“I want to be inside your darkest everything.”
—Frida Kahlo
I linger in the doorway, resting a shoulder on the frame. Griff’s footfalls approach to my left, but I stay focused on the sight in front of me. Emmy’s eyes flutter open. She clumsily straightens, shifting the weight of her body away from the chains and onto her feet. Contrary to the first picture Raife sent me, the chains are now loose enough that her elbows easily bend.
Her legs trembling, she spots Aubrey, who wraps a bandage around her left foot. Then her gaze lands on one of Griff’s secretaries as she discards everything on the table’s surface. And then she finds Raife. Sitting in the corner of the room, too preoccupied with his phone to fully enjoy the scene he must have handcrafted after I left this morning.
I force my eyes back to Emmy’s, fists clenching in my pockets at the effort it takes to avoid looking directly at her naked body. I won’t look. I know what would happen if I did—the temptation that would pull at me until I lost all sense of reason. Raife would get what he’s been trying to manipulate me into since she arrived.
Still, from the edges of my vision, I see it, however vaguely. Teasing slopes, curves, and dips. A glisten of sweat reflecting off smooth porcelain skin.
Heat erupts inside my veins until it burns. It’s been a long time since I’ve allowed myself such a simple pleasure. My muscles tighten and ripple against the strain of my clothes at just the thought.
One downward glance and I’d see everything. Emmy Highland at her most vulnerable. Ten easy footsteps and we could be skin to skin. Her sweat on my tongue. Hair in my fist. The curve of her delicate neck between my teeth, black strands wrapped around my knuckles.
My jaw grinds from side to side, the cool feel of my knife suddenly between my fingers. The longer I stare, the more it all blends. The dark hair, the pale skin, those fucking eyes.
The heat running through me increases to a searing boil, and for a completely different reason. Hugo’s blood still covers the basement floor. The feel of his terror still vibrates through my bones. The kill is fresh on my hands. Alive in my mind.
Dark memories and bright white lights take over until they cloud my vision. Choked cries of the past pierce my eardrums and settle inside my chest. I look at the person chained helplessly to my chandelier, and I see her.
The woman who destroyed everything.
Kept me locked in a cage, forced me to watch.
As she skinned, gutted, decorated.
Snapped a photo and set a price tag on her artwork.
Every morning, every night, for 721 days.
An elbow nudges my arm, and I growl. Griff snarls and stalks past me, headed straight for the table. Straight for her. He moves his hand in front of his pants and adjusts himself, his intentions as transparent as the fucking windows in Felix’s office.
My strides are long when I realize I’m matching him step for step. My stare locked on one person only. Her head whips to me, then to Griff. Her heavy eyes go wide, and a shiver passes through her limbs. Aubrey and some secretary stumble backward, clearing the way. I reach up, unhook one cuff from her wrist, and her arm falls limply to her side. I unlock the next and catch her damp body before she collapses to the ground, then pull her tightly into me.
“Gentlemen.” Raife’s amused voice is like a faraway call filtering through the screams still blaring in my mind. “Hands off my merch, please and thank you.”
Ignoring him, my shoulder bumps Griff’s suit jacket as I exit the dining room with her in my arms and pace through the halls. They both call after me, but I barely register their voices. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, or what I’m going to do—hold the new hire or kill her just to get the screams to stop. My pulse is thumping so violently I feel it fucking everywhere—thrashing in my head, my neck, my chest, among other areas it has no business.
I shift her weight so I’m cradling her in both arms, and her head lolls to rest against my shoulder. She’s still shivering, but that’s the most she seems physically able to do. I keep my eyes straight ahead, strides long, passing door after door in a blur until I’m entering her room in the ladies’ quarters.
Standing over her bed, I release her from my grip like my fingers are on fire. It’s not gentle, the way her body hits the comforter, and she lets out a soft groan before folding into a ball.
Irritated, I toss a thin throw over her naked body to keep the biting temptation at bay, then I take a step back. And another. Stare straight ahead at the black wall above her pillows, above her head. My skin’s hot, my chest pounding the way it does when it’s been too long since I made a kill. It makes no sense. My breaths are ragged against the still air.
I should leave.
I need to leave.
I know this like I know the sun rises every morning, but my body doesn’t move.
I’m about to slip my hands into my pockets to keep me grounded when I remember my knife and drop them back to my sides. Better to keep the weapon away from my grip until I figure out what the hell I’m doing in her room. My knuckles curl until they go white.
Finally, I slide my gaze down. Past the wall, to the top of the pillowcase, to the long strands of hair fanned out behind her. Her eyes are open as she lies on her side, staring straight ahead into the open bathroom across from her, yet she’s not really looking. Her irises are blue glass, translucent and distant. Something about the expression makes the rhythm of my pulse normalize a fraction.
I like that she’s not really here.
I take a slow step forward, my pants brushing the foot of the bed. Drag my eyes down to her pink lips, then the soft curve of her cheek, her jaw.
She looks different this way. Curled up and absent.
I can’t place the tightness that pulls on my shoulders, my throat, at the sight of her like this, but a vague recognition stirs inside me. I’ve felt it before, even if I haven’t allowed my thoughts to wander there in years. I detest the feeling now as much as I did then. Perhaps more.
My brothers and I have a lot in common, one of them being our shared disdain for Katerina. We were all caged. We were all on death row, waiting to become fleshless pieces of art set in a display case. Watching others come and go. But there was one major difference between them and myself.
I was the only subject Katerina kept stored inside her studio. My cage placed five feet away from her work table. I was the only person who watched it all—every fucking thing—day after day after day. The only one who spent almost two years with my face lit by rows upon rows of relentless bright lights as she worked, and worked, and worked.
The only one—for the first year.
My second year in the studio, there was another. Another with black hair, pale skin, and those haunting sky-blue eyes. Another who, with one thought, makes my blood boil for entirely different reasons.
But no. I won’t think of her. I won’t do it now, or tomorrow, or the next day.
She’s not like Katerina. They will never be in the same category. She doesn’t burn my veins with deep hatred. I can deal with that. Hell, I thrive on it. Hatred’s the fuel that keeps me alive. Sofia, though . . . the things she ignites inside my chest are darker than that. Raw. Damaged. Everything I depend on forgetting.
For the sake of keeping my chaos locked inside my mind, packed in tight where it can’t escape, I intend to never think of her again.
My gaze slips down to the smooth curve of Emmy’s slender neck, her protruding collarbone. The fragile slope of her left shoulder, damp and slumped forward. My fingers squeeze into fists at my sides. I fan them out and roll my tight shoulders back. Before my gaze can travel any lower, I turn on my heel and pace straight out the door. There are many places in this house I should be right now, and none of them are here.