by Nikki Wild
That wasn’t the Lucy I remembered. Fury boiled in my veins as I realized just what my leaving had done to her. What I’d let happen in my absence.
It was like I’d traveled all this way just to watch her get taken away from me. Dread pulled at my guts and my heart. Why? When it came to Lucy, why did I feel so goddamn helpless?
It wasn’t just her, though. It was this whole damn town. It was like there was something in the very earth that was pulling me down. From the moment I’d crossed the town limits, the very pavement had seemed to lurch up and try to drag me to my doom. First the accident. Then the nurses. And now Delfino. I wasn’t the kind of man who did well inside a cage, and that’s all Pleasant Lakes was for me: a set of bars.
But what if what looked like a cell ended up being a golden opportunity? What if bondage could actually lead to freedom?
Maybe this bullshit about being forced to live with this Delfino guy would work out, especially since I’d also be sleeping just feet away from Lucy. I’d see her every day while I was getting well again, and that meant I had just as many days to convince her to get the hell out of here once I was in any kind of condition to ride again. God only knew what the hell this guy had planned for me in the interim, but those potential little victories meant something. If I could secure enough of them, I might be able to tip the scales.
I had to play this smart, and that meant stowing thoughts of a great escape… for now. It also meant acquiescing to a situation that rubbed me the wrong way. One that made the worry in my gut churn and my skin crawl at the very thought of it.
What was I willing to sacrifice for a second chance with Lucy? I’d asked myself that question time and time again, even before I left her, and the answer was always the same: damn near anything.
I’m comin’ for you, baby, I thought as I watched her and her father disappear from view. Even if it kills me, I’m finally gonna save you.
Six
Lucy
Delfino didn’t speak again until we were out in the hallway. He shut the door to Leo’s room, and for a second, I was sure he was going to lock it. It certainly sounded as though he intended on keeping Leo prisoner here.
As he turned his gaze back on me, dread coiled tight and cold in my gut. I couldn’t quite explain what I saw in those eyes, but something primal in me knew I was staring at a predator.
“You were onto something before,” he said, taking me by the arm and leading me toward the doors that sealed the rest of the tiny hospital off from the intensive care unit. “There is another reason we’re bringing Leo Richards into our home while he recovers.”
I swallowed, blinking away what I thought might be the beginnings of tears welling up at the corners of my eyes. I hated when he touched me, especially like this—especially in a way that was so controlling. A way that made me feel less like I was being shepherded and more like I was a cow being led by the neck to the slaughter. I honestly could not have hazarded a guess at Delfino’s motives, especially when second-guessing such things usually brought his rage down on me like the wrath of God.
“What is it?” I asked him. It was the only safe thing I could think of to say.
He gave an odd chuckle then, shaking his head as he stopped just beyond the doors to the ICU. I hated when he laughed like that, the way it made me feel like I was some particularly slow child. It wasn’t as though he was often forthcoming with his thoughts. Everything he did felt clandestine and secretive.
“I need you to keep an eye on him. To prove your loyalty to me, and to Don Carliogne.”
I balked at the concept. “My loyalty? But why?”
I regretted my question before the last syllable had left my lips. The way Delfino arched his brow in response was like a cat preparing to hiss. My inquisitive nature did not impress him. It never had.
“Because you’re important to me, Lucy. And to Pleasant Lakes’ future. And you’re important to the family, too.”
Low enough that I thought it wouldn’t matter, I muttered, “You mean the mob.”
Apparently, I was wrong.
Delfino’s fingers cinched, vise-like, around my arm. He hauled me into a nearby conference room—empty this time of day—and behind him, he locked the door.
“That was unwise, Lucy.”
I swallowed thickly. In the dim light, Delfino lost his wan complexion and took on the affectation of something far more sinister. I wrung my hands and took a step backward, trying to put some distance between us, but could move no farther for the door. His fingers in my arm were leaving bruises.
“We don’t say words like ‘mafia’ or ‘mob’ around civilians. Do we?” he asked.
I gave a little shake of my head. “What’s it matter? Not like you don’t have them all under your thumb…”
At the mention of that particular digit, he dug his into the nerve running up into my shoulder. Air hissed wetly through my teeth and I tried to squirm away, but there was no escaping him.
There never was.
“What makes Pleasant Lakes work,” he said, oh-so-softly and only an inch from my face, “is that nobody suspects what’s really going on here. We’re Stepford, Lucy. We’re the last place anyone’s going to look for family connections. And we’d like to keep it that way, Don Carliogne and I. I’ve told him he can trust you. Am I wrong?”
You want the pain to stop, don’t you? I asked myself, as I often did when I found myself struggling against the urge to spit in Delfino’s face. You want him to stop staring at you like that, to stop hurting you, berating you, twisting the knife in your gut? Then you know what to say, Lucy. Be a good girl…
“No,” I said, the words slipping off my tongue like they weren’t even language to me anymore—mere muscle memory. “I’m sorry. I understand.”
