by Esme Devlin
“Text me and let me know you’re home safe, okay?”
I nod my head as I pull back from the hug.
When the three of them leave, I spend a few minutes sitting down on the bar stool, letting my pumps fall off my feet and enjoying the cool air around them. The clean and lock-up usually takes around fifteen minutes if we all pitch in, I’m guesstimating thirty by myself. The sooner I start, the sooner I’ll finish… but I still take those few minutes to look the place over.
It may only have been three months, but these three months have been some of the happiest in my life. Since I was twelve and my mum lost herself at the bottom of a bottle, I’ve been passed around like an unwanted present. Foster parents, care homes, boarding schools for “bad kids”. Some were better than others, but none of them ever felt like home.
Carpathia isn’t exactly a home either, but here I found people who actually give a shit about me. People who tell me to text them, just to make sure I’m home safe. I’m choosing to give that up because I hope in the long run, it will be worth it.
I know I need to get over my issues, and I don’t think I can do that while I’m still in this town. Friends are all well and good, but what about when they find boyfriends and settle down, get married, have babies? I’ll be the crazy single auntie who always gets too drunk at parties. I’ll be on my own.
Maybe I could have stayed… bought a couple of dogs, resigned myself to being on my own forever. But I’d always be wondering if leaving could have cured me of my issues. If a fresh start would have made all the difference.
I can’t live with what ifs.
Going away is the only choice I have, and if I back out now then what’s stopping me backing out next time?
I have to go.
Taking one last look around Carpathia, I slip my shoes on, slide off the bar stool, and get to work wiping down the nights grime.
The cold air hits me the second I push on the bar to open the rear door. The club backs on to an alleyway, a garage at one end and a carpark at the opposite. It’s dimly lit, deserted, and eerie as fuck. I guess most people would find this walk intimidating to say the least, but I happen to know that the real monsters in this world don’t lurk down dark alleyways.
Locking the door and giving it a push to be certain it’s closed, I start towards the front of the building to post the set of keys through the letterbox. Jessica can have them back tomorrow when she shows up for her shift.
I begin walking, already feeling my feet turn to ice and wishing I had my boots with me. They’re all packed up, along with everything else. My plan is to go home, get a few hours of sleep, and then leave just as soon as the rush hour traffic has settled down. That way I can —
All thoughts fly from my mind as a large hand covers my mouth.
I struggle for air.
My hands fly to his.
I’m trying to push him off me.
Every fiber in my being is begging me to scream but I can’t do it.
Oh god. I’ve been so stupid. Careless. Reckless. It’s going to happen again. I know it already.
The thought of exactly what will happen again sends terror trickling down my spine.
I really can’t breathe.
Another hand circles my waist and I’m lifted up from the ground.
He’s walking. Where are we going?
I try to struggle, I really do… but this man is fucking concrete.
What’s the point in struggling, anyway? I’ve struggled my whole life. I already know how this ends.
“Put her down.”
A voice behind me, smooth like honey but with a coldness to it that is almost familiar.
I try to turn my head around. Is this a saviour? Am I being rescued?
The man’s grip around my face and waist only tightens, but he does stop walking. He doesn't reply though, and all I can hear are my strained breaths through my nose.
“Do you need me to repeat myself?”
This time, I feel the man flinch. He’s not the only one. I do know that voice. It’s the same voice that spoke to Marco in that tone earlier. The tone of voice made me flinch then, too.
The man lets me slide down his body and my knees feel weak as my feet are planted on the ground.
Slowly, he turns us around until we’re met with the same steely gray eyes and inky black hair… only this time, it’s not just his eyes that are on me.
It’s the barrel of a gun.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Mr Gray cocks his head to the side and flashes a smile, revealing a set of perfectly straight white teeth. I should be looking at the gun. I should be looking for a way to escape. But I cannot drag my eyes away from his smile.
His smile completely changes his face from a statue carved in stone to a devilishly handsome rogue.
I blink a few times and try to get my breathing under control.
“You’re going to drop her, right fucking now.”
The man who has me in his arms lets out a low chuckle, and I feel the rise and fall of his chest at my back.
“And why the fuck would I do that?”
Mr Gray smiles again, the gun still aimed right at us. “Because if you don’t, I’ll blow the brains right out of her pretty little head, and I’ll make it look like you did it.”
Panic rises in my chest at his words. He’d kill me? Why not him? Why not kill him? There’s a long silence while the man thinks.
His hand drops from my mouth and I gasp for air. I should run. My mind is screaming at me to run but the gun pointed at my head has me locked in place. The hand slips from my waist and pushes me forwards, sending me stumbling towards the other man.
I catch my balance just a foot away from the gun which is pointed directly at my neck.
“Leave us.” He says the words to my attacker but his eyes, now dancing with amusement, don't waver from me. He doesn't drop the gun, either. A few long seconds later I hear the footsteps of the man behind me — quick footsteps — as if he’s running away.
