She’s silent at least. No more screaming.
I wonder if my father would hear her on the east side of the house. Michela and he share that part in separate quarters, whole rooms for their private use bigger than most people’s houses. Only dinner is to be taken as a family. We can avoid each other the rest of the time.
Maybe I’ll put an end to that rule, though. I can. It’s up to me.
Lucas is—was—on the far west of the house. I’m between east and west in the main part.
As I walk through the deserted corridors, I think how much this house is like a mausoleum.
I know these hidden passages by heart. Annabel loved to play hide-and-seek and I indulged my baby sister long after we were too old for the game. After her fall in the solarium, I indulged her every whim.
Although it would be easier to use the kitchen exit, I decide to detour toward Lucas’s rooms. Something felt different when I was near them tonight. Something felt off.
I walk in darkness toward the door I had installed once he left to seal off his quarters entirely. No one goes there. No one even cleans this part of the house. I should probably have a look around sometime to fix anything that needs fixing. The house is old. It’ll fall down around us if I don’t take care of it.
When I get to that door which is only two turns from where Cristina was tonight, I find it closed as it should be. My heartbeat picks up when I put my hand on the doorknob.
What do I expect? For it to open? And what if it does? So what?
But when I try it, it doesn’t turn.
The door is still locked. Why wouldn’t it be? Lucas isn’t here.
Shaking my head at my own stupidity, I retrace my steps to the narrowest of staircases hidden behind a false wall. It leads out through the back of the house and onto the garden.
When my mom was alive, the garden was a magical place. She loved working in it. Spring and summertime especially were her favorites. I can’t remember the last time the pool was open. I’m sure if I look under the debris-laden tarp, I’d find it half crumbled into the earth.
I look back at the house. Will the earth take that someday too? Ivy grows like a clawing thing high along the walls. Perhaps I should let it be. Leave my father inside to rot with it.
A cold wind blows as I cross the garden toward the woods. I tug my jacket closer and take a swig of my whiskey.
I don’t use the flashlight tonight and just let the moon guide my way. I stop, though, where I had last night, and look up at her window. I don’t know who was more surprised to see the other, me or her. And if she saw me, I wonder if my father does too. If he knows I still come out here.
I underestimate him, I realized tonight.
He’s angry and spiteful, and I know he has no affection for me. I’ve known that since I was a little boy, but I can’t understand why it still burns.
At least now I am in the position of power. Not him. Not anymore.
I’ve worked hard to rebuild our family. To haul us back up to our rightful place at the top of the food chain. When his grief almost destroyed what our forefathers had built over generations, after the accident when he cost us too much.
He became weak, my father.
I was the one who took the reins when things fell apart.
I was the one who did what needed to be done.
The Di Santo family has had its hand in the darker side of business for as far back as our written history goes. Small-time crooks who, over time, grew into powerful shipping magnates and dangerous men.
And the kind of money we have is not attained by any legal means. It’s not possible.
Once under the cover of trees, I draw my phone out and train the flashlight on the ground. I follow the well-worn path to the work shed.
I don’t have to worry about my father coming out here because he physically can’t get here unless he has Johnny carry him, and that’s too much for him. Too humiliating.
I arrive at the shed and use my key to unlock the padlock. Inside, I find the kerosene lamp and turn it on. It’s a big space. An old carpenter’s shed of ages past. Since I was fourteen, I’ve slowly been refurbishing it. Lucas and I even worked in here together for a time.
My mother knew about our hobby. She knew we’d come out here to work, to build, and she kept our secret, because to my father, it would be a disgrace that either of his sons did the work of laborers. I remember when he caught us in here. We were sixteen then. It was just a few days after our birthday. That was the night my father learned Lucas’s weakness.
All that time, I think Lucas was more afraid of him than I was. Even given the fact that he would become his successor. The chosen son.
Lucas was the gentler of the two of us. But that night, my father figured out how to get through to him. Because the surest way to teach a lesson is to punish not the offender but what that offender holds dear. What he loves.
I knew all along if Lucas just did what he was told to do, it would be over sooner. He couldn’t wrap his brain around it, though. Couldn’t let go of the guilt even when I was the one who paid for his weakness.
I look around at the pieces scattered throughout the space. Some are covered, the more special pieces I made for my mom or Annabel. Furniture and art. The crib I’d started working on for Annabel’s baby.
My greatest achievement, though? The thing that makes me most proud?
The Gates of Hell doors.
I take a long drink of whiskey, switch on the music. Erik Satie’s “Gymnopédies, 1. Lent et douloureux.” I don’t know why I do it to myself. I guess I’m a masochist.
I sit in my chair and close my eyes.
It’s cold in here. I don’t build a fire, though. Instead, I drink, and I look at the pieces I’ve neglected as memories dance in my mind.
Were we a happy family once? If we were, I don’t remember it. No, I don’t think we were ever that.
The cold wind whistles through the trees outside. Pitch-black and dense out there. If I believed in ghosts, I’d say this was their haunting ground.
Maybe that’s the real reason I come out here.
