Alessandro
December 26, Tasmania
We know where he is and we are ready to go. I’m very fucking ready to go. It’ll take all I have in me to not end his life with my bare hands, like he had me taught to do.
Instead, I’ll hurt him worse. I have help. I won’t fail.
But first, I need to pay a visit to Holly.
Today, it’s my wife’s nineteenth birthday. I haven’t seen her since the day after our wedding day when I’d bound her, taped her mouth, hooded her, and handed her to be taken to safety.
I had no choice. He found out I got married. And that meant that he also figured out that the now-dead girl I’d kept in Holly’s room wasn’t Holly. He was so fucking smug, thinking he’d taken a toy away. He was very fucking angry when he found out he’d been duped. And I knew I had to get her to safety immediately.
She’s on an island off the coast of Tasmania, hidden. Safe. From him and from me.
I haven’t spoken to her. I don’t know what she thinks of me. I got a few reports at the beginning but it was making me lose focus so I instructed them to keep their reports to themselves.
I can’t imagine she’ll still have stars in her eyes when she does see me. I can’t imagine she’ll want anything to do with me. It doesn’t matter, though. She’s fucking mine whether she wants to be or not.
They said they had to take the mirrors out of her room. She was yelling at them. Talking to me. Pleading. She smashed the one in her bedroom, so they removed the one in her bathroom, worried she’d get hurt.
They said that she painted me, drew me. And tore the paintings and drawing all up in a rage and shoved the torn pieces out the bars over her window.
And then broke down in tears of remorse. Tears that wouldn’t stop.
They held her while she cried for me.
It was fucking doing my head in. I haven’t gotten an update other than continued thumbs ups, in seven and a half months. I knew where she was, I knew she was safe. That’s all that mattered.
I’ll get this shit done and then when I disappear, she’s coming with me. If I have to live on a mountain in the middle of nowhere I’ll do it. I’ll give up everything else. Everything but her.
Nothing protects her from me when this shit is done. I’ll be done keeping her safe from me. From my bullshit. Let’s see how she does at making me happy. Ha. A fucking joke. She either hates my guts now or she will when she realizes that her happily ever after isn’t gonna be that.
Even if giving her up meant I could redeem myself, I wouldn’t. I am not a good man. A good man would save her from the evil inside of himself. I refuse.
She’s the gift I’m giving myself. Even if I don’t deserve it. Even though she deserves better. More proof I’m not the good guy she’s convinced I am. More proof I’m just as fucked in the head as he is. Maybe I can relate to why he wouldn’t give my mother up, no matter what she wanted. I can’t fathom my life without knowing that Holly is where I can get to her when I need her.
When I do sleep, I often have dreams about being on the edge of a cliff, hanging on by my fingertips, then seeing her. Sometimes she’s got her little toes against my fingertips. Sometimes she tries to pull me up but then she falls over the edge. Sometimes I dream that she and Mama are both dangling and I have to pick one of them only. I don’t pick fast enough and they both fall. I wake up sweaty and angry.
***
I fly to Melbourne and take a ferry to Devonport and then rent a car to drive to the port where I’ll catch a boat ride to the island where Elijah and his wife have been keeping her safe for me. Eli is Wes’s uncle. I’ve heard a hundred stories about him, he’s had an interesting life and his body is a deadly weapon. The man is a survivalist; there should be books about the things he’s seen and done, the tight spots he’s gotten out of. And I trust Wes, therefore I trust Eli.
Rocco is still proving to be trustworthy, too. If not for Rocco, my father might’ve found us before I had a chance to get her to safety. Rocco figured out we were being tailed in Vegas and eliminated that tail before he got copies of the wedding pictures to my father, which would’ve outed who Holly is because it would’ve shown Tom Ferrano’s son and his wife in those photos. He would’ve made it his mission to identify every person in those photos.
I’ve done as much damage control as I can and hopefully he still doesn’t know who my wife is. I put another girl in that room. I switch them out every few days, different descriptions in case anyone is reporting to him.
After Holly fell asleep in my arms on our wedding night, I got up to tell room service to send our dinner up, so we’d have something for when she woke.
But, when I checked my messages, that was when I found out that the night before, while I was passed out drunk, he had someone take the girl sleeping in Holly’s room. They killed Maria and two guards. Punishment for what I did to his office. Word got back to him fast so I knew I needed to flush out another of his spies. I did. I flushed out all sorts of shit.
