Holly
Costa Rica is pretty. And lonely. But, after all, I’m no stranger to loneliness.
We’re at a beautiful place on the beach. When I say we, I don’t mean Alessandro and me. He brought me here and then he left. We didn’t talk on the way, he was quiet and broody the whole boat, then plane ride, then jeep ride here.
There were four men here, including Rocco, when we arrived. Alessandro walked me up to one of the four bedrooms upstairs and sat me down.
“Rules. Don’t leave. Don’t take the locket off. Push the locket if there’s an emergency. If anything happens to Rocco, push the locket. Chuck is my number two man here. Anything happens to Rocco and Chuck, you push it and then push it again five minutes later. But if you have to push it twice, you fucking run. Sewn in under the mattress label at the foot is your passport and a credit card. Pin 4321. Fly to Melbourne and wait in a hotel near the airport. I’ll come to you. Make sure to use the credit card to check in so I can see where you checked-in to narrow down your geo location to the precise address. When I’m done with this, I’ll be back for you. Don’t try to shed the locket and lose me. I’ll hunt you down. I’ll spend every dime I have, every ounce of energy in my body to find you.”
My blood chills, but I get mad, “You think I’d leave you? Are you crazy? Have I given you any indication that I’d ever leave you?”
He laughs and looks like he wants to kiss me or something. He doesn’t.
“And don’t hope. Don’t bother.” He’s trying to suppress a smile. But I’m still angry.
“And what if I do?” I snap.
He laughs full out and grabs me and plants a hot and wet kiss on me that leaves me speechless. He starts backing up, finally, leaving me feeling scattered sitting on the big king-sized bed.
“What happens then?” I finally ask, softly.
He stares for a minute, standing against the door, looking like he’s weighing something out.
He’s not saying anything so I finally ask, “Does this, whatever you have to do, when it’s all done, does it mean you can let go?”
“Let go?” he returns.
“Of your anger. Of trying to make me think you’re a bad guy.”
He laughs again.
God, I would love to make him laugh like this every day. But it’s at my expense, so I glare.
“I am a fucking bad guy, Holly. Don’t kid yourself about that. This gets done, I get to move on. But it does not change one single thing, except that I can move on without his bullshit weighing on me.”
“Who is he?” I ask.
He shakes his head, “It doesn’t matter. He’s done. I’ll get him and then he’s not my problem any longer.”
I shiver.
“When this is over, I’ll come get you and then we move on.”
We. We.
Oh, thank God.
I think he sees my relief. His expression hardens even more, but I don’t know what it means.
“Back to Mexico?” I ask.
“No.”
“Where?”
“We’ll see.”
Hope springs. A fresh start. I wonder if I can talk him into Portland. Or somewhere close to there.
He sees the hope on my face and decides to squash it.
“You still don’t get it. You’re not getting a fairy tale, Holly. I’m not off to slay the dragon and then ride off into the sunset with you on the back of my white horse. He’s done and then I finish using you all up.”
“What?”
“I told you.” He folds his arms across his chest with a shrug.
“You married me.”
“As a means to an end, as a means to build an alliance with the Ferranos instead of putting them on my enemy list. Nothing’s changed.”
“Bullshit.”
He raises his eyebrows.
“Bull. Shit. Alessandro,” I hiss.
“You’ll see,” he shrugs. “Can’t cry that I didn’t warn you.”
“Okay, why keep me at all? You’ve fucked me. You’ve broken me. Why? Why do you wanna keep me?”
“You’re mine. You gave yourself to me. But even if you didn’t, you’re mine. Until I’m done.”
“What if you’re never done?”
“Then you’re in for a lifetime of hurt and disappointment. Or you get fed up and murder me in my sleep.” His expression goes dark and for a minute he looks like he’s miles away.
“You gave yourself to me, too, you know.” I sniffle. “And that means you’re mine, too.”
His eyes dart back to me. “Yeah, I did. And I told you exactly what you were getting. You just chose not to believe it. One day you’ll see. Sadly. Stay in this room. I’d prefer you stay in here most of the time, but the only room in this house that’s off limits is the Master, in case the people who own the house decide to come. Be good or Rocco has authority to lock you in.”