Swallowing, I take a step to my left, out of the way of the raised gun. His eyes follow me, but finally he lowers his arm to his side.
I’m trying to think of something to say. Do I thank him? I probably should, I guess. But somehow I don't feel safe. I’m not feeling the relief washing over me as I would have expected.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
He lifts an eyebrow and turns, heading down the alleyway in the direction of the garage.
“Come, little bird.”
Come with him? The man just threatened to blow my brains out.
“I’m not coming with you.” The words spill out of my mouth quicker than I can process the logic behind them. I’m fucked. One way, a man who just grabbed me and tried to drag me away to do… God knows what he wanted to do. The other way, a man who just threatened to kill me.
He stops walking at the sound of my reply and turns back around to face me. The gun is tucked away, and he slides both hands into his pockets. It’s such a casual, easy gesture, so at odds with how I’m feeling.
“Sofia, come.”
My name rolls off his tongue like he’s said it a thousand times before. I shake my head. “I’m not a dog.”
The man smirks and begins walking towards me. I match him step for step, backing away. But his steps are longer than my own. I look over my shoulder, trying to ensure I’m not backing myself up against a wall, and by the time my head turns back around he’s less than two feet away from me.
He grabs a hold of my shoulder and pulls me into him. He’s tall, perhaps a foot or so taller than me. Instantly I feel two strong arms wrap around my body, and the panic rises at a rate that has me dizzy.
I don’t like men. I especially don’t like being touched by men.
“Get your fucking hands off me!” I grit out, before attempting once again to struggle.
“Shhhh…” he whispers the sound directly into my ear, like I’m an upset child and he needs to settle me. That’s w
hen I feel his hands circle around my throat. “You don’t have to be scared, little bird. You don’t have to be scared ever again.”
His grip on my throat tightens and I have no time to be scared. No time to react. No time to panic.
They say your life flashes before your eyes just before you die.
All I can think about is how I was supposed to run.
I was supposed to escape this town… the demons… the monsters… the nightmares.
I came so close.
So, so close.
Chapter 4
JULIAN
It took only a few seconds for Sofia to lose consciousness. I scooped her up into my arms and carried her back to the car — which just so happened to be Kane’s BMW X7. After he’d fled the scene, he’d run around the building and was already waiting for us in the parking lot of the garage next door.
“You can come out now,” I tell him.
He emerges from the shadows, and I see his brows furrow at the sight of Sofia curled up in my arms. “So she wasn’t exactly dropping to her knees at her knight in shining armor’s feet, then?”
I chuckle, nodding for Kane to open the back door and sliding her little body inside. I had noticed it before, but there’s a big damn difference between noticing something and feeling it in your hands. She’s built like a fucking goddess. I wonder if my old man knew that, all those years ago, when he picked her out? I make a note to ask him what her mother was like. He basically bought a lottery ticket, and fuck if I’m not impressed that the numbers came in.
“Get your fucking hands off me… I think that was the phrase she used,” I reply.
Kane laughs beside me, the pair of us standing there watching a sleeping Sofia.
“I’m betting it was the pretty little brains comment.”
I turn around to face him. “I’m betting it was your shit attempt at playing bad cop.”
He nudges me. “You driving, or am I?”
“Take her to the house. There’s something I need to do.”
He fishes out the keys from his pocket and makes his way around the car. Already I feel uneasy at the thought of leaving her. I only found her a few hours ago, after years of thinking she was lost to me. Those last few hours of her shift had been torture. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to go in there, lift her skirt up, and fuck her over the bar for all — including Marco — to see.
But I’ve been too patient to screw everything up with a reckless stunt like that. I’ve waited too long. And now everything is coming together, there’s just one more thing I need to do before I make her mine completely.
One more thing that will make claiming her even sweeter.
And for that, watching her drive away in Kane’s car without me is a price I’m willing to pay.
Until tomorrow, my piccolina.
The smell of death and decay assaults me as soon as I open the door. It’s a smell I’m more than familiar with. I could be anywhere, standing in the bathroom shaving my jaw or about to be seated in the finest French restaurant, and the smell of rotting flesh comes upon me like a thief in the night. No warning. No trigger. It’s just there, clinging to my nostrils.
It’s a smell you never forget.
I take a deep breath and close the door quietly behind me.
Candlelight flickers at the far end of the corridor, highlighting the faintly striped wallpaper that’s peeling away from the walls. The place is a dump… the shittest of holes, but it doesn’t need to be anything else. With the exception of myself and those in my employment, there is only one reason men come here.
“Diesel.”
I wait for him to come, and he doesn’t keep me waiting long.
He never does.
Seconds later, I’m crouched low on the ground, bracing myself against the hundred-and-ten pounds of jet black Cane Corso that’s crashing towards me.
I let him have his fill of me while I whisper sweet nothings into his ear and tickle his oxter. He’s been here all weekend, so naturally he’s been missing his old man.
“Jules. Was it her?”
