Taken

by Natasha Knight

  I snort. “My ally?”

  “Now get up and clean yourself up. Have a shower. Lunch will be sent up in twenty minutes, and the doctor will be here at two o’clock.”

  “What?”

  He walks to the door and only stops once he has opened it.

  “What doctor?” I ask.

  How many humiliations can he put me through? We were all checked already, my sisters and I, to make sure we were intact, as the doctor called it. Virgins. He knows I’m not. He knew it when he chose me.

  “Birth control. I won’t father a Willow Girl.”

  5

  Helena

  “I won’t father a Willow Girl.”

  My mind is spinning. What is this? What is happening?

  Sebastian’s gone. He closed the door behind him, but I didn’t hear a lock turn. Not too reassuring, though, because if he doesn’t feel the need to lock the door, he isn’t worried I’ll run. And I won’t. The punishment wouldn’t be mine if I did.

  It would be my family’s.

  I get up off the bed, pick up my discarded blanket, and go into the bathroom. Turning my back to the mirror, I lift my hair and look at the wound. It’s about two inches long but shallow.

  I run the water and wash my hands, wash his skin out from underneath my fingernails before using a washcloth to clean up the blood, then look through the medicine cabinet where, remarkably, I find a first-aid kit. After I’ve cleaned and dressed the wound, I go back into the bedroom and walk over to the window.

  Venice. He’d said we were going to Venice.

  But I stand here in awe as I look out of my window on the second floor of the house, and I don’t see Venice like I imagined it. I see land and water.

  I push the windows out and am surprised that I can open them. They must not be afraid I’ll jump, at least not yet. I lean my head out, and in every direction that I can see from here, there is only land and water.

  No city. No gondolas. No sound of a thousand tourists.

  The grass is green, and it’s well-groomed. There are two gardeners in the distance. To the right of the house is what looks to be a vegetable garden. To the left, I see the dock where three boats bob in the water. They’re wooden and look like the elegant water taxis I’ve seen in photos of Venice.

  Strange thing is, I’ve always wanted to see Venice. I’ve always been enamored of it. There’s a mystery, something unique and belonging only to this city.

  But this—this is not what I imagined and not what I know Venice proper to look like.

  There’s a knock on my door.

  I turn as it opens. I don’t know who I expect it’ll be, as I don’t see Sebastian or any of them knocking. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see it’s a girl with a tray. She’s probably around my age, and she gives me a little nod before setting the tray down on the larger table by the chaise. She then turns to leave without a word.

  “Wait,” I call out just when she reaches the door. I feel ridiculous hugging this blanket to myself and chasing her down.

  She turns but is visibly uncomfortable.

  “Where are we? This isn’t Venice.”

  She looks behind her into the hallway, squeezes her lips together, wrings her hands.

  Maybe she doesn’t speak English, and I don’t speak Italian.

  “Venezia?” I think that’s how it’s said in Italian.

  She looks down at her feet, like she’s thinking about something, then looks up, nods, and rushes from the room. And I get the feeling she wasn’t nervous because of the language.

  She wasn’t allowed to talk to me. Is anyone? Or will I be completely isolated? Wholly alone?

  I shove the thought aside and go over to the tray, stumbling a little when the blanket gets caught between my feet. I gather it up and look at what’s for lunch. My stomach growls. I am hungry and missed breakfast.

  I do wonder if I was drugged because I don’t know how I slept through landing and being carried in here and stripped naked. But why drug me? What’s the point? There’s no need.

  There are two pots, and I lift the lid off each one. One is coffee and the other tea. Is that because they weren’t sure what I prefer?

  No, it’s not a kindness. I should remember that.

  I pour myself a cup of coffee and add a generous helping of cream. It’s good, although much stronger than I’m used to.

  I take off the top piece of ciabatta from the sandwich and find inside roasted vegetables and goat cheese with pine nuts and what I guess is a pesto sauce. It looks good and I’m hungry, so I set the coffee down and pick up the sandwich with one hand while holding up my blanket with the other and take a bite.

