by S. Massery
I leave the marriage certificate on the table and walk out the door.
I manage to get halfway to my car before someone calls out my name. I glance back, biting my lip. Luca storms toward me, his face a mask of fury.
“Where are you going?”
“Away,” I snap.
He stops in front of me. “Why?”
“Because you’re an asshole.” I cross my arms. “Do you disagree?”
“That’s not it.”
He narrows his eyes, then grabs my arm and drags me back the way we came. I have no choice but to go along with it, unless I want to be literally dragged. He’s furious—but not as mad as he’s about to be.
Adrenaline kickstarts my heartbeat. It gallops in my chest, the anticipation of how he’s going to react almost too much to bear. But he takes me into the house and releases me.
“I told you to stay, wife.”
I laugh. “You should pay closer attention, Luca,” I admonish. “Things change faster than you might think.”
He tilts his head.
I raise my hand, pointing to the table.
He goes, staring down at the paper without touching it. It might burn him if he does. But his face goes from angry to… scary.
“Tell me where you were going,” he grits out.
I lift my chin. There wouldn’t be any point to caving to the fear now, would there? Not when I’m suddenly, remarkably expendable. Wilder managed to do what he agreed: he married me. And it happened in almost the exact same manner Luca married me, with no flourish. Our parents as witnesses.
I don’t think there’s a force on earth that could save me from Luca’s wrath.
“Home,” I say. “My parents were here to collect me. I told them I would drive myself.”
He glances around. “You let them in?”
“No.” I narrow my eyes. “That’s your only take on this? You’re asking if I let them into your house? Fuck you, Luca.”
Some thought enters his mind, and unknown terror rips down my spine. I don’t trust whatever he’s thinking, and nothing protects me anymore. Wilder’s death—and my lack of marriage to Luca—basically solidifies that.
Run, my fear whispers.
I turn and sprint for the kitchen. There’s a door there that leads to a backyard, although I hadn’t explored it more than drinking my coffee out there yesterday morning.
His arm wraps around my waist, and he swings me off my feet.
“Luca—”
“Be quiet, Amelie.”
I struggle against him, but he holds me at an angle that prevents me from doing any lasting damage. He carries me outside and throws me in the backseat of a dark sedan, then climbs in beside me. A minute later, someone slides into the driver’s seat. There’s a wall of glass between him and us, so dark it’s almost black.
Luca stares at me.
I press myself against the opposite door, reaching for the handle.
“Don’t make me subdue you,” he threatens.
I glare at him. “I was leaving,” I seethe. “Going home. Isn’t that what you wanted, anyway? For me to be out of your hair?”
He shakes his head and looks away. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand perfectly well that I have had no say in my life up until now.” I spread my arms. “But Wilder isn’t just my almost-husband who died. He’s my dead husband.”
I hate that this is a weapon against him, but he let me in. He let me in when we were in Italy, and now I’d like to think that I can read him. The slight flinch in his expression, the way each time I repeat the word husband and connect it to Wilder, it’s a little stab.
But I’m so fucking angry.
We cross the bridge into Manhattan, and I sit up straighter.
“Where are we going?”
He glares holes in the side of my head, but I ignore him. My gaze is glued to the highway we’re on, trying to anticipate which exit we’ll take. Where Luca plans on taking me.
Maybe he just wants to go to dinner.
Ludicrous idea, but my stomach growls. I haven’t eaten much today—actually, haven’t eaten much in the past week, if we’re being honest. I’ve been feeling the effects of it much worse recently, compounded by the headache that won’t release me.
The silence between us is thick with tension.
“How does it feel?” I ask him finally, once I understand we’re not going anywhere special. We’re going to the DeSantis tower.
He takes my bait. “How does what feel?”
There’s a bump, and we descend into the darkness of the parking garage.
I finally look over and meet his stare. It burns, but I force a nonchalant voice when I tell him, “To know that you lost to your brother. Again.”
He sneers. “My brother is dead, Amelie. I have you now.”
My expression drops. He opens the door and offers his hand.
Inexplicably, I flash back to right after the wedding. Him reaching in the car, offering his hand. Demanding I get out.
I ignore his hand and brush past him, stepping out myself. Part of me still clings to the hope that we’re headed to Jameson’s office. To right a wrong, I suppose. Produce Wilder’s death certificate, file Luca’s and my marriage license.
He follows me into the elevator and swipes his card, then hits a button for one of the higher floors. Above the offices, close to Aiden’s apartment, if I didn’t know any better.
A chill goes through me.
The ding of us arriving at the floor cracks our silence. My belly is a nest of snakes. I almost can’t make myself get out of the elevator, because I know now what he’s doing. My old fear is coming to bite me.
Like it’s a living, breathing thing, it climbs up my throat and takes my voice hostage. Luca’s hand finds the back of my neck. His fingers curl into my skin, pressing softly. He leads me that way down a short hall. There are other doors here, labeled with brass numbers.
I dig my heels in. “Stop.”
But I’m helpless to stop this.
“Luca—”
His attention comes back to me, silencing any question I had. Sometimes he feels like a different person. Like a monster slips in behind his features and takes control.
