by Rose Harper
“Tell me again why I can’t just marry one of the whores that meander through my home,” I express, cracking my neck when the tension becomes too much. “They wouldn’t need half the amount of training she will, and they’re already here.”
Snapping his eyes toward mine, he stares me down. “Not this again, Mateo.”
“Just fucking humor me for once. Why?””
Someone please do, because I’m a lost motherfucker right now. My father expects me to believe this is a matter of life or death, but I don’t see the importance of it.
“Fine. Here it is. We need the connections. Reap is part of the family, and we need utmost loyalty for what I—what we have planned. Marrying Carina solidifies this alliance. Once we have it, this family will be unstoppable.”
“What stops him from turning his back on his family?”
I’m more of a person of action than I’ve ever been with a mere promise. You have to prove to me you belong before I ever let you join rank. Father knows that. Hell, anyone who ever deals with me knows I can’t stand a shady motherfucker. I’ll mow them down if I even have an inkling they’re screwing over my family. The only reason I haven’t wasted those fucking Riccis is because they have something I want—what this family needs.
“That won’t happen.”
“How do you know that for sure?” I inquire, cocking a brow.
“I just do.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” I ask, knowing the old man has something up his sleeve. There’re only two looks Anjelo Calvetti has—sneaky and sneakier. One of which I know very well. This time, he’s keeping everything under lock and key. His silence makes me froth at the mouth for more. He knows how secrets turn me upside down.
A commotion at the door ceases our conversation. Tilting my head in the direction, the doors to my father’s office slam open with gusto, Lucio and Gavino racing through with horror etching their expression. A feeling I’ve never had before turns my stomach as I take in their stance.
My father and I shoot up from our seats, demanding at the same time, “What is it?” I know I’m not going to like what they have to say, but I’m not about to tuck tail and run. Running is for wimps, and I’m most certainly not that. I take everything head on; balls to the wall. This is no different.
“We have a problem.”
4
CARINA
“O h my God, oh my God, oh my God!”
Through the haze, I barely make out my mother’s voice as she frantically has my father place me in the scalding hot water in their master bath. Instead of screeching at the sudden change in temperature, a small moan of relief slips free from my chattering lips. It feels like a million needles piercing my flesh at the same time, and I wish they would go on forever. It’s amazing; pure elated ecstasy.
Glancing down, I expect, and relish the thought of, seeing blood from those needle pricks as it slowly slides from the wounds, caressing my body like a lover. Only, to my dismay, I find my skin tinged red from the heat and nothing more. No blood—no sweet, sweet blissful release awaits my gaze.
As my body adjusts, the euphoric high I crave with every ounce of my being floats away, leaving the endless shit I loathe in its wake. No! I silently scream. Give it back! It all overwhelms me, confuses my fragile mind. I want it back. If I allow this to beat me, I’ll lose myself forever.
“What’s wrong with her?” she asks, flashing a burning light in my eyes.
It feels so damn good; so addictive. I keep my stare trained at the light, relishing the burn I feel on my irises. I’ll do anything to keep that shit away. I can’t let it drift away from me, too. It’s … it’s all I crave.
“I don’t know,” my father retorts. “I think she’s having one of those psych episodes.”
No, I want to shout at him. It’s not a psych episode. It’s me losing the last shred of sanity that kept me the way I have been for years. This newness—it’s different, something I can go the rest of my life without encountering. Yet, no amount of fighting, I can’t help it as it all slips between my fingers. My mind drifts, forgetting everything I’m supposed to hold near and dear to my cold, dead heart.
“I mean nothing; I am nothing.” But what I really want to say is more.
“Darling, talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.” Strong fingers tip my head back, and now I’m staring into the dark eyes of my father, his face a mask of worry.
I want to yell at him that worrying is for the weak. That the weak have no place here, but I can’t. Because I may be many things, but a hypocrite isn’t one of them. I’m just as worried as him, because I know I’m not supposed to be like this. I’m not supposed to feel anything.
