Page 19 of Taking Adalisa (Montgomery Syndicate #2)

ADALISA

M y eyes go wide. Does he know what I’ve been planning in my head? I haven’t told anyone.

“Wh-what?” I whisper.

“We’re going to talk about what you are keeping from me,” he repeats, like he didn’t stutter the first time.

“I ca-can explain!” I rush out.

Maybe if I tell him before he can say anything, he won’t be as upset. Maybe if I give him my reasoning, he’ll see what I’m going through and take pity on me.

“I didn’t mean it!” I whisper-shout. “I really didn’t mean it!”

“Wow, Little bit. Take a deep breath. There is no reason for you to get worked up about it,” he gently says, keeping a firm touch on my face. “We can work through it. I know you don’t like to eat things you haven’t prepared yourself.”

I blink several times as his words register. He isn’t talking about me wanting to escape. So that means he doesn’t know about my plan.

“I wish you had told me.” He tilts his head to the right side a little. “I wish I had realized it sooner.”

I open and close my mouth several times, not knowing what to say. I was sure he was going to be mad at me for trying to escape. I thought he was on to me, but he wasn’t, and now I don’t know what to do. My brain is trying hard to catch up, but it’s like it’s short-circuited.

“Adalisa.” His voice is smooth and low.“Come back to me.”

“Hmm?” I look into his eyes.

“There you are,” he whispers. “What were you just thinking?”

“I don’t know.” Tears form in my eyes. “Everything is a big, jumbled mess in my mind right now.”

He holds my face, his thumb rubbing my cheek every couple of minutes. “Just take a deep breath in, hold it, and slowly let it out. Good girl. Let’s do it one more time. Deep breath in. Hold it. Now, slowly let it out. Such a good girl for me. Do you feel better?”

I nod and lean into his hand. It should be a crime to make me feel this good with a simple touch. It should be illegal.

“Now, why you didn’t tell me you didn’t like to eat food that you haven’t prepared?” he asks.

How does he know?

“I’ve been watching you. I know things about you,” he whispers. “Did you eat the food I had delivered that my ma made?”

I look away from him. The food smelled so good, but I didn’t eat it. I wanted to so badly, but after his mother sided with him and told me not to fight and just give in, I knew I couldn’t. What if she had put something in it? I wasn’t going to take a chance on that.

“Adalisa, it’s all right. I’m not going to get angry with you,” Matthias gently says. “If anything, I should be saying sorry to you. I had no idea you didn’t like to eat food you hadn’t prepared yourself.”

No one does. Even Margery doesn’t know it. I’ve kept it from her for years, and I want to keep it that way. There are only a select few people who I trust enough to eat from without thinking, and most of them are dead now.

“Come on, Addy. You’re okay. You can speak freely,” Matthias encourages me.

“I didn’t eat it.” I look away briefly. “I couldn’t, no matter how good it smelled.”

“Can you eat it if you watch someone preparing it?” Matthias asks.

I’ve never tried it, and I really don’t want to. To know that I could blink and he could put something in it. Or he could change some seasoning to something I haven’t tried before.

“I don’t think so,” I whisper, shuddering at all the.

“Where did this come from?” Matthias rubs his thumb across my cheek as we stare into each other’s eyes.

I yank my head out of his touch and shake my head. I can’t talk about this.

“Adalisa, you’re safe here,” he whispers. “I will keep you safe.”

“No,” I force out.

“What happened to make you this anxious about food?” He keeps asking questions.

Tears prick my eyes as I stare at him. I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t want to relive it.

“You’re okay.” Matthias pulls me into his embrace. “But we’re going to work through this.”

I shake my head against his chest. What if I don’t want to work through this?

“Can you tell me if this has always been a thing or if something happened to cause it?” Matthias is persistent.

I suck in a deep breath and whisper, “Something happened.”

I grab his shirt and hold on tight. I really don’t want to be talking about this, but the words just tumble out of my mouth. It’s like my brain and body know that Matthias is safe.

“Good girl,” he praises. “Good girl for answering my question. I’m so proud of you. If you want to tell me more, you can, but you don’t have to.”

I clench my jaw and close my eyes tightly. I don’t want to talk about it, but once I open my mouth, it’s all over.

“Someone used to put metal shavings into my food, almost like a powder, so I didn’t know and couldn’t tell anyone.

It went on for a while until I started to get sick.

” My voice trembles as I talk. “I didn’t know why I was getting sick, and they didn’t want me to go to the doctors.

Said I had just gotten a cold, but I had a feeling it wasn’t just that. ”

“Adalisa.” His one word holds so much sadness.

“I didn’t know what to do. I was so young, but I had a gut feeling that I wasn’t getting better.

So one day, when they were gone, I went to the next door neighbors and asked them if they could take me to the hospital,” I explain.

Everything flashes in front of my eyes like it happened yesterday.

“They didn’t need any convincing from my appearance. I looked almost dead.”

I take a deep breath and hold onto Matthias. Why did I have to open my mouth? Why couldn’t I have been persistent and said I wasn’t going to talk about it? Why couldn’t I have been strong?

I haven’t ever talked about this since it happened. I asked the neighbor, they stayed with me, and then the police. That was it. No one else knows, and I planned to keep it that way.

“What happened next?” Matthias asks, running his hand through my hair.

“They ran a lot of tests on me and found out what was wrong. I don’t remember everything, but the police showed up and asked me a lot of questions. They arrested the perpetrator. I believe they are still in prison…” My words trail off.

I haven’t checked in a long time to see if they are still in prison. I am an adult now, and they can’t do anything to me. They are no longer part of my life.

“And after that?” Matthias presses.

“I was in and out of the hospital for a while. I wouldn’t eat or drink anything because that’s how they put poisoned me. I didn’t want to eat or drink because I was scared it was going to happen again.” I shiver in his arms.

Matthias holds me tighter against him and I heave in a deep breath. Recovery was awful for me. I lost so much weight, weight I couldn’t afford to lose but I had.

“They admitted me into hospital once and put a feeding tube down my throat. If I wasn’t going to eat, they were going to force feed me so I didn’t wither away,” I whisper.

“It took me a while to finally be able to eat again. It took a lot of talking to a specialist. When I realized if I bought food and cooked everything myself, I was better. But only because I lived alone and knew no one else could tamper with anything.”

Margery has never been in my apartment. I know she wouldn’t do anything to my food, but any time she wants to hang out, we always go to her house. Now Matthias has been in my apartment and I don’t know how many times.

Has he tampered with my spices? There is no way for me to know if he has, and I don’t know if I would trust his word on it.

I would trust him if he told me he hadn’t messed with anything and that’s what scares me. I shouldn’t trust Matthias.. But I do.

“And you haven’t tried letting anyone cook while you watch? Not even if everything is unopened?” Matthias inquires.

“No, and I don’t know if I should or would,” I reply honestly.

That is a level of trust I don’t have with anyone. I don’t think I’ll have it with anyone, which I’ve come to accept. It makes my life so much simpler. I don’t have to constantly think or worry if they have done anything.

“One day we are going to try it. When you are ready, but we will,” Matthias confidently says. “We will go grocery shopping and you can touch everything in the store. You will keep an eye on it all and you can watch as I cook it all for you at my house.”

Matthias pulls back and looks at me. He looks deadly serious when we make eye contact and I know he is telling the truth. There is no way he is bluffing on this.

“But it won’t be today. I know you aren’t ready for that,” he says before kissing my forehead. “I have an important question now, and I need you to answer me honestly. Can you do that?”

“Yes?” I reply hesitantly.

“Who did this to you?”