Once Burned (Morelli Family, #3)

by Sam Mariano

  But the truth is, she’s the only person who really makes me feel anything. I don’t know if she came into my life, a bright spot in my darkest day, at just the right time, or if it’s something more, but whatever the reason….

  I don’t intend to tell her that, but I do. “Only you.”

  Quiet shock graces her lovely features, then she frowns a little. Finally, she gives me a shy little smile. “Cheater. You haven’t lost me.”

  I shrug. “Then what have I got to complain about?”

  She doesn’t light up much around me, but she does now. I feel a little rush as she bites down on that lower lip of hers and looks at me like I’m something special.

  I can’t help smiling back.

  Elise finally turns, grabbing the plates she set out for us and handing me one. “Let’s eat.”

  I glance at the couch, recalling how unenthusiastic she was about having eaten that way with her family. Glancing at the open floor where I need to put a table, I get an idea.

  Putting my plate down, I head to the bedroom, grabbing a couple of boxes and a spare bed sheet from the closet. I put them down on the floor and drape the sheet across it like a table cloth.

  “Until I get a real one,” I tell her.

  She grins, putting her plate down gently and sitting down on the floor, curling her legs up to the side. “It’ll do just fine,” she tells me.

  It’s been a hard stretch, a rough adjustment, but here in the floor at our makeshift table, I finally start to feel a little bit of hope.

  Maybe everything will work out, after all.

  Chapter Six

  I end up at the bar with Colin for far too long. By the time I get home, Elise is in bed. I’m not drunk, but I’ve had enough to drink that I consider wrapping an arm around her again once I get in bed.

  I don’t.

  The following morning I wake up before her. I realize I forgot to check her assignment yesterday, so I go ahead and look it over.

  While I’m out today, write about something you want to do someday. Something you want to experience, whether you want to do it with someone or alone, and why.

  I want to go see my mom and dad.

  I don’t want to go alone, because I wouldn’t feel secure, but I want to see if they managed to turn things around. If giving me up was worth it.

  Huh.

  That wasn’t what I was expecting.

  Makes me a bit uncomfortable, actually. Elise never told me the story of how she came to be Mateo’s, and I never asked him for the specifics, so I decide to make that today’s homework.

  I don’t know if I’m ready for that story. He told me her father gave her to him in exchange for a debt, but for the sake of having to coexist with him for the next five years, I didn’t dig much deeper. I head to the shower, already anxious at the prospect of having to read about Mateo from Elise’s perspective. Not only that, but opening up the possibility of reading things about him that will make me less keen on protecting him, which is my job right now.

  Mateo’s transactional treatment of human beings is one of the harder things to handle—and it’s not like he’s an easy package to begin with. Women might be drawn to him, but as a human being, he leaves a lot to be desired.

  I’m tempted to wake her up and make her get the story over with now, but I have to go to his house next, so I should probably wait.

  ---

  It’s a long day. A long, boring day full of fruitless perusal of surveillance tapes and talking to people with nothing useful to tell me. I end up staying later than I intend, and running late getting home. Elise is curled up on her couch with her journal when I get back, but she puts it aside and heads to the kitchen when I walk in.

  “You should’ve told me you were on your way,” she says, turning on the oven. “I’ll just warm it up, it’ll be a few minutes.”

  I don’t even feel that hungry anyway, but it may be the anxiety I’ve had gnawing away at me all day. I pick up her journal, glancing down at the cover, dreading opening it.

  “Oh,” she says, approaching me with trepidation. “I did the homework, but I was very detailed. I didn’t mean to be, I just started writing and got carried away.”

  “You can be as detailed as you want,” I assure her.

  “I didn’t want to—I know you can be…” She trails off, her big blue eyes trailing down the arm of my sleeve. “I didn’t want to make you feel weird.”

  “I don’t want you to worry about that. Especially not when you’re journaling. I’m not going to judge you.”

  She raises an eyebrow as if to say, “Come on, now.”

  I scowl. “I don’t judge you.”

  The eyebrow climbs even higher, and she adds in a pair of pursed lips.

