Page 17

LIA

W hen I woke up the next morning—I knew I really was alone.

His options had been to never leave my side ever again and damn the torpedos—or to be the sane one and leave first.

I stretched in bed—terrifically sore from all the positions I’d been put in the prior night—but also strangely pleased.

Last night had been real. Waking up in an unfamiliar bed proved it.

Everything we’d done and he’d said hadn’t been a dream.

I allowed myself to wake up slowly. It wasn’t like my father could get any more pissed at me, and he deserved some uncertainty besides.

The bed smelled like Rhaim’s aftershave and if I concentrated hard enough I imagined I could still taste his cock—and I couldn’t believe that I’d given a man a blowjob, happily.

Without choking and wanting to die and no breathing.

But being with Rhaim had flipped a switch— hell, I’d even almost been in the dark —and I was a new woman now.

At least a little.

I had to be.

I rolled up to sitting, and then walked around his dead wife’s place, entirely naked—wondering if Rhaim had ever put cameras in here, too.

My dress was gone, and so were the towels I’d gotten blood on, but there was a neatly folded pile of clothing on the pass-through bar he’d fucked me on, along with my two pasties.

I snickered at seeing them, and then realized they were holding down a note—and beneath it was a phone.

I unfolded the handwritten note first.

It hurt to leave you,

his handwriting said, in his tight script, that I’d mostly seen on tablets and legal pads.

I’m not using your name, so that both of us have plausible deniability, but know that it doesn’t matter—you are written on my heart.

I bit my lips immediately, and sat down before reading the rest.

Will you remember everything I told you to do (or did I make you come too hard to think?)

That doesn’t matter either.

Nothing does, except this: You are mine.

And while in person I may need to act like a man who has not tasted your blood and come in your cunt, know that I am, and I have, and I will again, repeatedly.

I own you.

You belong to me.

I own everything you do. Everything you are. And I own all of your upcoming suffering, too.

Know that you never hurt alone—not when you hurt because of me.

I took a deep, deep inhale, trying not to cry—which was helped by the rest of the letter becoming immediately more practical.

Your own phone’s been in airplane mode for hours—the code for the burner is “DUCK”—use the Uber app on it to get a ride in the opposite direction from your apartment till you hit the edge of the city, then turn your own phone back on and hail another ride home.

I don’t care where you tell your father you’ve been, as long as you don’t say it was with me—but try to not to murder him.

As for your fiancée—your ring is in the pocket of your jeans. Play the good Catholic Princess card and do not let him touch you.

If he does, tell me.

I will see you at Corvo—but also check in with me when you wake up in the morning, and before you go to bed at night.

Nothing about the next few weeks is going to be pleasant little girl—but have faith and trust in?—

Your Daddy

(who will never let you go)

PS: leave this note behind so I can destroy it—or you can eat it, if you want to.

I dabbed away the tears gathering at the corners of my eyes, remembering when I’d eaten a note to hide it from him before, trying to prove that I had some modicum of spycraft in me.

It’d been stupid then.

It wasn’t now.

I stroked my fingers over the paper that Rhaim had just touched—like me—and knew that I’d do whatever it took to keep him safe.

I didn’t care if it made me sick—hell, I didn’t care if it made me bleed—I just folded the note twice and put a corner in my mouth, before biting it savagely and ripping a chunk off.

There was nothing that could hide the taste of the paper, and the chance that the ink was slightly toxic, but it was good—it was real—it was proof.

Rhaim loved me—possibly past the point of danger.

But I loved him, too—far, far past the point of sanity.

I spent the rest of the early afternoon doing as I was told, taking an Uber to the far side of the city, before turning my own phone on, and practically feeling the weight of a thousand different text messages flooding onto it, and I knew my father would’ve triggered an Amber Alert if he could, if I were a few years younger.

I didn’t bother reading any of the messages though, because I already knew they said variations on the same thing: I’m in charge, I know what’s best for you, and are you sure you haven’t done anything stupid?

The question: “As stupid as giving me away to a man I’ve never met?” begged to be asked back, and hopefully I’d get to say it in person—a chance I realized was coming up, when I found a very tired looking Rio standing outside my apartment’s door.

“Lia,” he said, his gaze on me clinical—checking me for secret wounds, or bandages?

“Rio,” I said, crossing my arms. As a child I’d viewed Rio as a friend—I’d even gone out of my way to make sure he wasn’t in my house when I burned it down—but right now, he was angry with me.

It radiated off of him like heat from asphalt and I felt it was disproportionate to what I’d done.

“You can tell my father I made it home safely,” I said, moving to brush past him, when he caught my arm, with a grip like a vise.

“You can tell him yourself,” he growled, then added. “But don’t hurt him.”

I gawked up at the much larger man. Who on earth thought that Nero Ferreo was vulnerable? Even where I was concerned?

I didn’t think so.

“Fuck you,” I snapped, yanking my arm back, before letting myself into my apartment with my key.