by S. M. Soto
“Don’t worry, this is as much torture for me as it is for you.” His voice echoes like a deep baritone that I feel in my bones rather than hear. His masculine scent swirls around me, transporting me from the lively outdoors into his maelstrom.
I fight back my own smile, trying not to seem so overjoyed that he isn’t scowling or glaring at me—much like he usually is. Seeing him smile, makes me want to smile in return, but it’s such an odd occurrence I don’t want to do anything to ruin it.
“Let me guess, you’re my babysitter today?”
“Do you see anyone else back from the assignment yet?” He asks dryly making my lip curl in anger. I shoot him a scowl. This was the only man capable of drawing such extreme opposite emotions out of me.
I follow him around the grounds taking everything in around us. There’s a stone fountain with benches, surrounded by tulips and roses ranging from every different color. Running my fingers over the soft petals of a white rose, I smile to myself. Closing my eyes, I tilt my head back enjoying the way the sun sizzles against the bare skin of my exposed arms. Light splashes of water from the fountain spray against my skin. I feel vibrant and happy out here, something I haven’t felt in a very long time.
“I missed this,” I whisper aloud to myself.
“I’d imagine so.”
Snapping my eyes open, I cock one eyebrow at him.
“I’m surprised you’re actually agreeing with me,” I mutter in disbelief. He chuckles, darting his gaze around us, staying aware of our surroundings.
“You make it seem like I disagree with everything you say or do.”
“Seriously?” I say, voice dripping with disdain. “It’s your life’s mission to make me feel like an invalid.”
“That’s not true. I don’t think you’re an invalid. You’re just not what I’m used to being around.”
“Because I’m not a guy carrying around a huge gun?”
“Partly.”
I roll my eyes.
“Why else?” I ask, tipping my head to the side trying to read him. He stares off into the line of trees lost in his train of thought.
“I’m not used to being around someone so—innocent. You’re pure, and good, despite everything that happened to you. Those aren’t traits I’m familiar with.”
Shaking my head, I focus my stare at the point in the distance he seems so fixated on.
“I might’ve been innocent once but not now. Not anymore. Especially after everything that happened, it’s like…I don’t know, forget it.” I blow out a frustrated sigh trying to push those damning thoughts out of my head.
“Say it,” he demands in that no holds barred tone. My stomach flips and my heart thunders against my sternum. The intensity with which he regards me is so intense, it unsettles me. I dart my gaze down to the abundance of colorful flowers. Focusing on anything else but him. I clasp my hand around the stem of the white rose, steering clear of the thorns. I snap off half the stem and twirl the pretty flower in between my fingers. In full bloom, with the beautiful, pristine white petals opened wide, the rose reminds me of innocence and purity—the old me. The thought saddens me.
“Sometimes, it’s like I never left—I feel like I’m still there in that tiny little room with all of them. I can feel them, smell them, sometimes at night, I swear I even hear them. No matter how hard I try to forget, everything that happened sticks with me. I don’t think it’ll ever go away. It’s imprinted in my mind and soul. They took my innocence from me, and honestly,” I say turning to look at him, “I don’t think I’ll ever be the same.” I shrug my shoulders helplessly and raise the rose between us to make my point. “You can say I’m a lot like this rose. I used to be the simple and sweet Sophia, but now,” I say, crushing the elegant rose against my fist until the petals are withered and smashed. “Now, I feel like this. Smashed beneath their feet. Broken at the hands of those men.”
Creed stares down at me with so much intensity in his eyes, my heart trips, skipping faster with each beat. Slowly, he reaches forward, and his long, lithe fingers wrap around the crushed rose in my palm. He places it into his own and I watch in fascination as he peels open each layer of the tattered petals, smoothing each of them out until they look semi normal again.
“This,” he says, gesturing to the rose in hand, “doesn’t define you. The fact that you’re worried about your innocence being gone, and no longer being the same girl you were proves my point. Anyone that’s not pure at heart wouldn’t be half as worried about it, but you are,” he says with those gray eyes so intently fixated on me, it feels like they’re warming me from the inside out.
