by S. Massery
Or when I cry too hard.
The door unlocks. The sound has become something like nails on a chalkboard, and I wince. It opens as far as the chain lets it.
“Amelie?” Cat calls. “You awake?”
I throw the covers off and swing my legs out of bed. “Yeah. One minute.”
She waits. The chain over the door makes me feel better about the cage, if only slightly. That while I’m locked in here, I still have control over who can enter.
It’s not an even trade—not even close. But I’m a desperate girl who will do desperate things. They shouldn’t underestimate me.
I go to the door, and she hands me my breakfast one item at a time. An apple, a toasted bagel smothered in peanut butter and honey, carefully wrapped in a napkin. A coffee.
“What time is the funeral?” I whisper through the door.
“Eleven,” she answers. “I don’t know who’s taking you, but L—”
“Don’t,” I snap. His name is off limits. His face is off-limits, because I’m pretty sure I want to bash it in if I ever see him again.
But you are going to see him again, I remind myself. Today. At the funeral.
As my brother-in-law.
She sighs. “They asked me to give you this. To wear.”
She passes a dress bag through the crack, and I take it from her. She’s done that a few times, handing me clothes. A toothbrush and toothpaste. Shampoo, conditioner, a razor. Things that Luca clearly didn’t think about before he put me in here and tossed the key.
“Thanks.” My jaw tightens. “So, they’ll probably get me around… ten? Ten-thirty?”
I imagine her automatic nod before she realizes we can’t see each other. “Yes,” she verbalizes. “Probably.”
“Could you hold on?”
She goes silent, but the door doesn’t close. I set down the food and unzip the bag. Typical man, to provide a dress but nothing to go with it.
“If they want me presentable, I need a few more things.” I step to the side so I can see her. Just a sliver. One eye, the curve of her lips. I list what I’d like, jewelry and shoes, makeup. Her eye gets wider. “Please,” I finish. “It’s a funeral, but it’s also the only time I’ll have been outside in two weeks. I want to feel…”
“Yeah, I can do that,” she says softly.
“Okay. Thanks,” I repeat.
I close the door and take my breakfast to the desk. It’s set up like a hotel, minus the luxury of a television: desk, bed, nightstands, closet, and bathroom. As I said, not a lot of options for entertainment.
But I’ve had plenty of time to plan.
The bloody sheets are visible from here, folded on the edge of the tub. I don’t know why, but it steels my resolve. I know the lengths I’m willing to go. Luca cracked me open, and now we both have to live with the demons that come out.
My plan. The flimsy thing I’ve been hanging my hat on.
I sent a fleeting text before I shut my phone off. It was exactly a week ago. The text led to a number, which led to another name. Another number. It felt like I was being guided along a path, only to confront a gunman at the end.
I rub my eyes. I’m tired.
The nightmares have gotten worse, showing me Wilder’s death over and over.
In my dreams, I scream until I’m hoarse and my voice dies away. It’s always just me, him, and the masked gunman standing in the choir section above us. He never shoots me, though. We stare at each other until he disappears, and I fall through the floor.
Without fail, I land in the alley in Sanremo, surrounded by three men. They shove me through the wall, and Matteo catches me in the restaurant. There are more people with us, a whole audience who watches him unbuckle his pants.
Sometimes I jolt awake, my heart pounding out of my chest. Other times, it isn’t until his hands are on me that I am yanked into consciousness. And more recently…
It worries me. Last night, I woke myself from a dead sleep with a scream on my lips. I clamped my hand over my mouth. I sat in silence for minutes, wondering if someone would come running.
They didn’t. I didn’t know if any sound had burst out of me before I was really awake or if it was all in the dream. The terror of it, though, took too long to subside.
I haven’t slept well except the first night, and I think that was more like unconsciousness due to the blood loss.
