Panic starts to build in my chest, a familiar tightness that makes it hard to breathe. Where is he? Has something happened? Did Desmond find us somehow?
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, wincing as my bare feet hit the cold hardwood floor. The cottage is small—I can see that much from the bedroom doorway. There's a living area with a stone fireplace, a tiny kitchen, and what looks like a bathroom down the hall. Everything is neat and clean but impersonal—clearly, no one has actually occupied this place for a long time.
"Elio?" I try again, louder this time.
Still nothing.
My heart is racing now, that familiar fight-or-flight response kicking in. I should check the other rooms, should look for signs of a struggle, should do something other than stand here frozenwith fear. But my legs feel like jelly, and I can't seem to make them move.
And then I see it—a piece of paper on the nightstand that I missed in my initial panic. My name is written on it, and Elio’s initial is at the end.
With shaking hands, I pick up the note and read it.
Annie,
I had to go back to the city to handle some business and throw Ronan off our trail. You're safe here—there are two guards outside, and they have strict instructions not to let anyone near the house except me.
I'll be back as soon as I can. Don't leave the cabin for any reason.
E
Relief floods through me so suddenly that my knees buckle, and I sink back down onto the bed. He didn't abandon me. He's coming back. I'm safe.
But even as I tell myself this, the fear doesn't completely fade. I’ve never minded being alone before—I actually prefer the fact that I have my own place now—but after last night, the solitude feels suffocating.
I look around the room again, looking for details I missed before, but there isn’t much more to take in. There’s a small closet, a mirror above the dresser. No television in this room, although I think I saw one in the living room. There are several pillows on the bed—whoever decorated wanted it to be comfortable, at least.
My reflection in the dresser mirror makes me wince. My copper hair is a tangled mess, my makeup is smeared beyond recognition, and there are dark circles under my blue eyes thatmatch the bruises on my wrists and the reddish-purple marks on my throat.
I should shower. I should clean myself up and try to wash away the memory of his hands on my skin. But the thought of being naked and vulnerable, even alone, makes my stomach churn.
Instead, I crawl back into bed, wrapping my arms around myself and breathing in the scent of Elio’s clothing, already fading, much to my dismay. The cottage is quiet except for the sound of the wind in the trees outside and the occasional creak of settling wood. It should be peaceful, but every small noise makes me jump.
I close my eyes and try to recapture the dreams from last night—the ones where Elio touched me with reverence instead of Desmond’s violence, where his hands brought pleasure instead of pain. But in the harsh light of day, those fantasies feel foolish. Elio is helping me because he's a good man, because we have history, because I begged him to protect me. Not because he wants me the way I want him. And in the light of day, desire feels much further away for me, too. I’m no longer sure if I want Elio to rewrite the feeling of hands on my skin. I’m no longer sure if I ever want to be touched ever again.
I think of his hands on me last night, cleaning me up, and a pleasant shiver runs through me. I curl into a ball, wanting to feel as close to him as I can. Being alone here is bringing back too many memories. Too many reminders of all the things that used to exist between us that don’t any longer. Thatcan’t.
Even as a teenager, I knew Elio was different from the other boys who hung around our house. While my brothers' friends were loud and boisterous, Elio was quiet and observant, watching everything with those sharp green eyes. He hung back, not wanting to ever overstep.
Except when it came to me. A few times. When neither of us could take it any longer.
I used to make excuses to walk past whatever room he was in, hoping he'd notice me, hoping he'd see me as more than just Ronan's little sister. Sometimes I'd catch him looking at me with an expression I couldn't quite read, but whenever our eyes met, he'd look away quickly, like he'd been caught doing something wrong.
Then, later, when we were older—sixteen, almost seventeen, he stopped looking away so quickly.
At seventeen, we started flirting with danger.
And at eighteen…
The sound of a car engine in the distance makes me bolt upright, my heart hammering against my ribs. But the engine fades without stopping, and I realize it was probably just someone driving past on whatever road leads to this place.
I need to calm down. I need to stop jumping at every shadow, every sound. But it feels too fresh, too immediate. There hasn’t been a chance for anything that Desmond did to me to fade, and I feel as if I’m going to come out of my skin at any moment.
The irony isn't lost on me that I'm hiding from one kind of violence in a house owned by someone who involves himself in another kind entirely. But there's a difference between the calculated brutality of the mafia and the personal violation of what Desmond tried to do to me. One is business, cold and impersonal—usually. The other is intimate and cruel in a way that cuts deeper than any knife ever could.
I trusted Desmond. I thought he’d never hurt me, not after what happened to his sister. Even if he was a little too jealous, too possessive, I made excuses for him. Chalked it up to the way that our world encourages that in men.
And he betrayed that trust. That urge to think he was better than he turned out to be.
