Page 29 of Scorned Beauty (Scorned Fate #5)

Chapter

Eighteen

Seven weeks later

Sloane

Breathe in. Breathe out.

That was the mantra I repeated every morning.

I’d wake up from troubled sleep and struggle to leave the bed.

Almost two months ago, I grabbed a chance for a new life.

I left Harriet behind, knowing I couldn’t take her with me in my fragile condition.

My mind and body were in a state of numbness; even taking care of myself was a chore.

The woman who cut me a deal assured me that Harriet would be cared for.

I didn’t feel guilt. I was too numb to feel anything.

Her deal seemed the easiest, and that was to stay away from the upper East Coast for two months.

Specifically, no contact with the De Luccis and, by extension, the Rossis.

I was never to step foot in Manhattan again.

I didn’t even ask her why.

Get up, sis , Billy said.

“Easy for you to say. You’re dead.”

I wasn’t actually hearing Billy’s voice, nor did I see him. The isolation in this beach town at the Outer Banks fueled imaginary conversations. I remembered little about the time I was taken, but I remembered in vivid detail my brother’s dying moments in that dungeon.

“Wake up.”

My brother’s voice was like an annoying mosquito in my ear.

It was like I was eight again, and Billy was eleven.

He and Harriet took turns getting me ready for school and feeding me breakfast, especially when Mom had been working late, exhausted, and fast asleep.

As usual, Dad was drunk on the couch or hadn’t come home from a night of gambling.

But it was the painful cramping in my stomach that finally roused me to my dark and dank surroundings.

I had difficulty opening my eyes, as if someone glued my lids shut.

I pulled my knees against my chest and wished I was eight again.

When nothing mattered but sleep and school and playing and eating the buttered biscuits Harriet used to make. “Ahh…that hurts.”

“She’s bleeding between her legs.” Grigori's voice. “What did you guys do?”

“We didn’t do anything!” That was Anton.

Their arguing sounded far away, sometimes muffled, my comprehension of their words going in and out of my hearing like a poorly tuned radio.

“Sis, wake up,” Billy said again.

This time I pried my eyelids open with whatever willpower I had and stared at him. He was sitting against the wall. Hands tied behind his back, but he was looking pale, his mouth almost bloodless. Eyes sunken.

“Am I dreaming?”

He chuckled painfully. “‘Fraid not.” He scanned my body. “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

That was when I realized I was on the floor and the ice-cold concrete against my cheek felt soothing. I tried to push up, but the stabbing in my belly restricted my movements. Warm blobs of blood gushed out of me like the heaviest of menstrual flow.

“Maybe I am.” Dom’s baby. My heart clenched. I was losing his baby, and he didn’t know. But my mind focused on my brother.

“You’re dying,” I croaked.

“It’s okay, sis,” he said.

“What?” I tried to push up again but failed.

“I’m tired,” he said.

“That’s because you’re losing so much blood.” Somewhere I found the strength to power through the cramp twisting my lower abdomen into a constricting knot. I got on my knees.

“You can’t save me, so listen.” His breath rattled.

I could have saved him. For the first time I asked for someone’s help—Dom’s—and he turned me down, ridiculed me even, and shattered my heart.

I scrutinized Billy’s face. Without even looking, I knew his wound was infected. He was probably septic, not to mention his blood loss. He looked gaunt and feverish, almost like a person in a zombie movie before they turned.

“It’s okay,” he said when my face must have shown my morbid assessment of his condition. The ketamine Anton injected in me muted my emotions. Otherwise, I would be bawling my eyes out right now.

“Billy, I’m sorry,” I whispered.

You couldn’t have saved me. Billy in my head said, I have to go. I’ve had a death wish for a while and you can’t keep saving me.

“So your answer was to take yourself out?”

If you don’t get up, then I’ll have wasted my life.

“Fuck you.” And that was usually when I’d ignore the aches in my muscles and roll to my side, sit up, swing my legs over, and plant my feet on the floor to get up.

I’d started going to a therapist three weeks ago, and I’d been taking medication.

I had done enough clinical rotations in the psych ward to know that I was falling into depression over Billy’s death and losing the baby.

The catastrophic combination of the events and the imbalance of my hormones had consigned me to this state.

Still, the idea of asking for help after Dom rejected me almost prevented me from seeking therapy for my mental state.

Because to reject help meant that I was strong.