“I mean nothing; I am nothing,” I murmur.
When the light is no longer causing me that blessed relief, everything starts closing in on me faster, harder, stronger. My breathing escalates; my heart thuds loudly in my ears. I can’t … It’s getting closer and closer when all I want is for it to stay far away.
“I mean nothing; I am nothing!” I cry out, feeling my lungs constrict.
Blistering, mind-numbing agony sears through my body as my lungs scream for oxygen. Yet, with that feeling, the threat against me dissipates into nothingness. My mind clears; I can focus on everything around me. It brings me back to a place I know and love, making the oblivion shrink. I should breathe. That much I know. Yet, the relief it brings—the pleasure—I don’t want to part with it. Withholding air sends me higher and higher. They save me from falling into an abyss I crave nothing more than to escape.
“I mean nothing; I am nothing! I mean nothing; I am nothing! I mean nothing; I am nothing!” My screams rip through my throat as I begin choking, convulsing in his arms. “I mean nothing; I am nothing!”
Soft fingers wisping across my face cause me to lose the last shred of myself I was barely clinging to. A damn bursts inside of me, causing my back to arch as terrified scream after scream heaves from me. Tears silently trek down my cheeks as I cry on the inside for what I lost.
“What the fuck?!” The voice is as cold as ice, freezing every part of me with blistering frigidness. It causes a new relief in itself, unlocking my battered lungs. That voice—the death and agony I hear exuding from it—causes my heart to lurch. It brings the same pleasure the words I yelled brought me, and I crave it with every ounce of my being.
I cry out something unintelligible, reaching blindly toward that voice. I must have it. I must obtain it.
“You are both dead! Gavino, take them out of here!”
More pleasure floods my system hearing his deadly voice slither over my skin like fine wine. It’s like a balm for my soul, filling in where pieces are missing. The moment his fingers brush my chin, I’m unable to stop myself from moaning. His hands are as cold as death, making me yearn for more.
“Darling, look at me,” he says, his voice changing. No! I want it back. Bring back the death I heard in his voice.
“I mean nothing; I am nothing!” I scream, frantic, looking up, meeting his eyes.
The moment his hard eyes meet mine, everything stops. That shit is no more as it shrinks back in its corner to hide, trying to get as far away from the darkness as possible. It’s funny, considering that’s exactly how it feels when it’s howling, clawing to get me back into its clutches. It’s darkness. Darkness I don’t want to be part of. Yet, this man’s eyes cause it to retreat, fearful of what he may do if it doesn’t. It sooths me, causing a rush of air to leave my smarting lungs.
“What did they do, bella?” he asks, my eyes still trained on his.
“I mean nothing; I am nothing,” I retort, feeling more like myself than I have for some time.
His eyes harden, jaw set tight, which causes a smile to grace my face. Raising my arm, I run my fingers under his sinful eyes, wishing I could pull all his darkness inside myself so the uncaged part of me has no other choice but to stay away. He seems familiar in my muddled mind, but I can’t make out who he is. All I know is something inside me,
deep down within my very frayed soul, knows this man can give me exactly what I need. His eyes say more than his words ever can.
“What. Did. They. Do?” he growls, low, causing a shudder to race through me. So much menace; so much fury. It’s delicious.
Searching my mind, I can only say two words, coming out slurred. “Broken. Me.”
“They broke you?” he deciphers, his eyes darkening even further. A giggle escapes me from his reaction. It’s heady; my body demands more.
Knowing I need to explain, I try my hardest to search through my thoughts. Small pieces come, but I can’t get enough of a hold on them to fully express what it is I need. It all comes out in a jumbled mess of words, causing hatred for myself to assault me. Why can’t I say what I want to say? The words are right there, ready to be voiced, but I can’t. I just can’t. It’s as if something in my mind is broken and cannot be fixed. No matter the relief his proximity causes, I still can’t get my speech to cooperate.