  I open the journal, clearing any emotion from my face, and begin reading.

  Tell me about the night you were sold to Mateo.

  I was upstairs in my room when Mateo and his men showed up. I could hear my mom yelling at my dad downstairs, and he was telling her to shut up, that he would handle it. I was in bed, but I climbed out and crept to the edge of the stairwell. Mateo himself was downstairs, and I’d heard of him, but all bad things. I was expecting a monster. I was expecting some old, ugly gangster-looking guy with slicked back hair and a puffy, sour face. When I finally worked up the nerve to sneak down to the edge where I could sneak a peek, what I saw instead was Mateo. He seemed at ease, untroubled, despite my father’s evident fear. One of his men had a baseball bat, and he kept twisting it, waiting for Mateo to tell him to use it.

  My father spotted me on the stairs. Mateo turned to see what he was looking at. My dad told me to come down, and I was so scared, but I did.

  Mateo’s gaze must have lingered on me long enough for my father to notice. He didn’t say anything, didn’t even address my coming into the room, just turned back to look at my father.

  “You like her?” my father asked.

  It made me feel cold all over. I was inexperienced from a practical perspective, but I wasn’t so young that I didn’t understand what he meant.

  Mateo stared at my father, but his whole face was empty. He still didn’t speak, and he’d been talking plenty before I came down, so it made me uneasy.

  “Elise, come here, honey,” my dad said.

  I stared at him for a moment, then I took a few steps closer. Mateo seemed vaguely irritated then, and I wondered if I should go back upstairs, but I was afraid the men would come get me if I tried.

  My dad wasn’t perfect, but I knew he must be terrified to be bringing me into it.

  Mateo looked me over one more time, his eyes landing on my face. “How old are you?”

  I swallowed. I couldn’t look him in the eye. “Fifteen.”

  My voice cracked in the middle of telling him my age, and I could feel my face heating with embarrassment.

  Mateo nodded, looking back at my dad. “You think I’m attracted to your 15-year-old daughter, so you call her closer?”

  My dad obviously didn’t know how to respond. He was desperate and scared, and he wasn’t thinking clearly. I’m sure he thought Mateo would have him killed, or he never would’ve done it.

  Finally Mateo said, “I’ll take her.”

  I didn’t understand at first. Take me? Take me where? Take me how? What did that mean?

  My father seemed confused, too. “Take her?”

  “If you’re willing to trade your daughter for what you owe me, I’ll take her,” Mateo specifies.

  “Like… you’ll keep her?” my dad asked, looking a little floored.

  The corner of Mateo’s mouth tugged up, but he did not look amused. Looking away from my father, he turned his attention to me. “What do you say, Elise?”

  Just hearing him say my name made me shiver. You know that scene from Beauty and the Beast, where Belle offers to take her father’s place? In my mind, it was like that. In my mind, it was so brave.

  “You won’t hurt my dad?” I asked him.

  Mateo shook his h
ead no.

  I looked past him at my dad, and my stomach was aching so bad. Mateo wasn’t what I pictured, but it was still utterly terrifying to imagine actually leaving my home and going with this dangerous stranger. Especially because I still thought he was going to hurt me—I still believed he had some sick interest in me, and still I told him I’d go with him.

  My father didn’t look comfortable with it, but he didn’t even try to stop it from happening. He didn’t panic at the last minute and try to change his mind, he didn’t tell Mateo he’d give him the money instead. I don’t even know why he owed him the money. My dad owned a small business, and while it wasn’t extremely profitable, I wasn’t aware of any money problems severe enough that he would take mob money, knowing what a stupid thing that is to do.

  My mother was in tears, and she came forward to object. Before she kept back, even when my father was saying those things to Mateo, almost encouraging his interest in me. That was hard to swallow, but I told myself they had no other choice. She hugged me then, clutched me, saying “no, no, no,” over and over again. I couldn’t feel anything though. My mind seemed to have shut down and I couldn’t even be in the moment with her, my last moment with her. I couldn’t even wrap my head around what I’d just agreed to, what they’d just agreed to. All I could think about was what came next. What would happen to me? How long would I even amuse him, and what would happen to me if I stopped?