“The plan,” I mutter to myself. I glance at the dress on the bed. Whatever happens, this will be worth it. I open my recharged phone and take a deep breath. I have one shot at this. One option. I was warned the last number I received would only work once, that if I messed up, it was over. I press dial and close my eyes.
What if they don’t answer? What if they refuse to help me?
“Hello?” a buttery-smooth voice answers.
“I need your help,” I blurt out, my tact out the window. “Please don’t hang up. I think they might’ve told you I was going to call, and I have no one else I can ask. No one who would be able to help me.”
The voice on the other end of the line is quiet, then, “What did they do?”
“He… they’re holding me hostage.” Dramatic as always, I scold myself. But aren’t I being honest? How many times have I begged to be released?
“Your marriage didn’t protect you,” they say, and of course they know who I am. Of course this is probably the least surprising thing to happen to them today. “Not for long, anyway.”
“Please,” I whisper. “I need to get out.”
“Where?”
“Doesn’t matter. I have a plan beyond that, I just need your help to get away from them. The funeral is today. It might be my only chance.” I’m desperate, trying to hold on to hope with both hands again. I should know by now that hope can kill me.
They sigh. “I have to remain anonymous in this.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“The funeral, then?” They seem to consider our options. “It’s the only time you’ll be in public, but heavily guarded.”
“A distraction,” I guess. “Something to draw their attention.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Then, “You owe me a favor, Amelie Page. That’s my price. A favor of equal measure.”
“Deal,” I breathe. I’d be willing to promise them my firstborn. Anything to escape. This could backfire. This could go so, so wrong. But there’s hope again, pulling me toward optimism.
But I can’t stay here one minute longer.
24
Luca
My father straightens my tie. “Are you ready?”
I try not to scoff. Over the past two weeks, family has poured in. Italians from New York City and beyond, those DeSantises who scattered and retired, who went beyond to try to spread our fortune, flock back. Some I know, some I’ve heard of. Others are strangers.
But the funeral is today, and everyone is somber. We ate together as a family, packing into the restaurant on the seventeenth floor. We’ll save the stories and the drinking for later, after we’ve laid Wilder to rest.
Now, we’re back in Dad’s office that seems to overlook the rest of the city. Maybe it’s just a matter of perception.
“How is Amelie?” he asks.
“Fine.” Still breathing, I think.
Cat hasn’t said anything, and I imagine she would let me know if my wife… my not wife… was dead in her room.
“Aiden will collect her,” he says. “And you’ve had time to consider whether you’re actually ready for marriage. It would be easy enough to shuffle her off, let her go back to her life in Rose Hill. That’s what her parents are pushing for.”
I stiffen. “Are they asking about her?”
His eyebrow tics, and that’s the only tell he has before his hands tighten in my jacket. The man is the same height as me, and it’s questionable who’s stronger. But right now, with the darkness in his eye, I have no doubt he’d shove a knife in my eyeball if it served his purposes.
“I’ve let you live with this fuck-up,” he gr
owls, “wondering when you would come to your senses. But you keep her imprisoned here, and I’ve told her parents that she’s happy living here. I’d like to think our fragile agreement with the Pages does go up in smoke because you can’t see past your ego. At least then I would have an excuse to discipline you.”
I shake him loose, taking a few quick steps back. “It’s not my ego.”
“It fucking is your ego, son. You’ve made such a mess of things in less than a month.” Pity flashes across his face. “You compare yourself to your brother, over and over again. When will you stop?”
“When he stops taking what’s mine!” I slam my fist into the wall, puncturing a hole clean through the drywall.
He watches me impassively. “And this is why you won’t go near Amelie at the funeral. Do you understand me?”
I narrow my eyes and clench my jaw. I can only offer him a single nod, hating myself because of it.
He pats my shoulder, and that’s the end of it. We go downstairs and climb into one of the waiting SUVs. This feels too similar to the wedding. The vehicles lined up, the suits. We weren’t quite so stoic, then.
No, before? We celebrated.