“Take. Pain. Me,” I sigh, hugging him closer. Feeling him holding me near helps, even though I can’t explain it. “Pain … Pain.”
“Take you. Pain,” he deciphers again.
I nod. “Pain. Take. Yes. Me. Pu-pu.” Please, help me feel. “Please. Feel. Y-You.” No matter what I do, I can’t iterate into words what I want and need from him. It’s frustrating! Why did they have to break me like this?
“Feel me?” he asks. “You’re not making sense, Carina. Slow down and tell me what you need.”
I need relief! “Pain. Pain. Feel. Me. Take. Pain.”
Shaking his head, he glances over his shoulder when a shadow casts over me. My mind can’t quite decipher what it is because it happens so fast, but it’s too much like the creeping void trying to unlock the cage I hold deep within me to be anything good. It’s too real; too similar.
“I mean nothing; I am nothing,” I start mumbling. “I mean nothing; I am nothing.” Rocking back and forth in his arms, I start frantically clawing at my stomach, desperately trying to get the shadow to recede. It can’t do this; I won’t let it. “I mean nothing; I am nothing. I mean nothing; I am nothing. I mean nothing; I am nothing.”
“What are you doing to her?!” the man shouts, grabbing at my hands, his voice filled with venom.
“Nothing! I just walked in here,” another man states, retreating.
Snuggling closer to the man with the magical voice and devastatingly soulless eyes, I slowly but surely become more of what I think used to be me. It feels right, so I’m going with it. I feel the shackles of my mind free, rattling their chains as they fall away with a thud. My concentration opens more, relishing that it’s now free.
“They … broke … me,” I whisper, settling myself once more.
A foreign emotion I don’t understand overtakes me when the man’s wide eyes snap back to mine. There’s light in them as he smiles down at me warmly, no longer holding the darkness that helped me find the light. That emotion, I can’t … I don’t fucking want it. My body tries to hyperventilate because of it. The pain is what kept me from losing myself completely, and I need it back. I need it to surround me like a warm fuzzy blanket.
Inwardly, frantically, I start reciting the words that kept me from drowning. They run through my mind over and over and over again until I feel my body going slack against his, at peace once more.
“What did they do to you?” he asks.
“N-Nineteen days,” I whisper.
With every word I force through my lips, exhaustion I’ve never known before overcomes me. Blinking through the haze clouding my eyes, I will myself to stay awake until I can tell him what he wants to know.
“Nineteen days?”
“He–” I yawn wide, feeling my jaw crack. Moaning from the shot of elation, I continue, “He made me … stay in the hole.”
Anger morphs his features as his arms painfully tighten around me, causing the last piece to click into place. “Both will die for this. Painfully, brutally die.”
“Mmm, pain. Pain is good.”
Going limp in his arms, unconsciousness takes me before I can mumble a protest.
5
MATEO
G lancing down at the vision lying on the bed, I mull over everything that transpired more than a week ago. When she fell asleep in my arms, she stayed the way I’m seeing her right now. We had to call a doctor in to place IVs when I knew she wasn’t coming out of whatever coma she slipped into. Whatever her parents did to her, it took a toll on her body. Made her into a shell of herself.
Peering at all the equipment attached to her limp form, I mull over in my head for the thousandth time what she could have meant with her babbling. She was trying to tell me something about pain, but I couldn’t make it out. It’s eating away at me, knowing she wanted me to do something, but she couldn’t voice it. It’s like getting something for a baby, knowing you can’t because you can’t breach that language barrier.
“What are you saying, doc?” I inquire, tearing my gaze from Carina.
“I’m saying, with everything you told me, it’s clear she had a mental break of some sort. Until she wakes up and tells us what happened to her, I won’t be able to justify how bad it is.”
“Goddammit! Something happened to her in there, and I need to know what it is, so I can make sure it doesn’t happen to her again. She was saying something about pain, her, and take me. ‘I mean nothing; I am nothing.’ But I’m not a fucking rocket scientist, doc, I can’t speak broken.”