I’ll stay here the night and then tomorrow, we leave.
Because I’ve come here, even carefully, I’ll have to move her again. I won’t take any chances.
I’m sending Eli and his wife on an extended holiday and I’ll be stashing her somewhere else, until I can deal with him and then … and then I don’t know yet.
It has taken almost four years to find my father. But now that I know where he is, it’s showdown time. I’ve had a single-minded focus for the past nine months. Find him. Plan for the day when I can end his reign in a way that will hurt. Cut the fucking puppet strings he’s got attached to my shoulders. And seeing her before that will either fortify me or it’ll bring me to my knees.
Holly
I’m staring out the window at the water washing over the jagged rocks overlapping one another along the shoreline. Today, the water looks particularly angry. Maybe angrier than I’ve seen in the past nine months of looking out this window.
I have a window in this prison, too. But this window has bars on it.
At least I can see the water through the bars. My room isn’t decorated like a prison cell, but it is one all the same.
The couple who look after me seem like good people, but that doesn’t change a thing. They’re guarding me. Feeding me. Providing for the basics. But keeping me locked up. For how long? I don’t know. Why? Because my husband sent me here.
My new husband gave me a beautiful wedding day, a wedding night that was better than a dream, and then he had me hog tied, hooded, and transported to a prison. No contact. For months. And months. Nine of them. The duration of a gestation. In the time it takes a baby to grow, I’ve had something else grow. A living and breathing ball of anger and frustration in my gut.
I’ve been stuck in a room for nine months. Two kind people to talk to, okay, but that’s an enigma because sure, they seem very kind, yet they are my guards.
Elijah, Eli, is in his late 50s, he’s a tall black man with a very nice smile and green eyes. Like Wesley Traynor. Obviously related somehow to Wesley. I’ve never asked. I woke up here, not remembering my journey and not knowing where here even was.
Eli wears a utility belt filled with things to keep me in line, should I get out of line. A stun gun, handcuffs, pepper spray. I’ve watched him exercise on the beach and he may be in his upper fifties but he’s cut, like he’s in his twenties or thirties. Natasha, also known as Tasha or Tash… she’s in her late 30s and pale and blonde. She looks like she could be related to me. She’s kind of a hippie. She’s sweet and crafty. And she’s nice to me. But, she’s still helping him keep me here.
They spend time with me. They provide me with paint and other art supplies. Books. We don’t have cable so I watch DVDs or draw. Or knit. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know where he is. I don’t know what my sister has been told. I only know that I’m in a prison. And I also know that today is my birthday.
Tash and Eli and I had a nice tofurkey Christmas dinner yesterday with some roasted fish, vegetables from the garden, and homemade rolls and pie. Tash knitted me a lovely afghan for my room as a gift. I’d seen her working on it over the past few months but had no idea it was for me.
Eli made me a chess set that he carved out of wood. It’s beautiful, each piece carved with such detail. He taught me to play chess so it’s an extra nice gesture, because it’s something for us both to do. It’s not totally altruistic because Tash won’t play chess with him. She says he’s too cutthroat and it’s unbecoming.
I beat him a few days back, for the first time, and he joked during Christmas morning that he wanted to take it back but it was too late to make me a new gift. In truth, I think he’s happy I won. Now maybe I’ll be a challenge, occasionally.
We ate Christmas dinner here in my room. Because it’s obvious that they’re not allowed to let me out. It has never been said. I’ve never been told this is a prison, but my room is locked, they deliver food. And when I had a flip out the first day I woke up here, they held me down and sedated me. I was sedated a lot in my first few weeks here.
I painted them together, as my gift to them. A portrait for above their mantle. I’m happy with the job I did. They both said they love it.
I cried for the first few days after the sedation wore off. And then I got angry and violent. They had to sedate me a second time. Tash is a nurse.
Although I can’t imagine that so-called nice people would keep me a prisoner like this, I have never asked them if they know who Alessandro is. I have never said a word about him. Neither have they. When I had my last meltdown, and got sedated for the second time, Tash sang to me, my head on her lap as she stroked my hair. It felt like I cried for days. I don’t even know.