Wilder, Aiden, and I had been out on the town the night before. We snuck out of the tower and went barhopping across Manhattan, and the three of us stumbled back to Wilder’s apartment in a drunken haze. Wilder kept saying it wasn’t the end for him, but we all knew it was. Amelie was captivating, even at sixteen. If she couldn’t manage to hold Wilder’s attention—or his dick’s attention—then their marriage was doomed.
It rankled me how he spoke about her. A trophy wife. Someone to schmooze the politicians with, to have on his arm as he rose through government. “One election at a time,” he said. It was practically his slogan.
And yet, when she’d walked down the aisle toward him, she hadn’t radiated happiness.
There was a smile, and she kept her chin high, but deep sadness in her eyes, too.
I try to think of a time—any time—in the past month that I’ve made her laugh. And I come up empty.
“There,” Dad murmurs.
The elevator doors slide open, and Aiden and Amelie walk out. She steals my breath away. Her golden hair is coiled up, leaving only a few curls down around her face and sweeping over her forehead. There’s a black lace veil over her face, almost obscuring her stormy eyes and blood-red lips. It clings around her chin. Black stones in her earrings. The dress is black and flowing, the plunging neckline almost too revealing for a funeral. But she’s paired it with long ropes of silver that hang around her neck.
It’s similar to the one she wore to see the councilwoman.
I have to tear my gaze away from her.
I have to stop thinking she’s mine.
“Let things settle,” Dad orders. “Try and forget about Amelie Page—especially since we have more important work to do here.”
I kill my protest that I can’t forget her. That I won’t. Maybe he recognizes the hungry look in my eye. For weeks, I’ve forced myself to stay away, thinking I could get over her. That while I’ve claimed her in every sense of the word, there’s a darker undercurrent to my desire. Worry, maybe.
Fear.
Loving Amelie might just tie me to New York. It’ll certainly chain me to this family.
But then she’s stepping into the SUV ahead of us, her long, tan legs flashing, and she disappears completely from view.
Aiden gets in her vehicle, and that’s it. Our caravan begins the drive to the small chapel outside the city. Amelie will recognize it from her wedding, but it’s an important place to our family. Security has been doubled—an effort put into place by Sam, Cat’s brother—and Dad is confident that it’s safe.
Or maybe we’re having the funeral here to draw out the killer again.
I swallow, suddenly wishing I had paid more attention to the plans. Asked questions. If we’re waiting for a trap, I need to be vigilant. Wilder’s death was a shock—I wasn’t prepared for violence. My mistake.
Now I’ve come to expect it. My black eye healed, my ribs only twinge occasionally, but the remnants are a ghostly reminder of what happens when I don’t pay attention.
The people I care about get hurt.
“Luca, are you listening to me?”
I wince. “No, sorry.”
“I was just about to tell you that it’s time you have more responsibility in the company. You’ve done good work, especially with Sandra White. She had a particular taste, but it seems you’ve been able to fill Wilder’s shoes easily.”
I’ve met with the councilwoman three times in the past two weeks, and she’s nothing more than an annoyance. Wilder fucked her to keep her complacent, but that isn’t my style.
She’s another wedge to drive between Amelie and me. Like a distraction would help redirect my thoughts.
Amelie already owns it all.
“That, coupled with the fact that you can’t return to Sanremo—”
“Can’t?” I raise my eyebrow. “Amelie’s deal with them was that we only had to stay away until Wilder was dead.”
“Which, no doubt, they’ll be furious about.” He shrugs. “You can’t risk it. I know your mother is buried there—”
“Don’t.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Seriously, don’t.”
Any hope of returning there is snuffed out.
Mom used to take me for walks in the afternoon, telling me stories of her own childhood. She’d grip my hand so tightly, as if to impart that I wasn’t alone.
And here I am, drowning in loneliness. My brother is on the hunt. My father is psychotic. Amelie surely hates me.
A hopeless situation, it would seem.
And we have to bury Wilder today.