This is shit I don’t have time for. I knew, deep down, that those fuckers were going to ruin this. Something told me they would, and I should have listened. Why the fuck didn’t I listen?
Sighing, the doctor sits on the chaste lounge facing Carina’s four-poster bed. Her eyes speak so much more than she’s willing to voice, and it’s irritating the fuck out of me. Does she not think I can handle it? That after everything I’ve been through, a little medical terminology will cause me to go over the deep end?
“Fine. Don’t take me at my word, please, but this is what I think happened,” she huffs. “I believe she had a psychological break. During that time, her entire slate was wiped clean, thus the slurred words. And when she came in and out, pain is the only receptor her fragile mind clung to. She links pain with pleasure, as we would link pleasure with pleasure. She’s backwards. Lord knows what happened to her for her to cut herself off like that, but that’s what you’re dealing with now—it seems Carina craves physical or emotional duress in order to function.”
“How do you explain those mumbled sayings then? Or the fact she completely fucking freaked when she saw Gavino’s shadow on her?”
“Now, that, I don’t know,” she softly replies, sliding her gaze down to Carina. “Whatever happened to her … it’s not something I’ve ever seen before. It’s as if the part of her brain that controls her emotions just … broke. And with a fragile mind, the first emotion a person connects with, where they feel something other than nothingness, is the emotion they latch onto the most. Maybe, just maybe, hers is pain. It could be the reason she repeats those words. They could be a trigger.”
“Pain?” I release a bark of laughter. “So, she’s like an addict, and pain is her drug of choice?”
Nodding, she gives me a look of all seriousness. “Yes. I believe it is.”
“You know what my family does, doc. It’s no surprise. But you can’t ask me to do something like this to someone who doesn’t deserve it. It would ruin all the progress I … I just can’t.”
“If you want her to reciprocate, then you’re going to have to. Otherwise, you’ll get what you got when you first arrived from her. A human being desperately clutching to anything that feels right to her.”
“When do you think she’ll wake up?” I ask, hoping for some better news than what I’ve been dealt.
“It’s too soon to tell. Without taking her to the hospital, we’ll just have to wait until she comes out of this herself. She doesn’t appear to have any type of brain injur
y; her pupils dilate on contact. So, the ball is in her court, I’m afraid.”
I don’t want this; none of it. My father wants it. He wants the connections that mine and Carina’s marriage will bring. He wants Reap. Yet, he’s not the one who has to put up with the messed up situation I find myself in now. Causing Carina pain? I won’t be able to do that if she doesn’t deserve it. Only people who’ve fucked my family over deserve that kind of wrath.
What the fuck am I going to do?
6
CARINA
T he fade into awareness happens slowly. It’s like ice melting, the water is still present, yet, its newly formed. My mind can’t fully process the entirety of my situation, as it feels like I’m traipsing through a dense fog. Soft, warm, delectable sheets and a thick comforter graze against my skin, but all I can focus on is the pressure. Sweet, sweet, pressure. The sting in my arm. It causes a sigh of tranquility to slip free from my lips. It all feels wrong, but in some way, completely right.
Suddenly, the ice ailing my mind liquifies, and my veins fill with frigidness. My heartbeat intensifies as my muscles attempt to pump the viciously sweet solution. The sting of my puffy eyelids helps level me more as I strain to remember how I got here. I strain to listen, to hear anything that might help me. But the only sound that registers is the incessant ringing in my ears. What happened to me? Why does everything feel so different?
“Ciao.” Turning my gaze, I spy a man with a tumbler of dull brown liquid resting on his knee. He seems so familiar.
“Hello,” I rasp. “Do I know you?”
“Yes, I’m Mateo Calvetti. How are you feeling?” Getting up from the chair, I silently watch as he sets the drink on the table before slowly making his way toward me.
I have to think about his question more than I originally should, which is new. Most usually I can snap it out, but this, having to think about how I feel, is new. Different. Terrifying.