I have my wedding and engagement ring on. I still wear his locket. I don’t even know how many times I was tempted to push the button inside the locket. I should have. Make him wonder who to kill. Make him wonder what’s happening to me. I’ve also been tempted to drop it out the window, hoping the sea would wash it away.
But, I promised him that I was okay with things being good just for the wedding day. I promised I’d try to make him happy. And I’m stubborn, especially when I make a promise.
If he ever comes for me, am I going to be able to keep that promise? Or will I want to gouge his eyes out?
Those eyes.
My soul aches at the thought of them. In the early days here, after the sedation stopped, I drew and painted him and surrounded the room with him. I think I might’ve finally gotten his eyes drawn just right. Not that it matters now. After I filled the walls, I tore the drawings and paintings all down.
And then I drew new ones.
And then I tore all of those down and painted his eyes directly on the walls. And then I painted over them.
Tasha was worried about me and tried to get me to talk about it. I wouldn’t. I haven’t shed a tear for him since a day several weeks after they stopped sedating me. I had one more good long cry and then decided I was done.
Today is my birthday. I don’t know if they know it or not. Tasha delivered my breakfast. Eli delivered my lunch. They’re acting like it’s just a regular day.
And now I’m staring out at the water angrily lapping over the rocks, the sky beginning to dim. Another year of my life gone. Three years of mostly solitude. Is my sister worrying about me today? Has Ang had the Ferrano family go to war with Alessandro over my disappearance? Has anyone lost their life because of it?
Is my mother thinking of me today? Is my mother even alive or has she drank herself to death, drowned herself in her sorrows, popped one too many pills?
I close my eyes and rest my forehead against the bars that separate me from an ocean that I often wish would just wash me away.
I hear the food slot open. The food slot was what Eli and Tash used in my first months here. They haven’t used it in ages. I figure they figure if I was gonna try to run away, I’d have done it by now.
Yep, that’s me … a stupid girl resigned to her fate. Her fate in someone else’s hands.
I glance over my shoulder and see something sliding through.
A saucer holding a single cupcake with pink swirly frosting. A candle sitting in the center. Lit.
My heart skips a beat. He’s here. This one looks the same as the one from my eighteenth birthday. I thought I smelled something sweet baking not long ago.
I hear the key go into the lock and then the doorknob turns.
I close my eyes and let out a slow, sad breath.
Alessandro
I step into the small room. She’s sitting on a chair by the barred window. Her hair is longer, half way down her back. I close the door and lean against it. I fold my arms across my chest.
The room smells like lemon cleaner, paint, and the burning birthday candle that’s beside me, sitting on a tray that protrudes from the wall where that tiny door sits, giving Eli and his wife Natasha the ability to send food in for her.
She looks healthy enough. Her hair is shiny. Her skin is still perfect, though a bit pale. She’s a bit thin. She’s wearing too-short jean shorts and a black tank top. Her feet are bare, her finger and toenails naked. No makeup on her face. My necklace around her throat, my rings on her finger. Her hair is a little wild. I like it.
The room has a little twin bed against the wall. An art desk all set up with supplies. A four-drawer wooden dresser. That’s it. The room is painted a soft blue, the color of a robin’s egg.
Her eyes are pointed in my direction. Not on my face, to the left of me.
And there’s no light in them.
None.
There’s also no anger, no fire.
Fuck.
A rush of cold floods my chest.
Holly
He’s standing there, muscled arms folded across his broad chest. He’s wearing denim shorts, a navy-blue t-shirt with sunglasses hanging off the neck of it, and sneakers. I’ve never seen him so casual. No, I have. The day he took me from Alaska. It feels like a lifetime ago. But it also feels like it just happened. Time passes by in a strange way when you’re locked in a room, I guess.
His hair is a little shorter than I last saw it, and he’s got several days’ worth of scruff on his face. Just the way I like it best.
He’s got his wedding band on, too. And the sight of it nearly makes me choke up. Nearly. I hold my gaze perfectly still, staring at the wall beside him. I haven’t looked directly into his eyes yet. When I do, I don’t know what’ll happen. Will I melt? Will I detonate?
“Happy birthday, mi pequeña esposa.”
Little something? I don’t know what esposa means. I don’t care, either.
I say nothing. I keep staring at the wall.
