Captivated

by Bethany-Kris

  The lawyer scoffed. “Is that the line you’re going to play with me?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Look at her.”

  Joe cleared his throat, and glanced away from the speaker. He didn’t need to be in the room—he couldn’t be anywhere near someone who might see his face, and connect him to what had happened—to know what the lawyer meant.

  Liliana was hurt.

  Bad.

  She’d not just been hit, no.

  She’d been beaten like a dog.

  “How many hits to the head does she have to take before you believe that she can’t remember what happened, detective?” the lawyer asked. “How many drugs need to show up in her system before you realize she was not an accomplice, but a victim in all of this? How many bruises and split-open welts do the doctors need to describe for you to understand she was a survivor of a man who she has a violent history with?”

  “I—”

  “Why are you trying to make a victim in to a criminal, sir?” the lawyer murmured.

  Lucian rested back in his chair, and stared up at the ceiling. For a moment, Joe wondered if the man was praying because that seemed to be a popular thing with the Marcello family. Family, and God.

  One always came before the other.

  He respected it, really.

  “Had they just handled this the first time,” Lucian said under his breath, “then she wouldn’t need to do this all over again. She wouldn’t have to justify why she’s a victim. This wouldn’t have needed to happen at all.”

  Yeah, Joe knew that.

  Got it, too.

  “It’s over, though,” he said. “The bastard’s not coming back.”

  Lucian shook his head. “But she knows. She’s always going to know, Joe. People didn’t protect her—the system failed her.”

  “Or it’s going to make her more amazing,” Joe returned, shrugging.

  His companion glanced over at him. “You think?”

  “How could she not be?”

  Joe didn’t know what was going to happen from here on out. He didn’t know what Liliana’s plans were for her life, or for them.

  Was she going to keep dancing?

  Was she going to be as vibrant?

  Was she going to love him?

  He didn’t have those answers—despite wanting and needing them like nothing else—but that was okay, too. He didn’t need to have the answers for those questions. They weren’t his answers, and this wasn’t about him.

  It had never been about him.

  This was Liliana’s life, and her choices from here on out could only reflect what she wanted and needed the very most. He was going to be there—or not, if she didn’t want him to be—to support whatever in the hell she wanted to do.

  And that was okay, too.

  That’s what love had taught him.

  He still hadn’t gotten to tell her yet, though.

  “My wife wanted me to thank you,” Lucian said quietly.

  Joe nodded. “You really don’t have to.”

  “She’d like to have you over for dinner, too, but …”

  Yeah, the media.

  His face.

  Separation of church and state, so to speak.

  Joe had to go underground, and keep his name out of it. He needed to go back to his life, and pretend like he hadn’t left it. He needed to let the hell this had caused blow over so the trail went cold, and the case was closed. Or, as closed as it could be, all things considered.

  How long was that going to take?

  He didn’t know.

  “Maybe someday,” Joe told Lucian.

  Lucian smiled faintly. “There’s definitely going to be a someday, Joe.”

  Liliana was sleeping when Joe finally slipped into her hospital room. The clock on the wall showed it was just past one in the morning, but this was the safest time. The nurses were focused on their work, the detectives were gone, and the families of other patients had left, too.

  Well, mostly.

  “Wondered when you were going to sneak in here,” Lucian muttered in the corner.

  Joe shrugged one shoulder. “Have to be careful.”

  “I appreciate the effort, Joe.”

  Beside the man, his wife slept peacefully covered in her husband’s suit jacket. Joe had drifted around—although made sure to stay out of sight—the hospital and grounds enough to watch people come and go for Liliana all day.

  Her sisters.

  Brother.

  Cousins.

  Aunts and uncles.

  Grandparents, too.

  Even friends, and the owner of the ballet company.

  She had a steady stream of guests, and her room showcased it with all the flowers, cards, and helium balloons filling one corner. She certainly hadn’t gone without attention and visitors which made him feel somewhat better.

  And entirely lonely.

  Because he hadn’t been one.

  He was sure she noticed it.

  “Jordyn,” Lucian murmured, carefully waking his wife from her sleep.

  “W-what?”

  The woman blinked sleepy eyes at her husband, but didn’t seem to notice Joe standing just beyond the closed doors.

  “Let’s step out for a minute, Jord.”

  “Why would we—”

  Her words cut off when her gaze landed on Joe.

  “Oh,” Jordyn said quietly. “About time you showed your face, don’t you think?”

  Joe smiled a bit. “My apologies.”

  “She asked about you.”

  Joe nodded. “I figured she would.”

  Jordyn said nothing else, but allowed her husband to help her from what looked to be the most uncomfortable place to sleep that he’d ever seen. Then again, it probably felt like a fifty-thousand dollar mattress when someone was exhausted enough to not care.

  Who was he to say?

  Lucian and Jordyn passed Joe by quietly, but not before the woman reached out and patted his cheek with a soft touch.

  A mother’s touch.

  He recognized it because of his own mother.