  My mouth full, I go to one of the other two doors I haven’t yet investigated.

  One is locked, so I turn to the next one. It’s a huge walk-in closet, but it’s empty.

  How long does he plan on keeping me naked?

  There’s no clock in the room, and I wonder how much time has passed. I quickly eat the rest of the sandwich and drink my coffee before going into the bathroom to have a shower.

  I have the quickest shower I’ve ever had. I know any of them can walk in at any time, and I’m vulnerable enough without being caught naked in the shower.

  When I’m finished, I grab two towels, make a turban for my hair with one and wrap the other around myself—it’s a little wieldier than the long blanket. I towel dry my hair and leave that towel hanging on a rack.

  Just as I return to the bedroom, that door opens and Lucinda Scafoni walks inside followed by a man too old to still be walking, along with the same girl who brought my tray. She pushes an empty metal table on wheels inside, doesn’t dare look at me, but curtsies to Lucinda and leaves. When she reaches to close the door behind her, Lucinda stops her.

  “Leave it open,” she says in English, all the while watching me with distaste.

  She’s wearing a black dress with a collar that reaches to the top of her neck. It’s severe and ugly. Her hair is, again, in a tight bun, and I see now how her makeup is too heavy. The powder is caked over a thick layer of foundation, her eyebrows, if they existed once, are long gone. She’s drawn them in, and they’re too dark. Too stark. Even with her olive coloring.

  I don’t think she was ever beautiful.

  “Take off the towel,” she orders me, and I notice she’s carrying a long, thin stick in her hand.

  “Why?”

  I hug the towel tighter as I try to keep her gaze, but from my periphery, I watch the doctor lay out his things, hear the soft clank of metal on metal. Recognize the instruments.

  “I’ve already had an exam,” I say.

  “You’ll have another. Take off the towel.”

  “Where’s Sebastian?” Why do I ask?

  “He asked me to take care of this chore.”

  I stop at that.

  He asked her to take care of this?

  But what did I think? That he’d save me? God, I’m a bigger fool than I realize if that’s truly what I think.

  “If you don’t take off the towel, I will ask Ethan to come and remove it from you.”

  I swallow. I know she means it. I unwrap the towel and drop it to the floor.

  The doctor is still working on unpacking his things or at least he has the courtesy not to look up, but she looks me up and down, up and down.

  “Turn.”

  I do.

  “Not a mark on you.”

  “All the Willow Girls have perfect, beautiful skin,” I taunt, turning back to face her, because I think I understand at least some of her hate for me. For all the Willow Girls.

  But she grins. “Makes it that much more gratifying to mark an unscarred, arrogant whore.” She points to the bed. “Lie down and open your legs.”

  “I’ve already had my exam, and Sebastian said this was for birth control.” But then again, he already betrayed me, didn’t he?

  But is it betrayal when he is my enemy? No, not at all. His behavior is in keeping with his role.

&nbs
p; “I need to be sure you’re not diseased. He should have taken one of your sisters. I don’t like the idea of my sons fucking a used Willow whore.”

  “It’s not necessary. I’m clean.”

  I’ve had sex exactly once for the sole purpose of ripping through that membrane. And look where it got me.

  “Ethan.”

  She doesn’t even look away and, as if he were standing right outside, Ethan appears in the doorway. I can’t scoop up the towel fast enough.

  “Help her,” she tells him.

  Sebastian is punishing me. This is what I get for standing up to him. This is all a part of that breaking.

  “No.” I keep the towel around me but sit on the bed. “He can go. I’ll do it.” Lying back to prove my point.

  “Open the towel,” she instructs.

  I’d kept it wrapped around me.

  Looking up at the ceiling, I open it.

  “Now open your legs.”

  “Ethan can leave. I’ll do it.”

  “You’ll do it regardless.”