For many moments, Delfino studied my face the way he always did to ascertain if I really meant what I’d said. I regarded him with the same vacancy I felt inside me, hoping my sheer lack of defiance would be enough. Finally, he lowered his hackles and released my wrist. The rebound pain was enough to rattle my bones all over again.
“Let’s go home,” he murmured, maneuvering me out of the way and opening the door to the hall again. “And if I were you, I’d take Leo’s situation to heart. This is where life will lead you without my guidance. My protection.”
I stole a glance at Leo’s room. “The hospital?”
Delfino nodded. His eyes flashed. “Without me to vouch for you, you’re a liability in the eyes of Don Carliogne. Without me, Lucy—you’re a loose end.”
I’d heard this before, of course. That the way he shuttered me away, kept me all to himself, was truly for my own protection. But I’d never heard it said quite like this before. And as we stood there, staring at one another, I realized it was very likely Delfino didn’t mean I’d end up in one of the recovery rooms.
He meant I’d end up in the morgue.
Together, we walked back down the hallway toward the elevator, my head bowed to hide the tears welling in my eyes. They weren’t tears of sorrow. They were tears of fury, of shame, and of despair. The fury of knowing you were surrounded by people who could help, but who wouldn’t; the shame of knowing you hadn’t put up all the fight you could; the despair of knowing that even if you had, it wouldn’t have mattered—you had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and in the end, it would just make everything worse.
I wanted to rebuke Leo so bad for what he’d done to me, but after what had just happened with Delfino, I found myself wondering if this was what he was here to save me from. And part of me soared at the thought of it.
Back when Leo and I were together, when he and his gang were supposedly menacing the town, I would dream of riding off into the sunset like I’d seen in all those romance movies when I was younger—during the times I was actually allowed to watch things like that. I’d thought that Leo would be my way out of a life of subservience under Delfino’s iron thumb. Every word out of his mouth was about how I should act, how I should perform for him, ho
w I should serve him best.
Fuck that, I’d thought back then. Being in Leo’s arms reminded me of all the possibilities that existed outside of what Delfino wanted for me, gave me hope for something better than the life I was being thrust into. It had been a long time since I’d felt that wild and free, that in control of my own destiny.
But then I’d woken up from the best night of my life without the man I loved beside me, and everything had changed. The world grew colder. I became more alone than I’d ever been in my whole life. Colors faded. It was like the flame that Leo had kindled inside my heart had been snuffed out.
Now I was supposed to play house with him. My stomach turned at the thought.
But beneath the nausea, there were butterflies too. I wasn’t sure which I hated more: the idea of having the man who’d ruined me back in my life, or the fact that I was almost happy to have him here.
Seven
Leo
“I’ve got to get out of here,” I muttered as I flipped through the hospital TV’s limited selection of channels.
It had been a few days since Lucy and her father had come to visit me, and since then, I’d resided in my own personal hell of boredom punctuated by near-constant poking and prodding. Along with the rib fractures I’d sustained, I had a few severe friction burns all down my back and arms from where I had slid along the asphalt during my crash, which the doctors wanted to monitor in case of an infection. That was something I was certainly not looking forward to, especially since my back couldn’t be bandaged because of the way my ribs had been broken.
Of course, I’d had all of this explained to me about seven different times by seven different people, every one of them dispensing the exact same information over and over again as if they all had copies of the same script. It was enough to drive me up the wall.
Thankfully, today was the day I had been promised that I’d be able to leave, hopefully before Lucy’s father got here to take me back to his home. I knew that if I spent more than a few minutes in that house, I would wind up murdering him. But whenever I asked about my discharge paperwork I was just flashed a patient smile and told that I would have it when the doctor cleared me to leave.
Right. Looked like Delfino had made good on his promise. I was stuck here until I left under his care. This wasn’t a hospital. This was a prison.
Well, fuck that. I might’ve been a criminal, sure—or at least, I ran with some—but I wasn’t about to be held prisoner like one.
I stepped out of my hospital room and walked over to the nurse’s station. With my clothes practically destroyed from being dragged along the asphalt, I was stuck wandering around in a hospital gown and a pair of boxers that had, thankfully, survived the accident. It wasn’t the most flattering of ensembles, but it would do until I could get myself a pair of actual clothes from out of my bag… wherever that had ended up.
Much to my annoyance, however, the nurses seemed to have guessed that I might have been getting antsy about my forms. Two of them intercepted me before I could even make it to the woman sitting at the station, and they promptly tried to corral me back into the room where I’d been stuck for the last few days.
“Mr. Richards, please stay in your room! The doctor will be with you soon enough,” one of the nurses said, doing her best to sound placating.
“You can’t just hold me here against my will!” I said, trying to keep the two women’s hands off of me. “I have rights!” Whatever Delfino’s influence was on this place, it seemed extensive. But that didn’t mean I was going down without a fight.
“Please, Mr. Richards, go back to your room or we’re going to have to sedate you!”
“Excuse me?” I stared at her, eyes wide, before curling my lip into a sneer. “You’re not giving me any kind of sedative. I refuse treatment. I’m not letting you anywhere near me!”