  Joe was not the type to let someone else touch him—certainly not someone he didn’t know very well, and hadn’t spent much time with on a personal level.

  And yet, Liliana’s mother felt familiar.

  Fine, even.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Please don’t thank me.”

  He really hadn’t done very much at all.

  Nothing worthy of praise, or thanks, anyway.

  Jordyn smiled, and shook her head. “Have a good visit, Joe. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of you.”

  Lucian gave Joe a look. “Someday.”

  “Yeah, someday,” Joe echoed.

  Joe only moved once the two had left the room, and the door hissed as it closed. He pulled a chair away from the wall, and dragged it close to Liliana’s bedside. Her eyelids didn’t even flicker with a realization that he was there. Not even a twitch of her muscles. He had been told she was medicated—probably morphine—and that would force her to rest whether she wanted to or not.

  In a way, he was grateful.

  She needed to rest, and he didn’t want to wake her up just because he was selfish.

  In another way, he wanted to see her.

  Speak to her.

  Tell her.

  Tell her everything.

  Joe settled himself on sitting in the chair, and imprinting her image to his memory. Her bruised face, and the bandages that had been carefully placed over welts that had broken the skin. Each mark made his heart heavier, and every bruise left his rage festering something awful. She hadn’t suffered any broken bones except for her foot—two toes, and a bone on the side of her foot, apparently. Or, that’s what had been told to him. Two to three months of recovery for that, and absolutely no dancing.

  But it was done.

  It was over.

  Joe slid his hand in with Liliana’s beside the tucked in, stark-white hospital b
lanket. His fingers interwove with hers, and he stroked his thumb along the side of her hand. The only spot on her fucking hand that wasn’t bruised.

  Jesus.

  “You look sad,” he heard her whisper.

  Joe glanced up, and found pretty hazel eyes watching him, although still a little sleepy. “Hey, Tesoro.”

  Liliana managed a smile for him. “Hey.”

  “I’m not sad, Liliana.”

  “No?”

  “No,” he promised, “not now.”

  “Why the frown, then?”

  Joe laughed. “Don’t I always frown?”

  “Not like that.”

  Yeah, well …

  “Sorry I couldn’t come in today,” he said, reaching up to cup her cheek in his palm. “Too much going on, and I have to lie low for a while.”

  Her smile faltered. “What does that mean?”

  Now or never.

  “Until all of this blows over with the media and cops, I have to go away. Back to Chicago, and make sure I’m seen, and whatever else.”

  “You’re … not staying?” she asked.

  So faint.

  It killed him.

  “I’m sorry,” was all he could say.

  No excuse would be good enough.

  Nothing was going to make it better.

  “I’m sorry, Liliana. This was how it was supposed to go before you and me … yeah,” he said lamely. “And everything else made it worse. None of that matters, though, because you’re good and you’re here. Right?”

  “Matters to me, Joe.”

  Yeah, he bet.

  It mattered to him, too.

  “What if I give you a promise,” he offered.

  Liliana sniffled. “What kind of promise?”

  “That I’ll be back. And we can start this all over again, if you want. We can do this different the next time—do it better, if you want. We can be Joe and Liliana without business, and everything else. Because I will be back as soon as I can. If you want me to, I’ll call, and we’ll figure shit out that way, too.”

  She was quiet for a long time.

  He didn’t say a word, either.

  She broke the silence first. “Calls would be nice.”

  He chuckled, and leaned over to press a quick kiss to her lips. “Every day, I promise.”

  “Are you going to stay until I get out of the hospital?”

  No.

  “My flight leaves in the morning,” he said.

  “Oh.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Sadly, she whispered, “Won’t you love me, Joe? Don’t you love me? I love you.”

  He blinked.

  His words failed.

  His heart ached.

  How could she not know?

  How could she not know that she was everything to him?

  “I love you more than anything,” he told her. “I am always going to love you, Liliana. Won’t you let me show you?”

  “When?” she asked.

  Joe didn’t even have to think about it. “Forever.”

  TWENTY

  Four months later …

  LILIANA DRAGGED THE cloth over the back of her neck to wipe away any sweat, and help her cool down. Even though the studio was a no-go zone for phones—they had to be silenced, or shut down entirely—she snuck hers out of the bag she’d left in the corner while her back was turned to Gordo.

  It wasn’t like the man could see her.

  And he’d been going easier on her since she started back a month ago.

  For the most part.

  Besides, it was worth the risk to check—

  Liliana blinked at the blank screen in front of her. No calls, and no texts to show. She was starting to wonder if she should get worried. It wasn’t like Joe to not call her. He always did—first thing in the morning, and a text before he knew she was going in to dance since she wouldn’t have her phone, and another call before bed.

  He kept his promises.

  All of them.

  Which also meant she hadn’t seen him in months.

  Why hadn’t he called today?

  “Liliana, I know you’re not looking at your phone when you’re supposed to be rehearsing for tomorrow’s show.”