  Ethan steps to the foot of the bed. I guess he wants a front-row seat.

  I glance once at his mother and know it’s pointless to ask again, and I won’t beg. I open my legs. The doctor says something to Mrs. Scafoni in Italian, and she kindly translates.

  “Pull your knees up.”

  I do. And I’m wholly exposed to them, and all I can do is lie there and stare up at the ceiling and fist the bedsheets as the doctor conducts his examination, the instruments he pushes inside me cold, his old fingers poking me and just when I think we’re done, he’s given another instruction I don’t understand, not until I watch him smear lubricant onto his thickest finger and poke at my other hole and when I tighten up, it’s Ethan who speaks.

  “It’s easier to take something up your ass when you’re relaxed,” he says. “And what I’m going to put in there will be much thicker than the doctor’s finger.”

  Is this part of Sebastian’s punishment? This utter humiliation, this being taken down about a hundred notches?

  My face burns as the doctor pushes his finger inside me. I don’t understand the point, but there isn’t one. It’s to humiliate me, that’s all. And he does. And when he’s done, I’m given a shot. The birth control, I guess.

  When it’s over, he stands and takes off his gloves. Mrs. Scafoni approaches and, her eyes on me, has a discussion in Italian with the doctor. A moment later, the same girl who rolled in the cart returns and rolls it out. I reach for the towel.

  “Roll over onto your stomach.”

  I glance from her to Ethan, who is grinning, his hand on the erection evident through his jeans. I swear he’s not right.

  “Why?”

  “Ethan.”

  She doesn’t even entertain my question, and I roll onto my stomach before he can lay his hands on me.

  A second later, before I can process the whooshing sound, a line of fire burns across my ass, has me gasping, jumping from the bed.

  But Ethan pounces, and I’m desperately covering myself as he roughly grabs hold of me, dragging me back down.

  “You’re owed three more for your refusal to do as you’re told,” Lucinda informs me. “He can hold you down, and I’ll double it, or you can submit on your own and take the three. Decide.”

  “What refusal? I did what you said!”

  “That’s another strike. Ethan.”

  I shake my head, but I know Lucinda won’t give me another chance. She likes this too much, and Ethan too, and I watch, helpless, as two cuffs, attached to the headboard, are exposed.

  “No!”

  But he, like his brother, is too strong, and my arms are bound and I’m on my belly and he takes hold of my ankles and has me stretched tight.

  “Eight more since I’m doubling. Next time, you’ll know to submit immediately.”

  And with that, I receive the first caning of my life, because that’s what the stick she’s holding is. A fucking cane.

  Only once growing up did my parents lay a hand on me, but this pain, it’s different. Eight strokes in addition to the one and I’m sobbing by the second, sobbing and begging her to stop, hating her, hating myself, wondering how something can hurt so badly, wondering if she’s ripping through skin. Wondering if Sebastian ordered this too.

  When she’s finished, she’s out of breath. Ethan releases my legs. I don’t turn to look at them. I bury my face in my arm instead.

  “She should take care of this,” I hear Ethan say to her.

  I don’t know what he’s talking about, but then his mother answers, and I think I do, I’m sickened.

  “Soon enough. Get one of the girls from the kitchen for now,” Lucinda says.

  I hear him leave. The bed depresses, and sharp fingernails scratch along my buttock, touching every line she just whipped into me, before combing into my hair, pushing it from my face.

  I don’t want to look at her. I can see her victorious grin in the periphery of my blurry vision.

  But she takes my hair in one hand and pulls my head back, turns it painfully, so I have to look at her.

  “You’re pretty, but so was your predecessor when she came here.”

  I know she means my Aunt Libby, but I didn’t realize Lucinda was here during her turn as the Willow Girl.

  The Willow Whipping Girl.

  “She was pretty too, in the beginning. Tell me, did you see her back when she returned to you?”

  “Her back?”

  She grins. “My husband gave me the chore of punishing that whore.”