He leaves. He leaves just like that. I watch, out the window, as he goes. He talks to Rocco a minute and then he pulls away in the jeep.
He’s deluded. He’s lying to himself. One day he’ll see. I vow it. The mixed messages I get aren’t because he’s trying to mess with my head on purpose. His head is the one that’s truly messed up. He’s wrong about himself, and sometimes he forgets to hide how he really feels about me.
***
It’s been me and four guards, one of them Rocco. It’s the other three to keep me safe from whoever El Diablo is and Rocco keeps me safe from them, I guess, because he watches me closely. I stay on the upper floor of the house mostly, other than to cook and clean. It’s a beach house and I don’t get to go to the beach, but there’s a pool on the rooftop and a big fenced-in terrace.
The one guy, Chuck, was doing the cooking and the food was terrible so I offered to cook and Rocco allowed it. I’ve been enjoying experimenting and the four men seem to appreciate it.
When I go downstairs or outside, they’re usually playing cards or watching sports in rotation as they watch the property perimeter in shifts. Sometimes one or two of them go fishing in the fishing boat or one will take off in the kayak. There are always two of them here inside and Rocco is almost always one of them.
A few days after Alessandro left, I figured out that this is Tommy and Tia’s house. And that gives me even more hope. The fact that I’m here and we’re not using the master must mean things didn’t go to war with Dare over my disappearance.
Everything was covered, closed up when we got here, but I found several framed photos in a drawer, including a framed wedding photo that had a memory stick with it. I popped the memory stick into the computer, and it’s got hundreds of photos of the Ferrano clan here at this house.
No pictures of my sister so it was pre-Angie, but there’s a lot with Dare from the wedding and what looked like a family vacation here and obviously this was before Angie and Dare met.
He doesn’t look happy. He doesn’t look like the Dare I see with my sister. He kind of looks more than a little bit scary. Like Dario Ferrano’s angry twin.
And that makes me break Alessandro’s ‘hope’ rule, which I’ve never even tried to adhere to. I break it more than usual after seeing the photos, because it looks pretty much like Dare wasn’t happy until he found my sister. The Dare I know is protective and undoubtedly a badass, but he’s a happy man. The Dario Ferrano in those pictures doesn’t look at all happy.
And maybe I can make Alessandro happy, too.
After Alessandro left, Rocco saw me on the computer looking at the pictures. He saw Dario’s face on the screen.
“Don’t worry. Your sister knows you’re safe.”
“Oh?” I asked. And then he sat with me and told me that she knows he had to stash me somewhere safe.
I expressed surprise that we were here and Rocco told me in not so many words that Alessandro is in some sort of alliance with Dare and Tommy, that they’re helping him with a problem. I opened my mouth, about to see what other info I could get from Rocco, but he lifted a hand.
“No questions, Mrs. Romero. I gave you that to put you at ease about your sister. That’s all you get.”
I can’t access the internet from the computer. It comes up with internet options for TCaruso and VCaruso to login. I’m not sure who those people are, but since there’s no phone here that I’ve been able to use, I can’t call her to tell her I’m okay.
When I was in Portland, after he left me and put a knife to Will’s throat, I’d gotten well-acquainted with how to call emergency services from Mexico (911, just like at home) and I made sure to memorize Angie’s and Dare’s cell phone numbers.
I’m under guard. I don’t wanna go anywhere. But, I would like to talk to my sister.
I ask Rocco if it’s at all possible to talk to her.
He tells me it’s not safe for me to reach out to her. But, he tells me that if we’re here longer than three months, he has been given the okay to talk to Dario about arranging for Angie to come stay for a few days with me here.
It’s something to look forward to. And something to dread. I miss her like crazy, but I have a feeling she’ll have even more hate for him now that he’s kept me away and out of contact for nine months.