A long moment passes.
I see nothing. I’m staring at the wall, but it’s now a blur.
“Holly,” he says softly and moves toward me. The softness throws me. Maybe I do care.
I chew the inside of my cheek. My eyes start burning. My chest, too.
I start breathing heavier. I feel my chest heaving as I fight to breathe, fight to not show any emotion.
I clench, wanting to disappear inside myself.
I close my eyes. My shoulders bunch up near my ears.
He moves into my space. His finger touches my chin as he tilts it up to try to make me look at him. I don’t wanna look. I don’t want to get lost in gunmetal grey stormy orbs that will just fucking slay me.
“Miss me?” he asks, squatting so that I have no choice.
Our eyes meet.
And I break. I shatter. But it isn’t tears of sadness or sorrow. I see red. I’m crying out in rage and I’m lunging at him.
My hands slam against his chest. I push. As he’s in a squat when I do, he topples and then I’m on top of him, straddling him. Nails across his face. Slapping. Grunting. I’m like a raging feral beast.
He grabs me and spins me so that he’s on top and then he pins me to the hardwood floor, my arms above my head.
I’m kicking and grunting underneath him and then I scream right in his face. A blood curdling hateful scream. It catches him off guard and I get my arm free for a second and slap him hard right across the face.
“Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!” I’m like a wild animal.
He slaps me back. Right across the face. Hard.
The ringing pain sobers me.
I freeze.
He’s breathing hard, looking down at me. I’m breathing hard.
His eyes? I can’t read them but they look almost… concerned?
“Fuck. You.” I repeat, breathless.
We both keep breathing heavily, eyes locked in a challenge to the death. Who will look away first?
I moisten my lips with my tongue and it means my win, because his eyes move to my mouth.
But I also lose, because he takes my mouth with his. His lips come crashing down on mine. I fight it. I thrash, I bite his lip, but he keeps going.
“Stop.” I choke my plea out, but that gives him the opening to slip his tongue into my mouth.
I push, but I’m no match for the strength of him on top of me, especially since my wrists are still pinned under his grip.
He keeps kissing me and then he’s whispering things against my lips in Spanish. Words that could mean anything, but the way he’s saying them against my mouth sounds like they’re words of love, of adoration or something, and it makes me angrier.
I’m thrashing, fighting, and then it dawns that he’s hard. And he’s rubbing his erection against me. He transfers both my wrists to one hand and the other hand goes up my top, under my bra, and his thumb swipes across my nipple.
No. No!
He grinds against me and sucks my earlobe into his mouth.
I grunt and fight some more, and try to knee him between the legs. That’s when things get even more serious. He pins me harder with one hand over my wrists, and then he undoes my shorts with the other. His hand dives in and I’m mortified when he finds me wet.
“No,” I whisper.
“Yeah,” he says against my mouth. His eyelashes tangle up with mine and that does it. That tangling makes me start to cry and I give up my fight.
He senses my surrender and lets my wrists go and then hauls my shorts down my legs and off, then undoes his fly and pulls out, yanks my underwear to the side, and slams inside me.
I swallow a sob and my eyes shut tight.
He begins to rock against me, and then he’s holding my face and kissing me.
“I missed you,” he admits.
I choke on a sob and grab him and bury my face in his shoulder, my arms tight around his back. If he’s not gonna stop, I can’t look at him.
“Tell me you missed me,” he whispers.
I respond with a whimper. I’m shaking.
“Tell me you love me, little wife…” he says, his voice gruff, and I’m full-out bawling. Ugly crying.
His hand goes around me, under me, and he cups my rear end under my panties as he continues to plunge into me, over and over, a punishing rhythm. And it feels so damn good.
And then he pulls back and puts his forehead on mine, looking into my eyes as he slows his rhythm, as he breathes deep and searches my eyes with his, blinking, making our lashes tangle, making my soul weep.
His gaze is tender. Mine must be that of a destroyed broken girl.
And then he puts his fingers to my clit and my neck arches and he doesn’t let up until I come.
When I do come, crying out right into his mouth as he swallows my cries, he comes inside me and collapses onto me, a dead weight.
After a moment or ten of silence, other than ragged breaths, he rolls off me and puts his dick away. He lifts me up and carries me to my little twin bed that’s against the wall. He puts me in it, my back pressed against the wall.