Maybe I hope my mother or Annabel will haunt me.
Will I make Cristina into a ghost?
She is my test. A test of my loyalty and of my humanity.
And I can’t have both.
Something about her challenges me, contradicting that hate and vengeance that’s been in play since the night of the accident and more so after we buried Annabel.
But something about her cries out for protection, and that call is answered by something primordial in me.
When I first saw her in that hallway, she was barely ten. A child. I am not monster enough to hurt a child.
But that feeling, that need to protect her, it’s stronger now than it was then.
Protect her from him.
Protect what’s mine.
But there’s more.
There’s a primal need to possess her.
I close my eyes as the music plays on. And as I listen, I think about her upstairs in her room. I think about the horror in her eyes when she saw what she’d done to me with that knife. I hear her fear in that dark corridor.
From the gloom of that shadowy hallway, she called out for me. As if I’m not the dark she fears.
17
Cristina
Silvery moonlight spills in from the large window. Blood crusts on my skin, dries on my dress.
I stopped struggling an hour ago, and now I wish I could sleep. I wish I could just sleep and forget even for a little while.
Instead, I lie here waiting, watching the door. And I think about the way he looked at me when he bound me. His face when he told me I needed to learn to do as I was told before I got hurt.
What a strange thing to say, considering he’s the one who hurts me.
I think about him downstairs. His hand around my neck. His level of control.
He can snap my neck, I’m sure of it. All it would take would be a twist of his wrist, and I’d be dead.
/>
I close my eyes welcoming sleep as it slowly comes. I’m not sure how much time passes when a sound I’ve become attuned to startles me fully awake. It’s the lock turning in the door.
I gasp, my heartbeat picking up. How long have I been lying here? My shoulders are sore, and I stink of old wine and blood.
I try to sit up, at least I pull myself up a little but freeze when the door opens. Damian stands there, the darkness behind him, the moon casting a strange shade of gray across his face, making his eyes appear inhuman, otherworldly.
He isn’t wearing shoes, which strikes me as odd for some reason. It’s so normal a thing to be barefoot inside your house, but on him, it’s out of place.
In his uninjured hand, he holds a nearly empty bottle of whiskey. The other one has a bandage wrapped around it. From here, I can see that it’s pink in the palm of his hand.
I stabbed him. How in hell did I even do that?
His expression doesn’t change as he enters, then closes the door behind him. He holds my gaze but says nothing.
Is he here to punish me? Has he cooled off enough to do it now? Because I think he’s as dangerous calm as he is when volatile. Maybe more so.
I watch him cross the room, slate eyes on me as he turns the armchair I’d pushed in front of the window to face the bed and sits down.
No, he doesn’t exactly sit down. He drops himself onto the chair, and I wonder how full that bottle was when he started, as he brings it to his lips.
Liquid sloshes against glass when he drops his arm, and it hangs off the chair while he wipes his mouth with the back of his other hand.
I expect him to say something. Or maybe he expects me to say something. But neither of us speak as he sits there drinking his whiskey and watching me. It’s the most unsettling thing. I wish he’d talk. Say anything. Yell. Punish me, if that’s what he wants. Just get on with it.
He’s taken his suit jacket off and his shirtsleeves are folded up to his elbows, revealing muscular forearms and olive skin dusted with dark hair. He’s strong. I thought that when he took his sweater off in the bathroom too. Built big like someone who does manual labor. I pegged him to be more of an office man in his business suits, but then again, there are those calluses on his hands.
His expression changes, and he almost grins, then shakes his head. It’s as if he’s having a conversation in his head. A conversation about me.
His gaze slides over me, and I follow its progress. The dress is ruined. I’m sure no amount of stain remover will get rid of either the blood or the wine.
We stay like this for a long time. Well past awkward discomfort if it ever could be that with us. I’m getting fidgety and wish he’d get it over with.
But when he finally stands, my breath hitches and my heart rate picks up.
Here it comes.
I manage to put another inch between us as he finishes the last of the liquid in the bottle. He makes his way to the bed, and I think how steady he is, considering the amount he’s probably drunk. He sets the bottle down so loudly on the nightstand it’s startling.
When he puts a knee on the bed, I try to move farther away, but neither the bonds nor he allow me to. He reaches an arm out, hand closing around my middle to tug me closer to him.
“It’s ruined,” he says, and my eyes follow his over the dress.
“Are you drunk?”
He looks at me. “You’re trouble, Cristina.”
“Uncuff me, Damian.” I try to sound calm. Like I’m somewhat in control of anything at all.
“More trouble than I counted on.”
“What did you expect? A good prisoner?” I can’t help myself even though my brain is screaming for my mouth to shut up and not provoke him.
He exhales audibly but doesn’t bother to answer. Instead, he shifts his hand, the one without the bandage, turning me over onto my belly.
“What are you doing?”
His hand rests on my back for a moment, just caressing the bare skin of my upper back and even now, even at this soft touch, I feel his power. His strength.
He takes hold of the zipper and begins to draw it down slowly, so slowly and purposefully. I still, feeling that strange electricity that sparks whenever he touches me.
