talking about?”
He snorts, smirks.
“You have a short memory.” He pushes off from the wall and walks to the door. “Good night, Willow Girl. Sleep tight.”
5
Sebastian
I keep the nurse for another two weeks and check in on Helena sporadically in that time, giving her space. She won’t talk to me. She won’t even look at me. At least she’s eating regularly now and able to walk, dress, and shower without help.
Gregory’s sitting across from me on the patio. We’re drinking whiskey and while he looks out on the dark night, I study him, my younger half-brother, his words from that night in my study, that he wants a piece of Helena, still lingering daily in my thoughts.
We share a similarity in features, dark eyes, dark hair, the cut of our jaw. He’s the same height as me, built roughly the same. We think the same way too. We’re both calculated.
The difference between us is that Gregory’s always been last in the pecking order. And I’ve always been first.
I wonder if the accident with Ethan hadn’t happened, if Ethan would be like Gregory.
“You’re going to burn a hole in the side of my head, brother,” Gregory says, turning to me.
I smile, finish my whiskey, pour another.
I don’t expect him to let things go when it comes to Helena. I don’t expect him to walk away from the Willow Girl tradition. From her.
And I can understand his motivation.
He pushes his glass toward me and I pour for him too, then sit back and drink a swallow of the burning liquid.
“There’s a way out,” he says, not looking at me. “You know the way out.”
I know what he’s talking about. A way out for Helena. A way for her to remain mine without breaking with tradition. With the way things have to be.
“No,” I say.
He glances at me. “Suit yourself.”
“She’s mine.”
He faces me. “I don’t want to take her away. I just want a piece.”
I drink another swallow, never taking my eyes from his.
“We’ve done it before. It’s not a big fucking deal,” he says.
“It’s different now.”
“I’m not your enemy, Sebastian.”
Isn’t he, though?
The air is so thick, you can cut it with a knife.
I have to be careful. With Ethan gone, Gregory will need to be managed. I always knew he’d be the bigger problem, didn’t I?
“We do it my way,” I finally say.
It’s him who remains silent now.
“I make the rules. We do it all my way,” I say.
He nods once. Holds up his glass. “Your way.”
I touch my glass to his.
“What are you toasting?”
We both turn to find Helena standing in the doorway, her bare feet half inside, half outside. She’s wearing a knee length pink dress that hangs off her. Even though she’s been eating, she’s still thinner than she was when she got here. Her nipples harden in the cool night and press against the soft cotton. She’s naked underneath.
“My brother and I have reached an understanding,” I say.
She studies us both, like she doesn’t trust either of us.
“I’m hungry,” she says instead of questioning my comment.
“That’s good.”
I push out the chair beside mine with my foot. It’s to my left and across from Gregory.
She sits, and I signal the girl waiting nearby.
“What would you like to eat?” I ask Helena.
She looks up at the girl. “It doesn’t matter. Anything is fine.”
The girl looks to me, and once I give her a nod, she disappears.
“Do they have to ask permission to breathe?” Helena asks.
I smile. “You’re in fine form. I’m glad to see it.”
“Where are Ethan and Lucinda now?”
“They won’t hurt you again.”
“I asked where they are.”
“If Lucinda’s smart, she’s deep in hiding,” Gregory says.
“We’ll find her,” I say.
“And then what?” she asks.
“Let me worry about that.”
“You won’t bring them back here, will you?” she asks.
“I’ll deal with them, Helena. You don’t need to worry about them.”
She considers, gives a half nod and turns to Gregory.
“Did you tell him what I think?” she asks him.
“About?” Gregory asks.
She faces me.
“Lucinda told me she was sending me home. She gave me that letter and said you’d been keeping it from me. She said Remy was waiting for me on the boat. She gave me my passport and told me to go, that she’d arranged a flight, which was a lie, obviously.”
“Ah, she lies?” I ask.
“You all lie. It’s a Scafoni family trait,” she replies.
“Something we have in common with the Willows,” I say.
“Just some of the Willows.”
“I missed this, you know that?” I ask.
“What? Irritating me?”
I give her a grin.
“Remy obviously wasn’t on the boat. It was Ethan. But there was a second man. He was the one who grabbed me. Put that rag of chloroform over my mouth.” She glances at Gregory. “And I remember he lit up a cigarette just before I passed out.”