  Gordo’s tone was half-teasing, and half-chiding. She saw the looks in some of the other ballerina’s eyes whenever she got away with a misstep or a slip that he would never let them off on, but nothing could be done about it.

  She told him she was fine.

  And she was.

  Mostly.

  She grinned, and quickly slid the phone back into the bag before turning to face the room again. The strange thing was, she didn’t look forward to this as much as she once used to. She didn’t get a sense of dread or fear now when she put on her pointe shoes—a feat she overcame by talking for hours to a therapist her father called in—but something wasn’t right about this place for her anymore.

  Or maybe it wasn’t the place at all.

  Maybe it was her.

  And ballet.

  She could move, and she could still dance like she always had, but it didn’t have that same freeing feeling it used to. She didn’t love it deep in her bones the way she used to. Sometimes, that scared her more than anything.

  Sometimes, that made her more determined than anything else could, too. Determined to dance, regardless if Rich Earl had taken it from her. Determined to get on the stage at least one more time and be the ballerina who lived and breathed ballet.

  She could do it.

  She would do it.

  She just didn’t know why she was doing it anymore.

  “Let’s start again from the top,” Gordo said when Liliana rejoined the others.

  From the top it was …

  “Have you just come from the studio?” Cara asked.

  Liliana nodded, and took a sip from her to-go cup of coffee. “I did.”

  “And how was it today?”

  “Same as usual.”

  “Try descriptive words,” the therapist urged.

  Liliana laughed under her breath, but thought about what she had been told, too. Cara Rossi had walked into her hospital room two days after Liliana arrived, and explained why she was there with a smile that could make anyone feel comforted.

  She had a therapist before, but Cara was not the same.

  She was entirely different.

  A woman like Liliana, in a life like hers, with a husband much like the rest of the men Liliana had grown up in. The woman hailed from Chicago, but lived in Toronto, Canada with her husband, Gian, and their five boys.

  She specialized in helping women—addicts, or victims of domestic violence, specifically. She could make Liliana talk for hours, but it only felt like minutes. She never once looked at Liliana with pity, or judgement for anything she said.

  Yeah, she was something else.

  Something special.

  “I guess you could say I just haven’t regained my old love for it, yet,” Liliana said, “or maybe it’s that I haven’t found what I’m looking for in ballet, if you get what I mean. I used to dance and feel like nothing else mattered. It was just me and the stage, but now it’s me and … nothing.”

  Cara raised a brow as she took in Liliana’s words. “Why do you think that is?”

  “I think ballet took something from me once, and then he used it against me again. So, instead of having this deep love and respect for what ballet gave me, and what I can do with it, I am stuck feeling like it’s a weight I would rather rid myself of before it pulls me back down.”

  “Use his name. He doesn’t get the power to make you silent.”

  Liliana smiled. “Yeah, I know.”

  “You feel like ballet took something from you. That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say that. Why?”

  Well, that wasn’t so easy to explain.

  That was complicated.

  Cara waited her out.

  She always did.

  “Rich watched me dance once … it’s what mad
e him seek me out, and brought him into my life. Now, I’ve got this strange place in the back of mind that I keep going to every single time I have to think about getting back out on the stage.”

  “Like someone else is going to be waiting.”

  “Someone like him, yeah.”

  “Someone else was waiting once,” Cara said softly. “Didn’t you tell me that? Someone else watched you dance once, and he was nothing like Rich, Liliana.”

  Yes.

  She had told Cara that.

  She told her everything.

  “Joe,” Liliana murmured.

  “You haven’t seen him in a while, I suspect,” Cara said. “Your father tells me it wasn’t possible, so that must be difficult, too.”

  “He calls. We talk.”

  “Not the same, though, is it?”

  Liliana frowned. “No, not at all.”

  “When will you get to see him?”

  That, Liliana didn’t know.

  “Soon, I hope.”

  Cara nodded. “Have you thought about what you might want to do besides ballet?”

  Months ago, Liliana would have said nursing. She only had a little bit of schooling left to finish to actually get her degree for that, but now, she wasn’t so sure.

  So was her life.

  Suspended.

  Upended.

  Confusing.

  “I still want to work in a hospital setting,” Liliana said, “but I’m not sure in what department, or whatever.”

  “You know, the first place to see a domestic violence case is the hospital, Liliana. There are also shelters who employ nurses and counselors, on top of them having separate jobs at the hospital. I mean, if something like that was … in your thoughts.”

  She stiffened a bit.

  That had never crossed her mind.

  But now that it was there …

  “And you could always see ballet like this,” Cara said, smiling in that way of hers, “maybe Rich didn’t take something away from you as much as he gave you the chance to find something different when you might not have gone to look for it yourself.”

  Cara leaned forward, and pointed a finger at Liliana, adding, “But don’t even thank him for it, though. He gets nothing, now—not your fear, your pain, or even your success. He gets nothing. Not even in death.”

  Yeah.

  Liliana would make sure of it.