He unlocks a door at the end of the hall and guides me inside. Sits me on the bed, then releases my neck. He straightens to his full height and backs away.
I bolt to my feet. “Why?”
He inclines his chin, opening the door and pausing in the threshold. “You said it yourself, Amelie. You wanted to go home, and here you are. Your new accommodation.” His gaze goes to my belly. “The only thing that can save you now is if you’re pregnant. Welcome home, Amelie.”
I race toward him, and he slams the door in my face. I hit it with my shoulder and grab the knob, but it’s already locked. It doesn’t even rattle.
Wild fear overtakes me, and I pound on the door. I can’t do this. This is a prison a thousand feet off the ground, designed to make me weak. But I’m already weak. My heart jackhammers, threatening to explode out of my body.
“Let me out, Luca. Please. Please let me out.” I claw at the door handle like he might change his mind. Tears pour down my cheeks. My eyes are burning. “Please, Luca, I’ll do anything. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I slap my hands against the painted wood until I lose feeling in them, and I slide down the door to my knees.
“Luca. I’m sorry. I won’t try to leave you or run away. But you can’t leave me in here. I can’t—” My throat closes, and I can’t breathe for a moment. I suck in a sharp breath as stars burst behind my eyelids. “I won’t do anything bad. I’ll do—I’ll be what you want. Okay?”
In the back of my mind, I register this as a panic attack. My chest has an elephant sitting on it, and the room tilts under me. I’m losing my mind, a little realization that terrifies me. My reaction is pure fear. I hit the door again. “Are you still there?”
Something thumps against the door on the other side. His hand?
His head?
“I know you can hear me,” I say in a low voice, hiccupping slightly. “Please, Luca, you can’t keep me here. I promise I’ll be good. I’ll do exactly what you say. Anything. I just… you need to open the door. We can talk about this.”
He doesn’t respond.
I sag to the side, bowing my head. He’s sitting there and letting me beg, and he’s doing nothing.
“Let me out,” I try again. “I’ll go crazy in here, Luca, and I’ll never forgive you for this. Please open the door. Please don’t leave here.”
I don’t know how long I go on for. Hours or minutes. My voice is hoarse by the time I eventually stop talking. Stop begging.
He’s gone. There’s no way he could listen to me this whole time, drinking it up like some sadist.
Right?
I’ve got nothing left to give. He’s reduced me to nothing but a pleading mess on the floor. I handed him my dignity and let… I let this happen. I told him my fears, laid out the best way to trap and destroy me. And he has.
Screw hope.
I run my hands under my eyes, wiping away the wetness. My eyelids are puffy. I scrub my face, and my fingers scrape at the stitches above my eyebrow. I’m filled with the intense desire to tear them out, to uglify my face. Mom liked to remind me I got here because of my face. My beauty. Cheer captain, a plethora of friends, and I knew how to behave in public. Those were my good graces, my lucky charms.
I’ve truly lost my mind, because I’m nauseous at the thought of relying on my face for anything. I don’t want beauty if it leads me here.
Powerful men like to contain beauty. Trap it, kill it. My soul aches, a pain that radiates deeper than my bones. I’m tired of being the pretty thing in the cage.
If he’s going to keep me under lock and key, the least I can do is become… other.
I do it before I can back out, yanking on a stitch. It rips through my skin, and I gasp at the sudden sharpness of pain. It dampens the ache in my chest, though. Just a little. Hot blood rolls down my temple. I pull out the second, third. I keep going, nearly gagging, until I can’t feel anything except the riot on my skin.
I rise, tracing my bloody fingers along the wall to the bed. The room spins around me. It’s like when Lucy and I would hold each other’s wrists and spin around as fast as we could, until everything else was a blurry mess.
It’s all I can do to lie down and close my eyes. I focus on my head, but the agony of Luca’s betrayal is cold. I can’t keep it out.
22
Luca
I’m seething when I arrive home. Aiden waits for me at the front door, and he follows me inside. We have bigger things to worry about than Amelie and Wilder. Namely, finding Wilder’s killer. But this is all I can think about. It nags at me.
Aiden advised that I not rush to accuse my father of anything, and instead told me he’d meet me here.
And here he is.
“Well?” I demand.
“Easy.” He waves me in ahead of him, then goes straight to the dining table while I turn on the lights. He reads the license with a blank expression. “He died. This license isn’t valid anymore.”
“Except we don’t have Wilder’s death certificate yet. They’re delayed, apparently, due to the cause of death.” I rub my eyes. “She threw it in my face.”
“And you…?”
“I’m keeping her safe,” I snap. “She’s still a DeSantis to the rest of the world, and that means she’s in danger. Always. Constantly. And she refuses to follow directions, so I’m keeping her away.”
He watches me passively.
I blow out a breath. “She’ll be fine. Plenty of food, on-demand movies…”
Only one person knows I brought her to the tower, and I only told her because she has to feed Amelie. Slipping food in the door and then relocking it shouldn’t be terribly hard for Catrina to manage. She’s a troublemaker, but a reliable one. Especially when it comes to family.
