Page 9

Max

Days have passed—days without a word from anyone. And, though it should be a relief, I can’t help but wonder what is waiting for me on the other side of all of this.

I glance towards her bedroom door, which has the lock pushed across it. I’m glad that she seems to have quieted down in there, especially after the accident she had the other day.

"I know what you were trying to do," I told her once I had patched her up. She narrowed her eyes at me, as though daring me to call her out.

"Oh, and what do you think that was?”

I gazed back at her, incredulous.

"You really need me to say it?”

"If you’re making assumptions about me, I want to know what they are," she replied, cocking an eyebrow.

"Assumptions?” I scoffed back.

"Yeah," she replied, lifting her chin slightly, meeting my gaze. And there was something in the way she looked at me that told me that she was willing to dig her heels in about this—even if she was wrong, even if she knew it.

And there is something about that which excites me.

I don’t like this. I don’t like any of it. I thought I could handle being alone with her. Hell, I insisted on it, telling my family in no uncertain terms that I could manage this side of our operation without a hitch. But the longer I spend here, the more I wonder if I was telling the truth or not.

I know the shit her father is involved in—the filth attached to her family name.

The sex trafficking. And I know that there are few people in the world I loathe more than Lucio.

I’ve heard what he does to people, to the women who fall into his grasp.

It’s not enough for him to use them. He wants to break them—to make it so that they have no choice but to do what they do for him, to make them his for life.

It’s beyond evil, and, worse than that, he doesn’t even bother to hide it anymore.

He doesn’t have to. He is too powerful to stop.

But what does she know about it? That’s the part that gets to me. I’ve skated around the question a few times, talking with her about her father, but she has always been quick to deflect.

“Do you know what your father does?" I asked her as I leaned in the doorway to watch her eat.

Now that I knew she had escape on her mind, I was even more determined to keep my eye on her, and it gave me a chance to shake loose some information about the Leone business.

She glanced up at me, mouth set in a hard line.

"You think I’m that naive?” she fired back. "I know he’s—I know he’s mafia. I’m not stupid."

I eyed her for a moment. Mafia, sure… but what does she know about how he makes his money?

"How much are you involved with?"

"What do you mean?”

"Exactly that."

"Why are you interrogating me like this?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, pushing her food away from her.

"I can leave, if you want," I replied. Her jaw tensed. It was obvious she didn’t want to be left alone.

"I’m... I’m involved with the business," she told me, almost defensive, as though she didn’t like the thought of me imagining her as some useless damsel in distress.

"You are? In what capacity?"

"Why do you think I agreed to marry Mario?”

The words seemed to catch her off guard, even as they came out of her mouth.

She swiftly pressed her lips together again, and turned her attention back to the food.

But the sentence hung there between us, heavy with meaning, as I tried to make sense of it.

That was why she had been marrying him? Some business deal?

With the age gap between them, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but I thought his daughter would be off-limits when it came to buying and selling.

With how defiant she has been, I can only assume that she doesn’t really know how much danger she’s in.

That her father never told her that she should keep her mouth shut and her head down when she had been taken by someone, and not to piss them off.

He would have told her that, if he had thought she would need to know, if he had imagined for a second that she might one day be in danger.

But he didn’t. Which means he has kept her out of it. Which means...

She might be innocent in all of this.

Even as the thought crosses my mind, I brush it away with irritation.

No. I am not going to let myself think like that.

As far as I’m concerned, she’s as much a part of it as her father is.

She has benefited from it, hasn’t she? She’s lived a life of luxury built off the back of the suffering that he has inflicted on other people, and she’s an adult.

She can’t be so ignorant as to truly have no idea.

A sound draws me out of my thoughts, and I look over to see the pot on the stove nearly boiling over. I curse and head over to grab it, quickly serving up the pasta I made for us tonight.

There’s something strangely domestic about cooking for her like this—something I’m not entirely averse to.

Living at home with my father and my sister, it’s not like we’re spending time together Brady-bunch style.

All we talk about is work, what we’re going to do next, how we’re going to handle whatever threat has been aimed in our direction.

But this? This feels almost peaceful. Almost pleasant.

I could get used to it.

I head to her room, pulling back the lock on the door and then stepping inside. She is perched on the edge of the bed, a book in her hand. She pleaded with me for something to read, and, unable to see any reason why I shouldn’t, I brought her some stuff to flip through.

She stands up and reaches out for the bowl. Her eyes are wide as she looks into it, and she flicks her tongue over her lips.

"God, that looks so good." She sighs, as she sinks down again to start eating. I’m about to head back out to have my own dinner and leave her for the night, but before I can, my phone buzzes.

As soon as it goes off, I snatch it out of my pocket, and lift it in front of my face. There’s a message. It's not from a number I know, but that’s not entirely unheard of. Maya uses burner phones often enough...

But, as I tap open the message and scan through what’s waiting for me on the other side, my chest tightens. It’s not from any member of my family. But I can’t say the same for her.

This is Lucio Leone, the message reads. And this is the only warning you’ll get from me.