  Her husband? Sebastian’s father? He was married to Lucinda when he took my aunt?

  “I look forward to the same with you.”

  With that, she gets up. I watch her walk out the door, leaving me bound, lying on my bed.

  Did I think she’d be different than the sons? Because she is a woman? I saw her cruelty from the first I saw her, and her hatred of me, of my family, is almost palpable.

  Again, I wish I knew more of our history. Wish my mother had told us more. Wish I’d read more.

  I roll to my back but quickly turn back onto my stomach. At least the pain gets me out of my head. My heart’s frantic beating is finally slowing, but the pain of my punishment only seems to intensify, making my skin throb, and all I can think about is what Sebastian said to me. That he is my master, and he decides my rewards and my punishments.

  And then the other thing he said.

  “I am your only ally in this house. Remember that.”

  My ally.

  My ally ordered this? Then I’m finished.

  6

  Sebastian

  I return to the house under an almost pink glow. The sunsets this time of year are spectacular. I needed to be in Venice proper for a meeting, and the timing was good. I had to walk away from her before I did something rash.

  But being away didn’t keep that one word, her accusation, from repeating in my head again and again and again.

  Rape.

  Although is it so extraordinary for her to use that word? I know what the Scafoni family is capable of. Is culpable of.

  What is it you intend to do? asks the voice inside my head yet again.

  I don’t answer that. Instead, I divert to what my brother would already have done if he stood in my place. I know it’s a cop-out, a diversion. I’m only fooling myself.

  He’ll still have his chance. They both will.

  I shove that thought roughly away. There’s time before that. Before handing her over to them.

  I feel older than my twenty-eight years. I’ve been head of this family for ten years. I came of age years after my father’s death, and I know my obligations. I know the cost if I fail to continue the tradition. As archaic as it is, there is truth to the curse. The shadow of the family mausoleum in the far distance of the property stands as a constant reminder.

  Remy, the caretaker of the house and a man I trust, meets me at the dock as I step out of the boat. He’s older, in his late sixties, a
nd has been working for my family longer than I’ve been alive. He takes the ropes and a moment later, the boat is secured.

  “How are things here?”

  I can see from his face that something is wrong.

  “The doctor came and went.”

  Remy knows about the business of the Willow Girl. Helena will be his second.

  “What is it?” I push.

  “The girl is still in her room. No food has been sent up. No water. Not since lunchtime.”

  “And she hasn’t come downstairs?”

  “Mrs. Scafoni forbade anyone entering, and, I assume, leaving.”

  I narrow my eyes, take in a slow breath. “Thank you, Remy.”

  He nods, ever elegant, and I head to the house.

  The lights are lit in most of the downstairs rooms, but I don’t see any of my family as I make my way directly up the stairs and to Helena’s room.

  I don’t knock but push it open to find her lying on the bed on her stomach, naked. I know her arms are bound because she can’t be comfortable having them over her head like that.

  She doesn’t stir, and I assume she’s sleeping. Her hair is wild, covering her arms and most of her back, but when I step nearer, I see the marks on her ass and I fist my hands.

  I go to her, study each of the nine lines of the cane. Nine strokes. Nine fucking strokes.

  I didn’t order this. Not like this.

  But I knew Lucinda would show no mercy, didn’t I? Her hatred of the Willow Girls surpasses all of ours. I know why, at least in part. I stood witness to it all when the last one was here.

  Still, this?

  I don’t excuse it. Lucinda will need to be dealt with.

  I sit on the edge of the bed. Helena stirs as I reach over to unbind her. She lets out a groan and draws her arms down, turns onto her side, and flinches. She lies back on her stomach.

  She pushes the hair from her face. It’s puffy from crying, and when I meet her dark gaze, what I see inside makes my jaw tighten, makes my hands fist again.

  “You’re my only ally in this house?” she asks, wiping her face, forcing herself to roll onto her side, biting down on the pain. “Then what will I do when my enemies strike?”