I have no doubt, if I hadn’t left a camera outside Amelie’s room—and told Cat as much—Cat would be more likely to do something. Like try to spring Amelie free. And I just can’t let that happen. Not now.
Aiden shakes his head. “What do you want to do?”
I grimace. “I want to kill Michael Page.”
It’s not technically his fault, unless he filed it after…
“She will never be free of me,” I say, more to myself than Aiden. I don’t know why she makes me feel so damn crazy. I hate her. I’m possessive of her.
And she’s married to Wilder…
God, it just spikes up every bad nerve in my body. If he wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him myself.
“Don’t do anything tonight,” Aiden suggests. “Straighten this out with Dad once you’re calm. Tomorrow, maybe, or next week.” He pats my shoulder and goes to the door. “If you don’t want to stew on it, you can help me with a little West project…”
I perk up. “Anything for a distraction.”
He smirks. “I’ve been tracking their movements. It’s only been a week—less than that, actually—but they’re all acting odd. Tonight, we’re watching Lawrence’s family.”
“Recon,” I repeat. “You want me to sit in a car with you? For who knows how long?”
He shrugs. “Yeah.”
I stifle my sigh. He dropped what he was doing to come here, and I can still feel the fury slipping under my skin. It’s like gasoline in my bloodstream, just waiting to reignite.
“Fine. Let’s go.”
23
Amelie
I wake up, and for an instant, I forget where I am.
And then, like it has for the past two weeks, everything comes rushing back: the marriage certificate, Luca dragging me here, being locked in this room. I’ve avoided my phone, because up until yesterday evening, I didn’t have a charger.
My jailer hasn’t been back. He pawned off the responsibility of keeping me alive on one of his cousins, a girl named Catrina. She said to call her Cat, but I haven’t managed to find it in me to be that… nice.
She is, though. Nice.
She seemed sympathetic when I lost my mind every night. Something broke in me, and the urge to get out of here fills my throat. It hasn’t left me, like anxiety crawling through my veins. My heart seems insistent on reminding me I’m the caged bird.
Trapped, trapped, trapped, it sings.
She passes the food through the door and closes it again, the lock in the handle, a deadbolt. Two clicks that burrow in my ears. I’ve cried until I couldn’t breathe. I’ve screamed.
No one is coming to help me.
It’s the worst to know you’ve been broken. Defeated. This is the fate I was terrified for, and now it’s here. My mind exaggerates my fear. It shows me an eternity in this room, hidden away from everyone. What control do my parents have over me now?
It’s Luca who holds me captive.
I focus on him. His face. The way it felt to fuck him.
And then I contort those memories. I twist them into something small and meaningless and angry. It’s how I survived high school. It’s how I survived every day of the three years before my marriage. Take what hurts you and make it small.
It took a while to convince Catrina to bring me a charger. I wrote my request on the napkin when she swung by to clear out my plate, and it was two whole days before she nodded to me through the crack in the door. I offered her a tentative smile, and she lit up.
So, she’s nice, but I’m not.
I’m just so not in the mood to deal with it. Or her. Or anyone.
I’ve got a scream building in my throat. It sometimes grows strong enough to seal off my words, but I don’t let it out. It’s different from the screaming pleads, my begging.
Shame burns inside me.
I begged Luca. And Catrina. Any time there was a noise outside my door, I was reduced to a begging, crying mess.
I’ve never been that person, but Luca managed it. He’s not even here to witness my destructio
n.
Oh, but what glee he must have. What a proud man he is now, holding his almost-wife captive. He can’t even look at me. He hasn’t stepped foot near my door since he put me here.
My eyes are open now, the reality creeping back in.
Along with the charger yesterday, Catrina gave me the front page of the New York Times. I never thought I’d make the news, let alone the front page of a national paper, but here we are. One of my mother’s favorites of the engagement photos Wilder and I posed for months ago is front and center, with DeSantis Darling of New York Fatally Shot as the headline.
I couldn’t even read it, except to scan for the funeral information. I didn’t want to hear about how good he was. I imagine it’s lies, anyway. Glorified in death, aren’t we?
The funeral is today.
Two weeks gave me plenty of time to contemplate my life—good, bad, ugly. Luca’s words play in my head on repeat about pregnancy being the only thing to save me. Those words haunt me, too, because it seems the universe has a sick sense of humor.
I occasionally touch my arm, just to remind myself that the birth control is still there.
Everything hurts. I never let Cat see that side of my face. She would’ve immediately told Luca, and then Dr. Matthews… no. I’m hoping the gash scars. It’s already closed, pink and puckered. Actually, some of it is an angry red, splotches of skin. It bled terribly. I woke up in the middle of the night with blood in my eye, my hair, the pillow.
I smiled when I turned on the light, swaying. They didn’t question my desire for new sheets, and I refused to give the old ones back. I tucked them away in the bathroom, a memento of bravery.
Or stupidity.
It’s going to be a good scar, though. My nails did the most damage as I pulled out the stitches, raking down the closing skin. The little scratches around it have all scabbed over and flaked away, leaving smooth skin in their place. My head doesn’t even hurt, really, except for an occasional twinge.