That’s it, the whole message. Not as bad as I had been expecting, but somehow, even more chilling for its brevity.

I push my phone back into my pocket, staring straight ahead, my ears pricked for any noise outside.

I don’t know if they are already nearby.

Maybe they found my unlisted number by getting it out of one of our confidantes. I have no idea.

But I am going to have to find a way to be ready for them, one way or another. Just as I’m about to head out the door, a voice pipes up from behind me.

"That message. It was from my father, wasn’t it?”

I freeze. Did she see the screen somehow? There’s not a chance she could have seen it from where she’s sitting. I look over at her, confused.

"How did you know?”

She smiles slightly.

"I’ve seen people look like that before," she admits. "And it usually means my father has had something to say to them."

Her words hang there for a moment. I see the chance to interrogate her a little further on this, and it’s one that I am going to jump on.

"You work with your father a lot?" I ask her, trying to keep my voice as casual as I can. She shakes her head.

"No, no, he runs the family business himself," she replies quickly. "I just... I mean, I’ve lived with him my whole life. I get to know how people look at him, you know?"

I nod slowly. So, she doesn’t work directly with him. Or, if she does, she’s smart enough not to admit to it. She knows how it will look. She knows that she has to get me on her side.

She stares back at me, waiting for me to say something. I don’t know exactly what to come out with. I feel as though I will expose myself if I tell her something that she doesn’t want to hear, and if I do, I might make this harder on myself than I have to.

Because... it’s going to be easier for me to convince her to stay, if she actually likes me.

If she actually thinks she can put her trust in me.

She hasn’t exactly been speaking highly of her father in the time that she’s been here with me, and it’s obvious she holds some dark emotions towards him.

Anger? Guilt? I wish I could see into her head somehow, expose her for the person she really is, no matter what it takes.

"Are you close with your father?” she asks me softly. I nod.

"Very. And my sister."

Her face brightens at once.

"You have a sister?”

"Yes. Two, actually, but..."

I trail off. I don’t want to get into the saga that surrounds my sister Melinda right now. There are far more important things for us to focus on.

"You’re so lucky," she sighs. "I always wanted siblings. Sisters, especially. But my mother died not long after I was born, and I never had... I mean, it was just my father and me from there on out. And I’m very grateful for everything that he’s done for me, but sometimes, I wonder if I would have been better off with someone else to help me through it. .."

She trails off, stopping herself, as though she never intended to say so much.

She places the plate to the side, crossing her hands in her lap. All at once, she looks distinctly vulnerable, as though she might vanish in on herself at any moment.

"Sorry, you don’t need to hear all that," she tells me. She’s not looking at me any longer, and, without thinking, I reach out to cup her chin in mine. I tilt her gaze back up to meet my eyes, and I notice that her lips are slightly parted, a sharp breath passing through her.

"You don’t have to apologize," I murmur.

My words are softer than I intended, something in me wanting to protect her from what’s coming.

Not just because we can’t let her fall into the hands of her father before we get a chance to carry out this plan, but because I don’t want her to go back to a man who makes her feel the way that he clearly does.

My thumb skims up towards her lips, and they open a little wider, almost as though she is waiting for more...

And then, I snap out of it. I draw my hand back, letting it fall to my side again. She lowers her gaze, reaching for the food and planting it back on her lap, like it’s a safety blanket.

"Thank you for the food," she replies, and I grunt in reply before I make my way to the door.

I don’t want to be alone with her in here for another moment.

I can tell my certainty is starting to waver, and I am not going to let this happen.

I need to remember what her family has done, what they are capable of.

Acting out this damsel-in-distress bit wouldn’t be past her skills, no doubt.

Perhaps this is the role her father told her to play in a situation such as this one, lull her captor into a false sense of security only to hit me with reality as soon as the time comes. ..

I need to make a coffee—something to keep me awake as I face off against whatever her father has planned for me.

I know he’s not going to make this easy for me.

He’s not going to play a predictable game.

He is going to make sure that I get hit when I least expect it, and I can only imagine how badly that’s going to go for me.

I stride to the kitchen, ignoring the food I know I should be eating, and go to put on a pot of coffee.

I can hear her moving around in the room next door.

I wonder if she is scared about her father coming to get her, or scared about the fact he might not.

The fact that she might be trapped with me.

My teeth set on edge as the thought crosses my mind.

How is what I am doing so different from him?

I might not be selling her body, but I am still using her.

Still making it so that the most important thing about her is her relationship to her father, and how we can exploit it.

She didn’t ask for this. Fuck, she was walking down the aisle when we came to take her away. Starting a whole new life...

And I’ve pulled her away from that. Pulled her into this mess that my family and I have made, a mess that will end with either her family or mine being ripped to pieces. I’m not sure I can stand the thought of it right now, of losing my family, or...

I push the thoughts aside. Whatever comes next, I will deal with it when I have to. For now, I know the only thing that matters is keeping her under lock and key, where she belongs, and making certain that I don’t let this threat from her father throw me off.

Because that’s exactly what he’s counting on.