“I already told you,
I look at my brother. Watch him watch her and I want to know what she’s thinking. If she believes him.
If I do.
We’re interrupted by the girl bringing Helena’s dinner, a simple pasta dish with fresh tomatoes, olive oil and a sprinkling of parmesan cheese.
“Thank you,” she says, picking up her knife and fork. She seems different, stronger somehow.
I reach over and pick up the spoon, slide the knife out of her hand and slip the spoon in its place.
She turns her gaze to our hands.
I get up to move behind her chair.
She looks cautiously up at me and I close my other hand over hers.
Gregory finishes his drink, pushes his chair back. “Excuse me.”
Neither of us look up as he retreats into the house. Helena’s eyes are on her plate as I move her hands, taking a forkful of spaghetti and rolling it against the spoon.
“Like this,” I say, turning it, holding the forkful out to her.
She keeps her gaze on mine for a moment, and this gesture, if she accepts this, it means more than that forkful.
Helena opens her mouth and I feel a sense of relief. It’s strange and not what I expect to feel.
I let her slide her hands out from beneath mine and prepare another bite for her.
She opens when I offer it, and takes the next bite too, and the one after that.
“It’s enough.” She says once the plate is half-eaten. She picks up her napkin and wipes her mouth. “Thank you.”
I set the utensils diagonally across her plate and put my hands on her shoulders, rub them, then move them to her arms.
She doesn’t pull away.
“Did you mean anything you said when we were in Verona?” she asks.
I pull her to her feet, turn her to me. I touch her cheek, cup her face. “Every word.”
I kiss her.
It’s soft, this tasting of her lips. Like it’s our first time.
I wrap one arm around her waist and cup the back of her head with the other and I nudge her lips apart, deepen the kiss, slide my hand down to cup her ass. She’s still tender there, I can tell by how she sucks in a breath.
But when I pull back, she shakes her head, wraps her hands around my neck, digging her fingernails into my shoulders.
It hurts, the place Lucinda shot me still tender. I managed to throw her aim off enough that the bullet didn’t do any real damage but it will still take time to heal. It was the lamp she bashed against my head that knocked me out.
But I don’t care about any of that, not right now, and I shove the half-eaten bowl of pasta aside and lift her up on the table and draw her dress up, missing the feel of her skin, the scent of her. Needing to be close to her. Inside her.
She looks down, brings her hands to my belt and unbuckles it, lets it hang there while she works to undo the buttons of my jeans. She slides one hand inside and looks back up at me.
I fist a handful of hair as she wraps her hand around my cock and I kiss her, and she squeezes my dick when I tug her head backward.
“Hard,” she says against my lips, her legs wrapping around my middle as I push her backward, still kissing her, shoving my pants and briefs down with one hand.
I tug her forward so her ass is at the edge of the table and look down at her. She’s shaved her pussy and I miss the triangle of hair I like to grip and tug, but I like this too. I like seeing the seam of her sex and I lean my head down and kiss it.
I missed it. Fuck, I missed her.
“Fuck me, Sebastian. Do it hard. I need you to do it hard.”
I need it too. Now. Tonight. Like this.
With one hand on her thigh, I shove her leg wide, keeping hold of that fistful of hair and watching her when I thrust in to the hilt, hard like she wants it. Hard so it hurts her.
But as much as I want to pound into her, I draw back, my fingers digging into her thigh.
“Hard. Please!”
She grips the collar of my shirt, letting out a cry when I do it again.
“Helena,” I grunt. She’s got one hand in my hair now and is pulling. “I won’t be able to stop.”
I thrust again, forcing the air from her lungs.
“I don’t care. I need you. I need you like this. I need us like this.”
I take the wrist of the hand that’s pulling at my hair and keep it on the table, lay more of my weight on her and look at her, my face an inch from hers as I fuck her. And when she reaches her mouth to kiss mine, to bite my lip, I push her backward because right now I need to look at her, to see her beneath me like this, to have her here again where no one can hurt her.
No one but me.
I close my hand around her throat at the realization.
“Why do you want it like this?” I’m still fucking her, still thrusting deep and hard. “Why?”