Straightening, I look up and see the outline of my father lurking in the shadows at the end of the hall. I shove my hands in my pockets and walk towards him while Diesel follows at my heels.
“It was her. Kane took her back to the house.”
“Does she remember?”
We head around the corner, my father falling into step beside me and I shrug. “Fuck-knows. Didn’t really speak to her.”
“But you’re certain it’s her?”
I stop walking, and he turns to face me. He’s aged well, my father. Everyone who knows us says I look just as he did at my age, except for the eyes. Both cold, though where mine are silvery gray his are ice blue. But in the dim light of the wall mounted candles, the only thing that separates us are the thin lines of his face and streaks of salt in his pepper hair.
“Certain? No. Sure? Yes. I remember her eyes.”
My father nods, his face relaxing just a fraction. Like me, he’s barely capable of anything softer than stone.
“Joe would be pleased.”
I swallow. My old man is more sentimental than I could ever be. “Joe isn’t here. But Derek is.”
He nods again in agreement and follows me through to the larger room. It would be the lounge, or perhaps the sitting room, if this was a normal house.
The room is empty, with what little furniture the previous owners left now covered with white sheets. I never bothered getting the electrics fixed, hence the candles. I could have rewired the whole place — it’s not that I’m short of money or resources — I just learned to like the whole medieval dungeon ambience the candles create.
I think it adds a certain je ne sais quoi for the men who come here.
In the corner, two of my guards sit at a decaying wooden table playing cards, and I nod to them in greeting.
“How is he?”
They glance towards each other, a knowing look passing between them.
“Unrecognizable.”
I swallow before replying. “Good. Diesel, come.”
The door is locked from the outside, a sash-lock, a deadbolt, and two padlocks. It’s a pain in the arse, but a necessary pain. When it creaks open, every smell that lingers in the rest of the house multiplies until it’s as thick as a concrete wall.
Inside, the room is pitch dark. The window has long been bricked up, and candles are a luxury this particular prisoner has not been afforded.
The sound of the bed shifting floats to my ears. I’ve always found it fascinating just how much you can hear when you can’t see a damn thing. Footsteps… one… two.
“Stop right there.” My voice cuts through the darkness, followed by the sound of Diesel growling at my side. The man in the room knows Diesel.
All the men who come here know Diesel.
The man stops.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” His voice is broken, a croak. The sound of it sparks a delight inside me so dark I think I may be more than a little fucked up.
“I wanted to invite you to a wedding, but I fear you won’t last long enough to make it.”
He shifts in the darkness and pauses before taking the bait. “And whose wedding would that be?”
I chuckle. He already knows the answer, and I won’t give him the satisfaction of hearing her name. “I found her.”
Now he’s the one laughing, but that’s alright. “Always assumed you would. How is she? Does she still have that perfect ass?”
His words make me wish I had given him the privilege of a candle, since I’d quite like him to see my smirk. I’d also quite like to knock him the fuck out, but I check my rage. There will be time for that.
“Likely better than you remember it.”
“Hmm.”
The pair of us regard one another for a few long seconds in silence, the mutual hatred between us as thick as a concrete wall. I’ve waited for this moment for so long — years — and now it’s here I’m savoring
every piece of it.
I could have killed him the day I found him. I likely should have. But then he’d have gone to his grave thinking he’d won. This way, he knows he hasn’t.
“I’ll be seeing you soon, Derek.”
Chapter 5
SOFIA
Sunlight.
That’s the first thing I notice, although it’s barely there. From the position, I’d say it’s either dawn, or perhaps dusk. And that’s about as long as I spend surmising about what time it is.
There are more important things to think about.
Like… where the fuck am I, for starters.
I sit up. I’m in a bed. A nice bed.
It’s a thousand different shades of champagne. Silk. Velvet. A fine gauze canopy. It’s the type of bed you’d find in a luxury hotel.
Why the hell would I be in a luxury hotel?
That’s when the events of last night start working their way forward piece by piece. Carpathia. I’d told them all to leave without me… that was after the man tried to buy me, before deciding he didn’t actually want me. And then he was there again.
Oh god.
I remember everything.
He took me. It can only have been him.
But… why?
Kicking the fine silk sheets off me, I realize I’m wearing nothing but the black girl-boxers I had on last night. My hands instinctively fly towards my chest to cover my modesty — from what or who, I do not know, but it makes me feel better.
He took my clothes.
He saw me naked.
My eyes dart around the room, trying to find my clothes, a robe, anything to cover myself so I can start work on getting out of here.
The room is large and still quite dark. Beside the bed there is a lamp on, the base a long circular block of white marble that I reckon would make a decent enough weapon if I had to club someone over the head.
Visions of my captor float to the front of my mind. He was tall and well-built. Something tells me a blunt object isn’t quite going to do.
On the opposite side of the room, behind a small breakfast table with two chairs, there’s a door. A bathroom? I’m up and out of bed, crossing the room before I have the chance to wonder any longer.