The two nurses glanced at one another nervously before one gave a nod over to her left. I followed her gaze, finding myself staring at a mountain of a man dressed in a security officer’s uniform.
Shit, I thought, clenching my hands into fists, though I knew it would do no good. This really isn’t going to be my day, is it?
All three of them started to close in on me, and I could swear I saw the glint of a needle in one of the nurses’ hands.
I thought that I was done for, and before I knew it, I would be slack-jawed in my room with drool spilling down my chin. Maybe I could at least preserve my man card by taking out the big guy. I’d only have one shot at it, though, before Nurse Ratched over there jammed the Happy Juice into my body.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Richards, but we have our orders,” the nurse with the needle said as she reached for my arm.
“That won’t be necessary, I don’t think,” Delfino’s unmistakable cool tone came from behind the meathead security guard. “You can step away from the young man now.”
“Of course, Father,” one of the nurses whispered as they all took a step back, revealing Delfino’s long, thin stretch of a smile. All teeth, no lips. Like something out of a Stephen King novel.
“The doctor has given me Mr. Richards’ paperwork and he is free to leave with me,” Delfino said, turning his cold gaze on me. “Our car is waiting at the front doors, Leo. We shouldn’t keep Lucy waiting.”
The silence around me was downright eerie, so thick I could barely hear the machines beeping from inside the patients’ rooms. Everyone in our vicinity had stopped what they were doing, their eyes fixed on my stepfather, as if waiting for their next command. It was like Delfino had created some kind of robot army. I entertained that idea for just a second, long enough for a chill to surge up and down my spine.
“You were trying to leave early, I see,” he said. After a slight tilt of his head, the two nurses and security guard returned to their business, practically doing an about-face before they marched away from me. “I told them that you might. You’ve never been one for following orders, not even when it’s for your own good, have you?”
“That crazy bitch almost sedated me!” I scowled. “Was that part of your instructions, too?”
“Mind your tongue,” he muttered as I felt the sharp pain of his fingers digging into my arm. He swept me toward the doors. “I will not tolerate that manner of talk in my presence, Leopold.”
“I told you not to call me that,” I snapped, pulling my arm away and out of his claw-like grasp. I wasn’t some delicate young woman he could grab hold of and hope to hold onto. I had enough biceps that simply flexing would have propelled him away from me. Dude was getting off easy.
“Lucy is waiting in the car,” Delfino said, ignoring my complaint once again.
The old man and I walked the rest of the way downstairs in silence, neither of us giving the other a second glance as we rode down in the elevator. I couldn’t quite get a read on what but something had certainly changed about Delfino since the last time I’d come to Pleasant Lakes. Where he has once been a quiet man who had spoken rather softly, he was now authoritative and commanding, even over people who he shouldn’t have any authority over. Nurses and doctors—hell, even meathead security guards—seemed to cow to his demands. But why?
Outside was his same old ‘57 Chevy that he’d been driving back when I’d first come into town. Lucy was waiting in the backseat, sitting in the same old spot she’d sat in when I’d made the connection between her and Delfino. She was just as beautiful as the day I’d last seen her, her hair all done up in an intricate braid at the back of her head and wearing a white dress that made her seem just like an angel as the afternoon sun streamed in through the windows.
“Get in,” Delfino said flatly as he walked around to the driver’s side door and got in himself. The engine roared to life as I put on my seatbelt beside Lucy, careful to avoid straining my limited range of motion, though she barely seemed at all inclined to even spare me a sideways glance. Had I done something to upset her the other day?
“You will need to understand the rules of our home,” Delfino murmure
d tersely. “Most of which may come as a hardship for you, given your usual style of living…”
“You really don’t need to take me in,” I tried to protest. “Really, I can just find my own place to stay; maybe that motel near the outside of—”
“No,” he said. And in a way that told me that was the end of the matter.
Any other time, I might have argued. But the way Lucy looked at me from the corner of her eye—it said “don’t.” And so, for her sake, I kept my mouth shut. I figured it was the least I could do.
It was about that time that I began tuning him out. I hated these kinds of rants on what it meant to be a good person, a good follower, and I certainly didn’t want to hear about all the fucking rules he had in his house. Most of them seemed to revolve around obeying his word like it was the goddamn Gospel, though he seemed to have a few things to say about music too, demanding that only a few selections of classical be played in the house—God only knew why.
I felt the gentle touch of Lucy’s fingers running across my hand, drawing my gaze back up to her soft, green eyes. I still remembered the way she’d looked at me as she drew her body against mine, naked flesh like velvet against my own. Her lips had been so hot and pliant, so eager for the kisses that muffled her gasps as I stole her sweet innocence from her. That night had been everything that I’d ever dreamed of, finally having sex with the one woman, the only woman, I’d ever actually loved. It was the best night of my life, and the sudden surge of memories and sensory recall hit me so hard and so fast I had to pull my hand away before I twined our fingers and pulled her into my arms.