And I wasn’t fooling myself into thinking I was strong enough to survive this without assistance.

So I forced myself to talk to someone. A stranger without preconceived notions of who I was, where I was from, and what I had done.

I stared at the ocean, convincing myself once again that I was not weak for seeking help. Grim thoughts languished in my mind. Was it a coincidence that I woke up in a pretty cottage on an isolated beach? Had the woman who paid for me to leave hoped that I would end my life on my own?

It would be so easy.

The ocean was right there.

In my drugged-out state after Grigori surrendered me to that woman, I remembered being taken to a hospital or a clinic.

After that, my mind was blank. I woke up in this house with a note and specific instructions, along with bottles of pain medication and sleeping pills.

I could stay in this beach house until the end of summer to recover—or join my brother.

The ocean was right there.

But after witnessing Bianca almost drowning, I shuddered to entertain that idea. Plus, I intended to check on Harriet eventually after I’d forgiven her for the secret she shared with Billy.

Phil Harding lived. I found an obscure news clip about a man falling from my apartment building and surfing the fire escape. There was an odd reference about an orange cat being taken in and adopted by a Good Samaritan. I was keeping my fingers crossed it was Ginger, and she was okay.

My van was parked in front of the cottage.

I didn’t know how it got here. It needed maintenance, but I used it to go into town for groceries.

It was the middle of summer in the Outer Banks.

The enthusiasm and carefree life of college kids slowly rubbed off on me, giving me a shot of levity during my darkest days.

Normally, I’d be resentful that they got to do their vacations in between semesters while I slaved away as a cleaner, but now I was paid to take a break.

Little by little, with the sun on my skin giving me a shot of serotonin and with the meds, it took the edge off the feeling of drowning.

Fifty thousand in cold hard unmarked bills didn’t do it.

But talking to someone who didn’t judge me for my past did.

Grief and loss were irrevocably intertwined.

All I had to do was continue breathing.

In. Out.

After coffee, I walked along the beach. The sound of the waves calmed my senses and infused my system with a rush of energy that seemed to desert me each time I woke up from a restless sleep.

The vastness of the ocean made me feel small and big at the same time.

My heart rate sped up. Yesterday, I finally swam in the sea, trusting myself not to let myself drown.

Taking a dip in the ocean and breaking to the surface was cathartic. It made me feel alive.

I peeled away the sarong around my waist and dropped it on the beach and waded in.

The surf rushed around me.

I laughed. For the first time in weeks, I laughed. And that made me cry.

Face it, Sloane, you’re still a wreck.

Against the backdrop of a clear blue sky, I focused on the sailboat a few hundred yards out. I thought I heard my name. A rough echo in the wind.

The feeling of sand sinking around my toes. The heft of the water as I moved against it. I soaked up every sensation, reminding me I could feel. That I wasn’t numb. Enjoying life’s simple pleasures was a start. It was a matter of coaxing one foot in front of me and forcing the other to follow.

Then I stepped into nothing.

The ocean swallowed me up. After my initial panic, I calmed enough to let buoyancy do its job. But then I wanted to experience the deep again and dove back in. A glimmer of sunlight illuminated the sandy and rocky terrain, beckoning me to swim toward it.

Can you hear me down here, Billy?

I stayed suspended in the ocean’s depths.

You need to head back , he replied.

Back where? I have nowhere to go.

I’m sorry, Sloane. Forgive me.

Powerful bands clamped around my body and hauled me upwards. I struggled against the tentacles gripping me tight. I choked on salt water.

My eyes watered.

Panic seized me.

Lungs. Heart. They jump-started my survival mode.

I kicked.

I broke the surface, spitting water. My nostrils burned.

And then I realized what was happening.

Some idiot thought I was drowning. Infuriated, I let my body go limp and let him perform his heroic duty for the day.

“Goddammit, Sloane! Goddammit!”

Wait. Dom?

“Let me go!” I only managed a croak.

“Fuck that!”

My feet dragged along the surface of the sand, letting me know we were back in shallow water.

Before I renewed my fight to be free of him, he swept me into his arms and I was staring into his furious eyes.

“I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” I informed him.

His eyes were too dark for the morning. He was angry.

Well, I was angrier. How dare he infiltrate my newly found peace?

“Could have fooled me,” he gritted.

We were back on dry land, and he set me flat on the warm sand. And before I could jackknife into position, he flung his body on top of me, trapping me on the shore.