Page 5 of The Enslaved Duet

“It’s a shame we must keep you a virgin for your future owner,” he said as a thick finger slid down my middle part and over the shell of my ear. It was a gentle touch, but it made me shudder almost violently in fear. “I could have sold it off too.”

He laughed again, hard and strong into my downturned face before he twisted and walked to the red Ferrari parked partially on Mama’s flower garden.

Nico came to me then, placing a large ineloquent hand on my shoulder. “People will miss you.”

If he meant to be comforting, it had the opposite effect. Anger rushed up from my diaphragm like dragon’s breath. Screw him and screw anyone who thought the weight of missing me would come anywhere near to the emptiness at my center. They might not have me, inconsequential me, but I wouldn’t have them, this home, this city of dirty beauty and this family of sin-soaked angels. And into the emptiness a new man,my owner, would try to shove pieces of himself, his home, his city, his language… least of all, his cock. I was smart enough to know, even then, that the only reason I was worthy was for my beautiful veneer and the only reason someone would buy me was for sex.

I kept my head bowed, and Nico took it as the dismissal it was.

As soon as the thugs had left, I went to the front steps and picked up my book. It was in English, the first book my father had ever brought home from work at the university. A collection of mythologies by an American woman, Edith Hamilton. It wasn’t something that had intrigued any of my siblings, and I had claimed it as my own almost the second Seamus had stepped through the doors holding it and a bottle of American Bourbon.

I flipped to the story of Persephone, the beautiful child goddess who had been abducted by Hades with the consent of her father and to the obliviousness of her mother. My thumb tore the corner of the page as I jerked it closed, my damp print catching on the cheap paper and bending it.

“Cosima.”

Seamus stood in the doorway. Well, he leaned against it, his body colourful and deflated like a child’s old party balloon. They had pulled out three fingernails on each of his hands and he held them tenderly to his chest, even though I could tell one shoulder was dislocated. Without a word, I climbed the three steps, grabbed hold of his torso, and popped his arm back in place. His breath hissed out from between his dry, cracked lips, but he didn’t protest. After all, this wasn’t our first time doing this.

“It’s a good idea,” he said.

His damp forehead glistened, and I couldn’t resist the impulse to mop it with my shirtsleeve.

“It is,” I agreed, but only because emotions were impossible.

Each heartbeat forced them from my blood, condensing them into a small box tucked behind my breastbone. If I reacted now…Well, someone would end up dead, and I didn’t like the odds of it being me.

“You can’t tell the family,” he warned.

“No.” It would be my family who would die then. Thrown in front of me like broken shell casings in my standoff against Rocco and his crew. I was doing thisforthem, and I wouldn’t allow them to get in the way.

I’d leave a note on the kitchen table as I did when I had a sudden job come up in Roma or Milano. Explain that I had to be out of the country for work, and I didn’t know how long it would be before I’d return.

They would be upset, of course, but they knew it was a necessary evil of our survival.

I was often gone.

So it would take them a while to realize I wasn’t coming back at all.

“I’ll take care of them.” Seamus always did a good job of pretending to be a father. When he was home, he tucked us in, his alcoholic breath soothing as he sang Irish lullabies. He read to Elena, who still, much to her frustration, struggled with English, and he posed for Giselle, who loved his red hair and freckled face so much like her own. Only with Sebastian was he distant, and even then, it was due to my brother’s lack of respect and his blatant disapproval of everything Seamus stood for. If Seamus was in the house, Sebastian, often, was not.

And then there was me, his favourite daughter. It wasn’t saying much, Seamus didn’t have the heart to truly favour someone, even Mama, and honestly, I was everyone’s favourite. In a family of fractures, I was the pane of glass.

But being his favourite had taught me enough about Seamus Moore to know better than to believe a word he said. And as I smiled sharply into his molted face, I knew he was proud of me for seeing through his bullshit. It showed him that he had taught me well.

We were almost there.

The signage for Roma promised us a farther fifteen-minute drive, but I recognized the route well enough, even in the dark, to know we would be there in ten. After that, we would ascend the hill to Aventine, the exclusive neighborhood outside of the tourist scope, tucked among leaves and hedges like a hidden Eden. I had never been to that part of the city. My infrequent modelling career had given me no reason to stray outside of thecentro storicounless I was craving my favourite slice of pizza from a small trattoria in the Jewish Quarter.

As we climbed the hill, the Fiat huffing inelegantly with effort, I twisted my hands in my lap and forced myself to take three deep breaths. I had my own plan, and it was about time that I set part one in motion.

“Papa.”

Seamus looked over at me and smiled as he pulled into a small side street. “Yes,carina?”

“I have one condition for the sale.”

One red eyebrow rose, and though I looked nothing like him, it was uncanny how similarly we expressed ourselves in the flowing movement of our hands and the elasticity of our features. I felt a hard pang in my chest and wondered if it was because I would miss him or because I so deeply hated him.

“I will disappear, right here, right now, unless you agree to my terms,” I said.