His eyes would never cease to amaze me, at times they looked silver, like there were polished shards of metal dancing in their depths. But out here in the sunlight, upon closer inspection it was easier to see the swirls of glittering black onyx and tinges of pale blue at the edges. There was nothing about this man that wasn’t intriguing or beautiful.
“Maybe,” I whisper, forcing myself to look elsewhere.
We go back to sitting in silence, but this time it’s a comfortable silence. One that makes me feel safe—content even—and that’s something I haven’t felt in a very long time. Shaking bushes at the corner of my eye catch my attention. Snapping my attention to the rustling bushes I swear I see something.
“Holy shit, what was that?” I say, jumping to my feet pointing to the figure in front of the bushes. Creed lays a heavy hand on my forearm, tugging me back down in the spot next to him.
“Don’t make a scene. Men are strategically placed throughout the grounds. They’re instructed to blend in and stay hidden. They switch spots routinely after twenty-minute intervals. That’s what you’re seeing.”
“This is like Fort freaking Knox.”
“Not even close.”
“Why do we need men around the perimeter?” I ask, turning my attention back to him. With the sun shining on his golden skin, I find it hard to look away. Creed is like a dark angel, with his perfect angelic features and dark personality.
“It’s just a precaution. Criminals attract more criminals.”
I purse my lips in irritation. “My brother is not a criminal. Don’t call him that.”
“We kill for a living. For a paycheck. In one way or another, we’re all criminals. Some of us are just worse than others,” he says darkly.
I search his face, looking for hidden meanings behind his words, but his eyes give nothing away. A frustrated sigh tumbles past my lips.
“So, they just stand there all day and night? Don’t they sleep or eat?” I ask, turning my attention back to the well-hidden men.
“They aren’t being paid to sleep or eat.”
Gasping I turn to him with wide eyes.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No.”
“Creed, how the hell can they possibly get the job done if they’re starving and sleep deprived.”
The corner of his mouth twitches again, into something that resembles a smile.
“There you go being all good again,” he says with mirth, prompting me to roll my eyes. “They’re fine. There’s different groups who take over at different intervals to give the other men a break. They’re given enough time to eat and rest, so no worries.”
“Have I ever met any of the guards who stay on watch out here?”
“Nope. They stay outside of the building at all times. They have their own housing nearby. They’re placed there to protect the elderly on the first level and alert us to any strange activity on the ground.”
“You’re very…anal. Your dad must’ve been in the military, huh?”
He barks out a humorless laugh, darkness clouding his features.
“Not even close.”
Standing to his feet, he gestures for me to stand. “C’mon, time to move.”
“Already?”
“It’s been twenty minutes, now, let’s move.” He starts walking away, leaving no room for me to argue. I get the distinct impression asking ab
out his father was a bad idea.
I follow Creed around the approved perimeter, and we finally come to rest on a rock seated at the side of the property overlooking the trees. Behind us is a clear view of the building. There’s a floor to ceiling glass window that shows the inside of the first floor. Inside, I can see elderly people seated around couches, watching something on a television hanging on the wall. Others walk around using canes and walkers. Seeing them, it makes this place so real.
I turn around, ignoring the painful twinge in my heart and stare out at the trees. When my hand accidentally brushes against Creed’s, I freeze, and my heart tries to pound its way out of the bars or my ribcage. Warmth surges through my body at the point where his skin grazed mine. My reaction to his touch—even such a small touch—was like a surge of electricity being zapped through my body.
He was dangerous. If I wasn’t sure before, I am now.
I dart my gaze to Creed and find him staring down at the rock where his hand is with a frustrated expression on his face. His jaw ticks, prompting me to swallow thickly, and clear my throat. I force my gaze on the tree line and try to think of anything but him and the effect he has on me, but I fail. Miserably.