  Everything was kind of a blur after that. Mateo accompanied me to his car, but two of his men stayed behind.

  Mateo didn’t wait for them. His driver pulled away, and I looked back, confused. “Why did they stay?” I asked.

  I didn’t even really expect him to answer me. I expected him to be mean to me, to treat me less than human, but he said simply, “To conclude the transaction.”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant. It wasn’t a legal transaction in any regard, so what did they need to do, sign paperwork? But I didn’t ask again.

  I waited the whole car ride for him to do something. To pounce on me? To say something about his intentions? To act on them?

  But he never did. He didn’t even speak to me most of the trip, and then when we pulled up to his house, I was in shock. I’d never seen a house so big or so beautiful.

  He got out of the car and headed inside, while his driver hung back and walked with me. (His house only further reinforced the Beauty and the Beast thing in my head. It was like a modern castle!) And then his man took me inside, took me to the servants’ quarters, and gave me a lovely bedroom, nicer than the one I had at home. (Again, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.) I sat on the bed, waiting for him to come, but he didn’t. I couldn’t even sleep that night, still waiting. But he never came, and he was NEVER mean to me, not even a little bit. He was a perfect gentleman, and… well, you know the rest.

  She watches me read it, and fidgets when I finish.

  “Well?” she asks, awaiting some kind of reaction.

  “Well… I can never watch Beauty and the Beast again,” I say dryly.

  “I love that movie,” she says, smiling faintly.

  Since I have to, I ask, “So, you had feelings for him right from the start.”

  Her smile drops, and I know I’ve made her uncomfortable. She doesn’t want to talk about this with me, because she doesn’t want to upset me. “He was good to me.”

  I want to say he bought you, but I restrain myself. There’s no reason to be mean to her, and this journal thing has to be a safe space for her to say anything to me, otherwise it’s useless.

  “It’s not that I wanted to be with him,” she adds, since I’m still listening. “I mean, I’m sure I would’ve, but… I admired him. He meant something to me. He was important to me. At a time when the people I expected to protect me… gave me away, the person I expected to hurt me… didn’t. I know you like to say he wasn’t my savior, and he certainly wasn’t the traditional sort, but I did feel protected by him. I always did. And I liked that feeling. I thought he was a better man than people believed him to be. Even when Beth disappeared, I just thought… I don’t know what I thought, but I never thought he was truly bad. I always thought he was nobler than he pretended to be. Until he hurt Mia. Then I realized… maybe it wasn’t that he was better, it was just that he hadn’t really wanted me.”

  I don’t know how to respond to that. There are things I could say that would probably make her feel better about Mateo, but is that what I want? It’s probably what she wants. I probably should.

  Instead I ask, “It doesn’t bother you that you’re a human being and he bought your freedom?”

  She meets my gaze, not hostile, just honest. “It doesn’t bother me that you did, either.”

  I lean back, a little floored. “Excuse me? I didn’t buy you.”

  Her eyebrows rise. “Sure you did, you just paid with your time and effort instead of money. I’m pretty sure my market value went up, though—or you way overpaid,” she adds lightly.

  I am not amused. “I didn’t buy you, Elise. I don’t own you. No one owns you. I logged my time and effort for you, yes, but not to buy you. It was to free you.”

  “You bought my freedom from the man who owned it, Adrian. The whole exchange happened between you two, and no one even consulted me until it was nearly time to cash in and take me with you. You bought me.”

  I shake my head, rejecting that. “No. No.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “No, it isn’t,” I snap. “You are not trapped here, Elise. If you don’t want to be here, if you don’t want to be with me, you’re free to leave. I don’t want you to leave, of course, but you aren’t my property. You don’t belong to me, and you sure as hell don’t owe me anything. I did what I did because I wanted to, not to buy you; I did it because I liked you and it was the right thing to do. That’s it. Not to bind you to me. Definitely not to take Mateo’s place as your goddamn master.”

  “I don’t know why you have to say it like that,” she mutters, rolling her eyes at me like I’m the ridiculous one in this conversation.

  “Because that’s what it is,” I state.