I’m in my tank top, my bra all cockeyed, my jean shorts on the floor, my panties all twisted. My heart all twisted, too.
He’s fully dressed, only his fly undone. He kicks off his shoes and toes off his socks and then throws his shirt off and lies down on his side in my little bed, facing me, his head resting on his palm, his elbow dug into my pillow. We barely fit.
“Well done, Lex. You’ve used me all up,” I say.
“Ah, baby. No. I haven’t even gotten started.” He caresses my face with his free hand and I catch a glimpse of rippling muscles and the black flowers beside that black panther.
I wince. Both from his touch and the fact that the gentle touch is on the cheek he slapped. He’s looking at it. He caresses it again. I’m sure it’s probably red. His face might be red, too, if it wasn’t covered in stubble. I do see some nail marks on one of his cheeks, though I didn’t break the skin open.
“Eli been giving you birth control shots?” he asks, toying with a tendril of my hair.
I snort.
“Not that I know of,” I lie. I’ve had two of them since I’ve been here, which let me know he could come back at any time. My last one, just under two months ago.
His expression darkens. And then he grabs my face roughly. “Don’t lie to me, wildflower.”
“Hah! Wildflower?” Please.
“My little flower’s gone wild.”
“Yet she’s in a cage,” I add, sourly.
He pulls me to his chest and kisses the top of my head. I frown but don’t pull away.
“I like breaking things that are wild sometimes,” he whispers.
And he did break me. I won’t disagree with that.
“You’ve broken me a bunch of times.”
“And I hope to do it many more.”
I chew my lip.
He just holds me.
“What’re you doing here?” I ask, finally.
He squeezes me tighter, “Shh. I need to sleep. Don’t kill me in my sleep, okay, Senora Romero?”
I scoff.
“Holly, please, baby. Please.” He kisses the top of my head, “I’m so fuckin’ tired. Never been so goddamn tired. I might actually sleep for more than five minutes.”
I go liquid in his arms and it doesn’t take long for him to fall asleep. He has no idea the power he has over me. Tangled eyelashes or the word please and I will just do anything for him. Even after nine months of not knowing what on earth is happening.
I can see over his body, to the shelf where the food rests after it comes in that slot. I watch the flame go out on my birthday candle as the last of the wax melts into my cupcake.
Happy Birthday to me.
***
I wake. I’m still wrapped up in his arms, trapped against the wall. I carefully extract myself from him. It’s not easy to do and I have to exit the bed by the bottom of it. I go to my bathroom, use the toilet, wash my face, and brush my teeth.
Back in the room, I see he’s still asleep, now flat on his belly on my little bed. He looks massive in it, like he’s sleeping on a doll bed. His feet are hanging off. But he’s flat out, breathing deeply and evenly.
I pull my tank, bra, and panties off and put on fresh underwear and a new bra and throw on a jean skirt and baby blue baby doll tee.
I try the doorknob and it’s unlocked. I go out and see the rest of Eli and Tasha’s humble little house for the first time. They’re not here. Outside my door is a large bag, a huge hockey bag, in fact. I open the zipper a little bit and see clothing inside. For both of us. And a wallet stuffed with money and two passports. Zander Roman. Holly Roman. Hm. The Roman name again. That was the name from our wedding night hotel.
I guess I’m going somewhere else after all. There’s also a gun. I lift the gun out. It’s heavy. I examine it.
I wander toward the door barefoot; I haven’t worn shoes in nine months. Not much to the place. A small bungalow that looks plain and ordinary. Two bedrooms. Combo living and dining room. Small galley kitchen. I’d gotten the master since it had the adjoining ensuite bathroom. Their room is tiny. I walked through a very humble living room / dining room combination with tatty furniture and lots of crafts, out to a cute wraparound white painted porch with lots of homemade wooden windchimes outside knocking around in the breeze, making up a peaceful percussion symphony. The sun is rising. And it’s beautiful.
I step onto a stone path, to a rocky beach. There’s nothing around us but trees and rocks and water and a dark sky that’s beginning to turn orange and pink. I still have no idea where I even am. I also have no idea what his intentions are.