“What made you want to do this? Work like this?” I ask suddenly, turning to him. Blowing out a breath, he turns to me with something vulnerable in his eyes.
“It’s a long story.”
“We have a while,” I say in retort. He doesn’t say anything for a long time giving me the impression he doesn’t want to talk about it.
“Will you ever tell me?”
“Maybe.”
His one-word answer lends me hope and makes me smile. It might not be the answer I was looking for, but it definitely wasn’t a no.
With my head cocked to the side, I stare at him intently, trying to figure him out. Sensing the weight of my stare, he turns to me with questioning eyes.
“You don’t like to talk about yourself much, do you?”
He lifts his gaze toward the sky, eyes fixated on the slowly moving clouds.
“No,” he eventually says.
“Why?”
“Some things are better left unsaid. My life, and everything in it, isn’t pretty. That’s not something I like to talk about,” he grinds out. I swallow past the dryness in my throat and nod my head in defeat. I know I’ve pushed him too far with all my questions today, but I can’t help that I want to know more about him. I want to know everything there is to know about Diavolo Sabella. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
After today, I feel like there’s been a shift in our relationship. Maybe he’s not the complete asshole I accused him of being after all. He said he didn’t know how to feel around me, and I guess that’s a lot better than having him hate me. I always knew there was something more to Creed than just his hard exterior, and today solidified that. He’s been through something ugly and whatever it was, it changed him as a person and a human being. I want to know everything there is to know about the hulking formidable man. I can’t help but hope that somehow, someway we’ll be able to heal each other in some small sense.
IT’S BEEN TWO DAYS WITHOUT Garrett and I’m starting to feel the weight of his absence around me. The last two days have been remotely silent. I’ve had a few interactions with Mera while in the kitchen and in the halls, but other than that, it’s been relatively quiet. Then there’s Creed. He’s been avoiding me, and I can’t wrap my head around why. It’s like once he let his guard down on our walk the other day, he had to go and build it right back up. Reverting to his old asshole ways.
I thought after our time together on the grounds we moved past the glaring stage in our relationship, but I was wrong. So, freaking wrong. After we went inside, it was like Creed flipped a switch on his emotions. He walked away from me without a word and has done everything within his power to avoid me ever since. I tried to speak to him after dinner, but he brushed me off much like he usually does, with a look of indifference and the cold shoulder.
I fucking hated it. I didn’t want to live in this limbo with him forever; there was no way I would be able to survive it.
I swear, the only good thing that has happened within the last two days is having the brace for my collar bone removed. Mera said it usually takes anywhere from five to six weeks to heal, but after checking me over, she concluded four weeks was enough. She instructed me to be careful, and avoid any strenuous activity, but other than that, I was good to go. I didn’t mention the frequent aches I get in my collar bone area too afraid she’d make me keep on that godawful brace any longer. Sometimes, secrets like these are necessary for your own sanity.
With a sweater wrapped tightly around my shoulders, I pad through the dimly lit hallway in the wee hours of the morning. I couldn’t sleep again last night. With worry over Garrett being gone, and dealing with Creed and his mood swings, my mind is in a perpetual state of agony. I keep replaying the sick memories of my past. The ones I wish I could just forget, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t.
Of their own accord, my feet pull me into the sitting room shrouded in dim lighting. And that’s where I find Creed. In the same spot as always, he’s staring out of the darkened window with his hands resting behind his back. If I didn’t know him, I’d think the man was a statue. He was always so still, and whenever he did move, it was stealthily. He was like a predator, silent in his attack. I could never tell when he was coming—ready to pounce. I guess in his line of work, his stealth was necessary.
“Do you ever sleep?” My voice penetrates the thick silence. I’m almost certain he didn’t hear me because he doesn’t acknowledge me or my words, but then he opens his asshole mouth, and I know he did.
“No,” is his cold response. I bite down on my tongue, wanting to sling every curse word known to man at his stubborn ass, but I know that won’t get me anywhere.