I spend my time the only way I can. I swim in the rooftop pool. Rocco doesn’t let the other guys use it so that whole rooftop patio is all mine and gives me fresh air whenever I want. Rocco has a room on the main floor and there’s a Winnebago outside that the other guys live in when they’re not on shift. A couple of days after we arrived a shipment of art supplies arrived. And it makes me smile, because he’s done this for me again. He knows I need to do it and so he always makes sure I have my art supplies.
He can act like he doesn’t care deeply for me, but things like that keep stacking up to tell me he does.
I keep the house clean. I swim laps. I read, I draw, and I’ve started writing.
I’ve been drawing and writing out two stories. One, a graphic story that gives an overview of my life from my childhood to our wedding day, with the words and the photos, graphic novel style. Three sketchbooks came and I’ve nearly filled two of them with the two stories I’ve been writing and drawing pictures for.
Because I don’t know how my story will end, I’ve also been making up a story, alongside, with the ending I want.
It’s a modern re-telling of Rapunzel with photos. Me and him. The hero with the gunmetal eyes and the panther tattoo slays the dragon with devil horns and is set free from the invisible chains that Rapunzel couldn’t see, but suspected were there.
He slays the dragon and then he’s free to really love his Rapunzel in the tower with the long golden hair. They watch his chains burn to dust and float away.
Through playing with the computer a bit, I’ve found that the word processor has built-in language tools and I find myself writing things down and then translating them to Spanish to add to the story so that the hero says Spanish words that he might say if he wanted to tell me he loved me. That he wants babies with me. That he never wanted to be bad but he had to be bad to keep me safe, to slay the dragon, El Diablo. The kill scene was glorious and the end, even more so.
The hero tells his Rapunzel that he wants a home together with just us where she can cook for him, where she can take care of him. He promises to take care of her, give her babies, give me him. All of him.
I don’t know what makes El Diablo who he is. I don’t know Alessandro’s backstory. But when I eventually get the whole tale, I can finish the book. And write the epilogue. Me and him. Together. Him free.
***
Five weeks after I arrive, my husband shows up. The middle of the night, out of the blue, and in a mood scarier than the scariest I’d ever seen him.
***
The blankets are sliding off me. I sit up and reach for them, in confusion, but then my nightgown is going up and over my head. I try to focus, get my eyes to adjust, but it’s pitch dark. I feel it’s him here.
“Oh, hi…”
I sigh, in relief, and fall back to the pillows and spread my legs wide, ready to invite him to just take me. I feel my heart lifting, a smile forming on my sleepy face. I whisper his name and then he’s hovering over me.
“I’ve missed you. Is it done? You get him?” I whisper, running my fingers through his hair.
He growls, “Over. Ass in the air.”
He flips me roughly and then he lifts my hips up and yanks my panties to the side, slamming his cock into me. I wasn’t ready. Not nearly. So, it hurts. A lot. I lunge forward, reflexively trying to get away, but my head cracks off the headboard.
“Ow!” I cry out.
He snarls and yanks my hair back and then pins my face to the pillow, using my hair.
Is this a nightmare? Is he really being this rough with me? He hasn’t seen me in five weeks and this is the hello I get?
“You’re hurting me,” I cry out.
His hand covers my mouth and his mouth is behind my earlobe as he thrusts inside over and over, grunting, angrily. I cry into his hand, tears streaming. He’s pounding hard. He’s grunting. He’s holding my mouth too hard, he’s putting too much weight on me, and I’m just bawling my eyes out. Tears hitting his hand.
He growls, “This is what it means to be mine, Holly. Hurt. Being treated like a faceless nameless slave.”
It takes a long time, but finally, he roars out an orgasm like a wild animal and then rolls off me.
I stay on my belly, tears drying on my face. I close my eyes and try to go back to sleep. Brokenhearted. No kisses, no sweet-sounding Spanish. Nothing but anger and being treated like a blow-up doll. Except a blow-up doll doesn’t cry so do blow-up dolls make him come the way I make him come? Probably not.
He clearly didn’t get the bad guy. And he’s come back here and taken frustration out on me.
He doesn’t lean over and hold me, kiss me, or put his arms around me. He goes to sleep with his back to me.