The breeze picks up and blows my hair in my face as I sit down and put my feet in the water. I put the gun on a rock beside me and stare out. There’s no neighbors that I can see. There’s a big wide shoreline. There’s a dock that I hadn’t seen from my window but there’s no boat docked. I let out a big breath. And then I inhale a big breath.
What next? I can’t go on like this. I can’t spend my life locked in a room waiting for him to come see me.
I feel his presence. I reach for the gun, get up and spin, and point it at him, holding it with both hands. I point it to the ground immediately, unable to even point it at him without feeling like it’s all kinds of wrong.
He sighs and massages the bridge of his nose and then keeps walking toward me, feet bare, chest bare. Button fly jean shorts half undone. He takes it out of my hand. I didn’t even fight.
“Safety’s on,” he tells me.
I shake my head. Of course it is. I’m such a loser.
He tucks it into the back of his waistband and sits down on the rock I’d been sitting on, tugging my hand and making me trip and land on his lap.
He wraps his arms around me and pulls me tight to him. It takes me by surprise and makes my heart hurt. He’s done it as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. And it’s not. Not for him.
He wraps his hand around the length of my hair and holds it over one shoulder while kissing the back of my now exposed neck. His skin, warm, tanned, smooth. Seeing that tattoo… I feel weak in the knees and sadness spills out from the core of my heart.
He lifts my left hand in his right one and kisses the top of it and it hits me in the heart as it’s such a sweet thing, the kind of thing I saw Tommy do with Tia. It’s something I never thought I’d get from him.
“I have to go take care of some things. I’m moving you somewhere else while I do that.”
I frown, staring at his olive, nearly brown, skin in stark contrast to my pale skin.
“What?”
He gives me a heated stare, “I need you safe while I do a few things.”
I shake my head, in confusion.
“Where am I now?” I ask.
“A little island off the coast of Tasmania.”
My eyes bulge.
“Where is Tasmania, even?” I think of the Tasmanian Devil. Ang and I watched Looney Tunes all the time, every Saturday morning, even when the cable got cut off we would pull out the rabbit ears until we could get it in with minimal fuzz. I remember something in the cartoon about the map but I can’t recall where Tasmania is.
“Off the coast of Australia.”
Wow. I blink. Stunned.
“Make me some breakfast,” he says.
I continue to stare, dumbfounded.
“You know, take care of your husband like any good wife?” he snickers, teasingly.
I glare, “As well as my husband takes care of me? I’ll go see if my jailers have any strychnine in the pantry.”
“Or holly berries?” he teases some more.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I hiss at him. He stands, putting me on my feet, and then swats my behind.
“You have a lot of nerve, Alessandro!” I snap, pulling away.
“Ah, Alessandro. I was Lex last night.”
I have no response.
“You love me, I’m Alessandro. You’re angry with me, I’m Lex? Funny.”
“Why is that funny?”
His eyes light with something, I don’t know what.
“You think love is funny?” I ask.
He scoffs.
“Or ridiculous?” I push.
“More like ironic.”
I have no idea what he means by that.
“What if I’ve stopped loving you while you left me to rot? Would that be funny? That’s what you thought you wanted, isn’t it? But if that’s what you got, how would you feel about it?”
He grabs me by the throat and I gasp, teetering on the edge of the rock I’m standing on.
He stares, lip curled, but says nothing as I stare right into his eyes with challenge.
Finally, I snap at him.
“What does this mean? You’ll hurt me if I don’t love you? You want me to love you, even if you leave me to rot for nine months in a cage? You want me to fear you, hate you, and love you, right? Am I right?”
His lip curls some more. He doesn’t squeeze. He just holds my throat, his eyes threatening.
“Let me go. Lex.”
He lets go. “Go make us some food. Our ride’ll be here in an hour and I’m starving.”
“Where are we going?” I demand.
“I’m dropping you in Costa Rica. Then I’m going to Africa.”
“Africa? What? For how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
“As long as what takes?”
“As long as it takes for me to catch El Diablo.”
I stare, confused. But not confused. I know, from the night before our wedding, that whoever ‘S’, aka El Diablo, is, Alessandro hates him. But I don’t know why or what that has to do with anything happening with us.
“Do I have to be in another cage?” I ask.
He looks at me with a dark expression, “Maybe. Maybe not. Gonna be a good girl?”