  “And then you say you’re not judging me.”

  “I’m not judging you, I’m judging him,” I say, struggling to rein in my frustration. “None of this was your fault. You were just a kid.”

  “Of course you don’t judge me for that, but why is it my responsibility to hate him? Why is it only acceptable that I was miserable? I wasn’t. I don’t know why you’re so determined to see me as some damsel who needed saving, Adrian. Why is it so important that I reject everything Mateo? Why does it mean so much to you?”

  I feel myself closing down. It’s not an unfair question, and I could throw back, “because I gave up five years of my life to save you!” but she didn’t ask me to; or “because I want you to be all mine!” but that would split me open, and I can’t.

  I want to leave again. This apartment is too small; I’m used to Mateo’s house now, and here in this tiny-ass apartment, there’s nowhere to go to get away from her.

  I don’t understand how she can defend him. I don’t understand why she has to make excuses. Why can’t this one thing be black and white? Why can’t she just agree with me that what he did to her was wrong? That what he does to people is wrong?

  But then she speaks, her voice soft, “Why don’t you ask about the night I met you? Or the crush I admitted to having on you back when you used to be my tutor? Why do we have to focus on him at all? Did I, at one time, have a crush on Mateo? Yes. But he never touched me. I was never his. If that’s what you’re worried about, you can just ask. I’ve never been with anyone.”

  Whoa, that was not what I was after.

  I mean, I thought that might be the case, since she was cloistered away at his house so young, but I wasn’t going to ask.

  She has successfully sidetracked my train of thought. Now instead of Mateo, I’m thinking about Elise’s body, about the formative years she spent isolated, about the experiences she hasn’t had.


  “Were you ever lonely?” I ask.

  She nods, catching a strand of blond hair and twisting it around her finger. “Sure, sometimes. But I was lonely before I lived at the mansion, too. I was never good at making friends.”

  “No, me neither,” I tell her.

  I can feel her watching me, but I don’t look up.

  “Actually, that’s not true. I was good at making friends until I was eight. I had lots of friends.” Indicating the left side of my face, I say, “And then this happened. Then I had lots of sympathizers for a little while. Then I had one friend, and sometimes I didn’t even want that one. I wasn’t the same after that. I lost everything, and I got lost in it.”

  “You were only eight when that happened?” she asks softly.

  I nod.

  “Was it… was it a house fire, or…?”

  This is one thing I’ve never discussed with Elise. She’s never asked. She’s never even mentioned my scars, almost like she didn’t even notice them. I’ve never discussed it with anyone, actually.

  “My mom used to work for Mateo’s dad.” Smiling very slightly, I say, “She was a maid. Before Maria, before he… insisted on owning his maids. He probably started that because of her, honestly. She worked there for years, before I was even born she started working there, and she became friendly with his wife, Belle. She was miserable, hated Matt, he was horrible to her. Abusive. He started cheating on her to hurt her. He was every bad part of Mateo on steroids and without any of the charm.” Glancing up at her, I say, “You’ve met Dante, right?”

  She nods, her attention rapt.

  “He’s more like Matt than Mateo. Anyway, after years of abuse, Belle fell in love with someone else. She wanted to leave Matt, but of course, you don’t leave a Morelli. She got pregnant, and no one was sure by whom. She already had a daughter with Matt, but that was earlier on, when he was less violent. She was terrified of him, and… they weren’t even sure he would let her keep the babies, because he found out about the affair so he didn’t know if they were his. One night it all blew up. He attacked her and my mom was there, she saw. So she went to get his sister for help. Bianca came and they tried to help, to stop him, but I guess he hurt her pretty badly. Bianca and my mother helped her escape. My mom packed her some things, Bianca snuck her out. And she disappeared. It seemed like she was the one woman who successfully escaped them. As it turned out, my mother… knew where Belle went. They continued to exchange Christmas cards every year, to check in, since they had been such good friends. Matt moved on, started tormenting Mateo’s mom until she killed herself. Played with Joey’s mom for a while. But he never stopped looking for Belle until he found her. And when he did? He found the Christmas cards.”