“Make me come. Please make me come.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s you and me and this is how we are. Please, Sebastian. I need this. You. Like this.” She draws me closer to her, buries her face in my shoulder. “I need to forget the rest.”
I grip her legs with both hands and push them wide and she’s wet and tight and moaning as I fuck her deep, deeper than I’ve been with her before, and when I feel her spasm around me, when I hear her cry out and she’s coming, I come too, my body going limp as I empty inside her, giving her everything I have, every ounce of me.
6
Sebastian
She falls asleep easily in my bed. I watch her, curled into me, small and soft and safe.
I look at the clock, barely two in the morning.
Opposite her, I won’t sleep tonight.
I never do on this night.
Pushing the covers back, I climb out of the bed, careful not to disturb her. I pull on my jeans and a sweater. The nights are cooling off, fall is fast approaching. I walk out of my bedroom, down the stairs, pick up my shoes which are by the door. I grab one set of keys and walk out of the house, heading to the water’s edge.
The sand is cool beneath my bare feet and I stop to listen to the sound of water lapping against the shore.
How calm it is. How comfortably predictable. It’s always the same, no matter what. No matter the chaos on the island or in my head.
And tonight, there is chaos.
I have her back. She’s safe.
After Lucinda shot me, I woke up in my bed, my arm stitched up where the bullet grazed it, a flesh wound. I wonder if I hadn’t caught her wrist if she’d have hit her mark. Killed me. I wonder if that was her intent or if rage clouded her judgment.
I wonder about my meetings with Joseph Gallo. With David Vitelli. I wonder which of them turned on me. They’ll need to be punished and I’ll get to that.
But not tonight.
Tonight is for something else.
And Helena’s back. She’s asleep in my bed. She’s safe.
Lucinda and Ethan are gone—for now.
I walk right up to the water, let it run over my toes. I run a hand through my hair wondering what’s happened to me in the last month? Since she came into my life.
No. That’s not the way to say it.
She didn’t come willingly.
I stole her out of her life and forced her into mine.
She has every right to hate me, yet she doesn’t. She clings to me. And I can’t get her out of my head. Out from under my skin. I can’t get enough of touching her, can’t get close enough to her, not even when I’m buried deep inside her.
I look up at the sky, dark enough tonight that I can see stars.
It’s a new moon. And it fits the day.
Black.
Today is my twenty-ninth birthday.
When the next wave reaches my ankles, it soaks the bottoms of my jeans.
I step backward. Sand sticks to my wet feet.
Time to move. Time to get off the island. Just for one night.
Gregory will take care of Helena.
I make my way to one of the two boats, climb on board, start the engine. It seems louder at night and I take one look at the house, at my dark window.
She’s tucked inside, safe and sound. She’ll be here when I get back.
7
Helena
I wake up alone late the next morning. Sebastian’s side of the bed is cold. It’s after ten. I don’t usually sleep late, I never did at home at least, but here, time is all I have.
Pushing the covers off, I get up, shower, go to my room to dress. I’m surprised when I get downstairs and don’t see anyone. Both brothers must have eaten already.
I pour myself a cup of coffee, add cream and pick up a piece of toast. I take it over to the pool which sparkles like a hundred diamonds in the bright sun. I sit at the edge and let my feet hang in the cool water while I eat my toast and drink my coffee.
There’s no one around, not a gardener, not any of the girls who work in the kitchen or set or clear the meals. The island is quiet. Quieter than usual. It’s almost eerie and I wonder if I’m not alone.
When I finish my toast and coffee, I get up and walk around the corner and see that one of the boats is missing. I go back inside, peek into the kitchen.
Empty, not a single pot on the stove. Nothing baking. No dirty dishes in the sink waiting to be washed.
I walk to Sebastian’s study and knock on the door. When there’s no answer, I try the handle, but it’s locked.
“Sebastian?”
Nothing.
Footsteps behind me startle me.
I know it’s not Sebastian. I can tell when he enters a room.
I turn, and even though I know who it’ll be, the hair on the back of my neck stands on end when I find Gregory approaching from outside. I wonder where he was. He’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt but is barefoot and his hair is ruffled.
“He’s gone,” he says, heading to the stairs, barely looking at me.
“Gone?”
He nods. Climbs two of the steps.
“Where?”
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