“Do I still get to keep your soul safe?” I ask, trying to be snarky but it’s a fail. My chin trembles.
He gives me a sad smile. “Is there anything left to keep safe?”
I shrug and I move away. He lets me.
I go into the house, toward the kitchen, and then I find myself pinned face first against the wall. He’s holding me there with his body. His left hand grabs my left hand and his fingers weave into mine, mine pressed against the wall, his pressed against mine. I look at them on the wall. I look at our wedding rings. My heart aches.
He squeezes my hand and his mouth is against the back of my neck. “I needed you safe. That’s why you’re here. If that makes you angry, so be it. Angry is better than the alternative.”
“Is someone after me?” I whisper into the wall.
“Yes,” he whispers into the back of my neck.
“Why?”
“To hurt me.” His voice is soft but it’s lethal in its intensity.
“Me being hurt hurts you?” I whisper.
There’s silence and he squeezes me and then kisses my earlobe and whispers, “Yes.”
I swallow and try to remember to breathe. “How do you know---”
“He’s already gotten a Holly decoy.”
“A Holl---” I start but I can’t finish. I close my mouth and blink.
“He had her killed,” he adds.
His lips move against the back of my neck again, giving me goosebumps. I shiver. His arm wraps around my middle, and we stay like that for a minute.
I don’t know how to feel. I’m so…numb.
And then my skirt goes up, his warm hand moving up my thigh. My head rolls back and lands on his shoulder. His hand fiddles behind me and then he guides himself against me. He slides right inside. He hisses, his muscles tense against my back.
He grabs my hip and uses it to hold me there while he fucks me hard and fast against the wall, biting the back of my neck, both of my hands planted against the wall, his left hand still against my left hand, his fingers woven with mine.
I’m feeling so much right now. Remorse. Sadness. But as his hand releases my hip and slides into the front of my panties, it takes very little for me to explode on his fingers. He bites into my shoulder as he comes inside me, pinning me to the wall so hard with that hand that I cry out in pain.
He yanks my hair back hard and kisses my jaw and then my mouth.
He stops, breathes deep, and then he lets go of me, does up his pants, and rights my panties and skirt.
“This moment of honesty changes nothing, Holly. I can’t ever give you the life you want.”
“Do you know what I want?” I ask softly, yet challengingly, slumping against the wall, tears in my eyes.
He sighs, “Yeah, I do.”
“Oh really? What?”
He leans forward and puts his mouth to my ear, “To make me happy.” He kisses the hinge of my jaw, lets me go, and walks away. I stay planted against the wall. Both palms flat. He goes back outside.
And my heart hurts. Because that’s still true. If he were happy, I know I could be. I put my forehead against the wall in front of me and let out a big breath.
A Holly decoy died? I can’t process it. He must love me to keep me safe like this, to put others in harm’s way. I hate that I’ve been alone, not knowing what was happening, that someone died to keep me safe. Fuck, this hurts so much.
“I’m sorry,” I say to the ceiling, to the heavens, to the girl who was in my place. “I’m so, so sorry.”
I was alone in ignorant bliss for two years while my sister was a sex slave. I’ve been just as ignorant here while a girl lost her life.
There’s nothing I can do about it. I only know what he allows me to know. But he takes the time to give me little hints here and there about how he feels. The tattoo of my flowers. The decoy. Keeping me safe. Coming to see me on my birthday. The tears he’s cried into my neck, the words whispered against my skin in a language I can’t decipher. The few times he’s let his guard down and shown me he cares through saying things I don’t think he means to say.
All I can do is keep believing. Keep hoping. And do what I can do to make it easier for him when he allows me to. So, I go the rest of the short distance to the refrigerator and survey the contents so I can make my husband breakfast.
I fill and put the kettle on for coffee - Eli and Tash only do instant, and I then start making some scrambled eggs and toast some of the bread Tash baked yesterday.
Before I walk it out to him, I go to the bathroom to clean up. He’d been leaking out of me. As I’m cleaning up, I wonder how many women he’s been inside of for the last nine months. My heart hurts. Did that decoy fill the space in his life, too? Did he touch her blonde hair and kiss the back of her neck? Did he suspend anyone from the ceiling in his bedroom? Did he fuck them and call them his little flower?