“Why are you avoiding me, Creed?”
“Go to bed, Sophia,” he says dismissively. Tears of frustration sting my eyes as I stare at his reflection in the window. His face is a stone-cold mask, and I fucking hate it. How can anyone be so cold? How long did it take him to master the art of antipathy?
Spinning on my heel, I fume all the way back to my room. I would like to believe I went back to bed on my own merit, but Creed has a way of making you follow his rules and his orders. Even if you don’t want to.
But really, I just needed to be away from him and the never ending cold shoulder treatment. There was nowhere else for me to go but the quiet sanctuary of my room, not even Creed could ruin that for me. Climbing into bed, I force myself to get comfortable all the while trying to drift off to sleep.
My entire body stiffens. My eyes fill with tears when I hear multiple sets of thudding boots enter the room. With my lungs refusing to operate under fear, I begin to feel like I’m suffocating inch by inch. Dread coils tightly in my stomach, making me sick with worry. I fight fruitlessly against the restraints holding me down to the chair, but my wrists and legs don’t budge. The rope burns into my skin with each jarring movement. Slicing into flesh, tearing into my wrists, drawing blood.
“Stop it.”
The voice freezes my movements and my stomach drops when Abdul comes into view. Dressed in another impeccable suit, the air of authority around him sucks all the air from my lungs. He eyes me with a cold and calculating look on his face.
“You bit one of my men. Broke the skin. Made him bleed. Why is that, pet?”
I cringe at his nickname for me and my lip curls in anger. “He tried to touch me.”
Abdul sighs, and closes the distance between us. He bends at eye level with me. His dark brown eyes clashing with my green.
“Your face is badly bruised. What good are you to me if you look like this?”
My stomach drops painfully at his words and the thinly veiled threat lying within them. He cocks his head to the side assessing my appearance, and I hold in the sob that’s threatening to escape.
“We’re going to try something different
, pet. I can’t have you this disfigured and malnourished so soon. Maybe after this, you’ll stop refusing meals, and learn how to obey simple commands.”
Without warning a black cloth bag is pulled over my head blocking out everything around me. I suck in a panicked breath, but the air is so thick under the cloth it makes it hard to breathe. Hysteria claws at my throat as I remember the last time this bag was placed over my head—the night I was taken. My chest caves in, and a heavy weight rests on my sternum. It’s suffocating. My heart thunders in my chest as I try to inhale a lungful of air but only manage short spurts that raise my blood pressure and the pounding in my skull. Suddenly, my chair is yanked back, throwing my already distorted mind off kilter. As I fight for oxygen, I try to listen closely to the sounds around me, but I can’t focus on anything with the pounding of my pulse.
Straining to listen, my brows furrow when I hear the telltale sound of splashing water, but it’s too late. All at once, it feels like my face is submerged in water. I choke and sputter violently as cold liquid fills my lungs and burns my nose. A gurgled scream bubbles up from my chest as more water is poured over my face. It feels like I’m drowning. I can’t breathe with the bag over my face and the continuous stream of water ensures I’m unable to come up for air. Panic seizes my heart and twists my stomach violently. My chest caves, burning like an inferno and my lungs ache with each panicked gasp for breath I take.
A garbled cry falls helplessly from my lips as I thrash in the chair, trying to get free. Black spots dot my vision, and slowly, I stop moving. Suddenly, the water stops coming, and I suck in a shallow breath through the damp, heavy cloth.
“Have you learned your lesson yet?”
I open my mouth, inhaling a ragged gasp as I try to find my voice, but my vocal cords refuse to cooperate.
“Again,” Abdul says, and I let out a tortured scream. The heavy weight of the water falls on my face again, cutting me off mid-scream. It clogs my throat and my lungs. I choke and sputter on the water like it’s liquid fire. My body mindlessly thrashes in the chair, and I wail in pain. Begging them to stop.