When the dress is unzipped, he turns me over so I’m facing him again.
“What are you doing? Uncuff me.”
He doesn’t bother to answer me. Instead, with two quick tugs, the straps are ripped free. He drags the dress off me, eyes locked on mine as he does it—again slowly, again with purpose—until I’m lying there almost naked. Just a skimpy bra and panties between us.
When it’s gone, he stands back and looks at me.
I’m panting, but he’s not even a little out of breath. His gaze roams over me. It hovers over my sex for so long I remember what he did the last time. How he smeared the blood from where I scratched him over it. A sort of marking. And now, I swear I feel the burn of his gaze on my skin.
I squirm and try to turn, but he puts his palm on my stomach to stop me. It’s so big it spans the whole of my belly. I wonder if he notes this difference in size between us too. Maybe the difference in our skin tone, my paleness next to his deeper olive tone.
Does he also register how vulnerable I am? How helpless he’s made me.
He walks away then, and I’m confused. But he disappears into the bathroom, and I hear water run. When he’s back he’s holding a damp washcloth.
He sets a knee on the bed, and without speaking, expression serious and eyes dark, he attempts to clean me. First my face, then my neck where I’d cut myself. I wince, but he’s gentle. He runs the washcloth over my chest. I’m bloody from him and me, but he can’t get it all off. I’ll need to shower to do that. To scrub. He does my legs last, where the wine feels sticky.
Without a word, he’s off the bed again. He goes into the bathroom. I know he washes his hands because when he returns, he’s drying them on a clean towel.
“What are you going to do?” I ask.
He doesn’t reply, just stalks toward the bed.
“Please.”
“Please what?”
I watch him as he looks me over. When he returns his gaze to mine, the look in his eyes is different. There’s a hunger inside them. Something dark and endless. Something like the other night but more charged. More sexual.
I lick my lips even as goose bumps cover my exposed flesh as I try to press myself deeper into the bed even knowing there is no escape. Not now, bound as I am and probably not unbound either.
My life belongs to him. It’s what he believes.
Might makes right. And he is mighty.
“Please what, Cristina?” he repeats, tone a little more irritated. “Fucking finish your sentence.”
“Please don’t hurt me,” I say in a small voice.
He looks almost surprised by my request, but how can he be? He sits down, his hand a little lighter on my stomach. Maybe he’s realized I’m not going to pull away.
“Why shouldn’t I? You hurt me.” He holds up his bandaged hand as if I didn’t know.
“I…I…”
His eyes narrow. “You…you…what?” He’s taunting me.
I narrow my eyes too.
“Are you sorry?” he asks.
It’s coming, my punishment, and I can’t help myself. “I’m sorry I didn’t put the knife in your heart.”
He snorts, mouth curving up on one side. He leans closer, eyes locked on mine. “There’s my girl.”
“I’m not your girl.”
He straightens again. “Where did the eye color come from?”
“What?”
“Your eyes.”
“Why does it matter?”
“I’m curious.”
“I thought you knew everything about me.”
“Humor me.”
“My grandmother on my mom’s side.”
He shifts his gaze back to his hand on my stomach. I watch as he caresses the skin there with the tips of his fing
ers, his touch soft as he draws ever-widening circles on my belly.
“I should punish you.”
I squirm, trying to pull up in my bonds. There’s nowhere I can go, though, and my body isn’t reacting to his touch the way it should.
Repulsion, I tell myself. Feel repulsed, I command.
It doesn’t work, though.
His eyes follow his hand as he glides it under the elastic band of my panties. My belly flutters at the sensation of rough fingertips on my skin.
No one’s touched me like this before.
No one’s even seen me like this.
“Stop,” I squeak.
He glances at me, and I wonder what he sees. Deer in headlights, I guess.
What I see is clear.
Darkness.
Desire.
Carnal want.
And a man with too much experience.
He returns his gaze to where his hand is. The tips of his fingers weave into the triangle of hair, and he tugs, making me hiss. But then he pulls away.
“Not yet,” he says. “You’re not ready for me to touch you like this yet.”
Yet.
“Not like I want,” he adds.
I swallow, my throat dry, and what I feel isn’t the relief I should be feeling.
He studies my face, eyes intense and dark, forehead furrowed. I think he must read me like a book.
“Disappointed?”
I shake my head.
“Liar.”
I don’t deny it.
He slides his hand back over my belly, and I’m not sure what he’s going to do. Not sure what he wants when he turns me over onto my stomach and keeps me pinned to the bed with a hand on my lower back.
I press my face into the pillow. My heart is going a hundred miles a minute.
I feel him then, feel the shift of the bed, feel the heat of his body and his breath on the back of my neck as he traces the length of my spine with his fingers as though he’s counting each vertebra.
He’s taking his time, and I can’t move. My body is shuddering totally outside of my control while he sweeps his hand up and down and up and down.
The pillow muffles my whimpers as his fingers follow the arc of my lower back, and I want more. I’m desperate for more.
Unholy Union: Unholy Union Duet Book 1 Page 13