Well, not quite. He was cremated, and his ashes await us at the chapel. After, we’ll make a procession to the mausoleum at the back of a local cemetery, and they’ll polish and bless his name on a plaque, nailed to the marble.
I hop out of the car the minute we arrive, stalking across the grass to the chapel doors. Sam stands guard, waiting for us to arrive.
I shake his hand. “How does everything look?”
“Fine,” he says. “Quiet.”
We glance out across the lawn. Dad, Aiden, and Amelie climb the steps. Dad has Amelie’s hand looped around his bicep, and they take position on the step above Aiden and me. Sam slips away.
The family comes in waves of black, filing past us into the chapel. They pause to shake my hand or pat my shoulder, greeting Aiden much the same way. Their eyes alight on Amelie, and understanding—and pity—fills their features. They clutch her hand or hug her, depending on their boldness.
I understand, suddenly, why she chose a veil. It’s just another layer to the mask she has carefully slid back into place.
Her parents come up, pausing in front of Aiden and me. Her father shakes my hand, and her mother inclines her chin. They express their sympathy and move on to their daughter. Both hug her, one after another. Lucy isn’t with them. And even with her mother’s arms wrapped around her shoulders, Amelie’s face is bland. She wears the proper expression: a slight frown, the corners of her lips dragged down by what someone might consider grief.
I once wanted to break through Amelie’s mask. To see what was under the surface.
She glances at me, and the mask drops. Naked fury radiates from her, so quick and plain that I almost reel backward. And then it’s gone, her face smooth. She smiles politely at the next person, reaching out for them with black-gloved hands.
Finally, everyone is inside.
Dad and Amelie lead the way down the aisle, pausing to pay their respects to Wilder’s ashes. A portrait of him is set up on a stand next to the display, surrounded by flowers. If I didn’t know her better, I’d think she was actually heartbroken by his death. And that’s exactly what Dad wants people to believe. She trembles a bit as she reaches forward, pressing two fingers to the Wilder painting’s lips.
They take their seat, and Aid
en and I are next. The whole place is too silent. What a tragedy this should be. Two brothers confronting the eldest in his final stage. Past his final stage, I suppose. He’s been dead for almost a month, cremated for just under that. Dad has dodged questions about his death certificate. The medical examiner told me he couldn’t disclose his findings. I want to rip into them all, but we’re supposed to be gutted by this sad, awful day.
But… I’m not. I’ve got a clusterfuck of emotions inside me, but I don’t feel grief. I’m not upset. If anything, I’m mad, as mad as Amelie is at me. If I were alone, I’d smash his urn and kick a hole through the stupid painting.
Because he was an idiot.
He reached too high, too fast. Thought he was the most clever, the brilliant darling son Jameson DeSantis wanted him to be.
Maybe he was that, but he was also something else.
Difficult.
Self-possessed.
As charming as a snake, and just as deadly.
And if someone like him can be snuffed out in an instant, what does that say about the rest of us?
Aiden nudges me. “Come on.”
We take our seats on the opposite side of the pew from Amelie and Dad. My nerves are shot, and I can’t help but crane my head back to stare at the choir section. Two of our men are up there, and one catches my eye and nods. The steps of the altar where I knocked Amelie down is now masked by a cream rug, no doubt hiding the bullet hole that almost killed her. I can’t help but feel on the edge of my seat, waiting for the next bad thing to happen.
I blow out a small breath and try to relax.
The ceremony starts, and the solemn music cuts through me. I rub at my chest. Wilder was… hard to get along with. But he was my brother. Now, more than any time in the last month, do I feel the connection to him. The tug of family, of loss. Sadness that I couldn’t have thought possible opens up in my chest.
I glance at Aiden, but he’s impassive. Heart of stone, that one. Sam’s at the side entrance, staring holes into the priest who talks of Wilder like he knows him. He talks of his accomplishments, of the wedding. Gazes turn to Amelie’s stiff form next to my father.