Did he visit the basement and undo his pants while he was down there? I feel myself spiraling into the depths of despair. I see flashes of other blonde girls choking on his cock. I choke on that thought and a sob escapes.
I dash the tears off my cheeks and carry his plate and coffee cup out.
There’s a little picnic table outside that Eli built. I watched him put it together through my window. I serve our breakfast there.
Alessandro was looking out at the water, sitting on the rock he first found me at earlier. As I put things down, Alessandro gets up and comes and sits.
“Milk and sugar?” I ask, passing him his coffee.
He shakes his head, takes a sip of his coffee, and makes a face of distaste.
And then he takes another sip and starts to eat.
I go back to get my plate and sit across from him.
He devours his plate of scrambled eggs and then slathers mixed berry jam on his toast.
We don’t talk. We just eat in silence. I have a hundred questions, but I’m not sure they’d be welcome. So, I sit, watching him eat.
His expression is hard until he catches me looking at him. He doesn’t smile, but his eyes warm a little and it makes me feel a pang of something more than a little bit painful.
“What’s on your mind?” he asks.
I’m a little surprised.
“A bunch of things.”
“Like?”
“Who’s El Diablo?”
“Not talkin’ about him.”
I stare.
He sips his coffee and gives it a dirty look, like he’d forgotten it was subpar.
He leans over and starts eating from my neglected plate.
He has his fork almost to his mouth when I ask,
“Have you worn protection when you’ve fucked other women? You know, since you’ve fucked me bare twice since last night and you had a Holly decoy?”
The eggs fall off the fork. He puts the fork down.
I’m staring at him with challenge in my eyes but my heart is aching and racing, waiting for his response.
“I have another Holly decoy. She’s in your room now.”
My heart hits the bottom of my gut.
“But, there’s been no one else. Told you, I’m all yours. No one but you until I use you all up. And I haven’t used you up, Holly. Not yet.”
I crumple. My body, my mind, my face. And then I’m in his arms and he’s carrying me inside, putting me in bed, and holding me close, whispering Spanish to me, kissing me, and then he’s undressing me.
And I cry in his arms, in his mouth, wishing I’d found a way to learn Spanish. Because I wanna know what he’s saying to me and I know that’s why he won’t let me learn. Because he needs to keep his secrets. If I understood what he was saying, he wouldn’t be able to say it. But if I knew the words, maybe I could help. But maybe they don’t matter. Maybe all that matters is that I don’t give up on him, as much as loving him hurts.
Alessandro
I don’t know when my luck is gonna run out with her. This can’t last. This feeling like I can’t do wrong enough to make her hate me.
Like she should. Like I know I don’t really want.
I’ve given her the wrong impression here in Tasmania. Holding her, comforting her, telling her things to make her feel better. This is gonna set up false expectations. I move to pull away.
“Stop,” she says, “Don’t take you away. I feel you retreating.”
I freeze.
“Please don’t. Just hold me a while. Until it’s time for us to go.”
“This isn’t how it is,” I say.
She looks at me with what might be actual understanding.
“Please? I know but just… please? ‘Till we go?”
I settle in and hold her against me.
“Alessandro?” she asks.
“No questions. Don’t,” I say.
“Okay. I trust you. Okay? I’ll try really hard to just trust that you’ll do what you can for us. For our future.”
“No, Holly. Don’t trust me. Don’t think anything I’m doing is gonna give you a happily ever after. It’s just not poss---”
“Shh.” She kisses me and then whispers against my mouth, “I trust you. I love you. I do. I’ve never stopped. I was mad at you but I never stopped. I won’t stop. Okay?”
Fuck. She’s got my dead black heart in her fist. Her small but mighty fucking fist. She almost makes me believe. Almost.
I don’t say anything. I just close my eyes. She peppers my face with soft little kisses, running her fingers through my hair, and then, lying on me in that little bed, she shifts half off and her hand trails down to the tattoo of the panther and her flowers. I watch as she lovingly strokes them with the pads of her fingers.
“I love this, that you put this here for me.”
“It wasn’t for you. It was for me.”
She looks back up at my face. She doesn’t say anything, but I can tell by her eyes that she understands. She’s young, she’s naïve in many ways, but she’s got wisdom, too, this girl.
Noise breaks the spell she’s cast over me.
Our ride, the boat I told Eli to send, it’s here.