Page 144 of Thorns of Silence

I scanned the vicinity and found my captor, his bottomless black eyes the very essence of my nightmares. There wasn’t an ounce of soul behind that gaze.

“Time for your next lesson, Leone.” He purred like a cat and smiled like a snake. “I must admit. I didn’t realize it’d be so hard to break you, but we’ve got time. Your father’s not even attempting to save you, sitting in that castle like a king without a crown. Do you know why?” I clenched my teeth, refusing to engage with the fucker. Not that it worked. “I’ll tell you why. He believes you to be worthless.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” I coughed. “Get on with your sick shit or shut the fuck up.”

The pain in my body was agonizing. I craved oblivion. At least then my mind would shut down and the pain would be somewhat bearable.

I wasn’t aware of the guard behind me until it was too late. Not that I’d have been able to do anything to block his hit anyway.

I watched the metal bat gleam beneath the fluorescent light as it came crashing into my skull and the pain soared through me, past the point of return.

Then… the world turned black, yanking me into the darkness, taking my memories with it.

I startled awake, perspiration clinging to my skin, and felt my stiff limbs twitch and constrict. Almost as if I were back in that cell. Not my father’s, but the one I could only recall as being my personal hell.

As I forced my body and mind to settle, taking deep breaths in and out through my nose like Dr. Freud had taught me, I could see the light of the full moon reflecting off pale skin.Phoenix.

All the memories I’d locked away suddenly rushed back, and my head felt like it would explode. Ifeltthe memories return—felt them as my scars burned. As my heart pounded and my muscles convulsed. Felt them as that smell of burning flesh filled my senses again. Pain. Terror. I couldn’t pull apart what was real and what was a fragment of my unconscious mind, but the horrified part of me knew they were one and the same.It was all real.

I was frozen to the bed, the only anchor being Phoenix’s steady breathing as she slept, unaware of what was happening to me, of how broken and fucked up I really was.

The days and weeks in captivity. Torture. Pain. Both physical and mental. But then there were the other, lighter ones. Memories of Phoenix and me dancing in wide-open fields, the two of us in the cabin. Of her telling me about the baby.

I promised I’d take care of them. And then…Fuck!

When I woke up in the hospital, I remembered feeling as if something had been stolen from me. For days and weeks afterward, I couldn’t get any respite as I searched for memories that came up blank. Until now.

And I finally understood what I’d lost in that cage in the jungle. The most important person in my life.

Phoenix and Skye were mine. They’d always been mine.

FIFTY-SEVEN

PHOENIX

Icouldn’t shake off the feeling of guilt for lying to him about having amnesia. The irony of it all didn’t escape me. He actually had amnesia, and unknowingly, I used it to get back at him. I should come clean, but I didn’t want to ruin the moment.

I groaned inwardly.Of all the damn scenarios and lies, why did I come up with amnesia?

Dante lifted his head, sensing my eyes on him, and his eyes were ablaze with heat. And then there was that look again. He’d been giving it to me since we woke up. He had been acting weird the entire flight over, studying me with a lazy tug of his lips. Almost as if he knew something.

And then there were the reverent glances he threw Skye’s way, full of emotions that made my chest ache. The two of them spent the whole flight in the cockpit, nagging Dante’s pilots, geeking out and asking a million questions, Skye pointing to each pilot control button and signing,What about that one?andCan I press this one?to which Dante would translate patiently.

Somehow, in a matter of days, Skye became Dante’s sidekick. If he claimed the sky was purple, she would fully support it, no arguments.Because that’s what family does, she’d told me.

Dante hadn’t asked me again for the name of the man who had fathered Skye. He hadn’t asked many questions at all. I, on the other hand, had so many. I feigned that stupid amnesia and made everything worse though, so I couldn’t actually ask anything.

“Home away from home,” Dante declared as Cesar pulled up in front of the cabin, and the memories immediately sliced my heart open. This place was the last time I was happy, at peace. The last time we were both innocent.

The back of my throat felt like sandpaper. The cabin looked exactly as I remembered. Exactly as it did in my dreams. It felt surreal being here.

The car came to a stop and Skye bolted out before either one of us could say anything.

“I’ll show her around,” Cesar offered.

A strange sense of nostalgia washed over me. This place felt like a safe haven five years ago. Could it ever feel that way again?

Dante helped me out of the car, his hand in mine, and together we walked toward the cabin, my heart in my throat. We stepped inside and my breath caught at the rush of memories. Tears sprang into my eyes, but I immediately blinked them back.