“He hit you over the head with a plank,” she sighs, scooting back to sit against the wall with her knees tucked to her chest.
I furrow my brows, and slowly, memory hits me. I followed Father here after the confrontation with Dominic. And I found Elena. Shit!
“Hopefully, you have just a mild concussion.” Her shoulders sink as she stares at my head.
I soon identify the glint in her eyes as care. It feels weird, and somehow that makes me angry.
“There’s no need to pretend, Elena. My memory is still intact,” I say, but it comes out with more force than intended.
She throws her gaze to the tiled floor, and I ball my hands into fists as memories of everything she did—or didn’t do— come crashing down on me. But I push them away and focus on the one thing I thought when I saw her.
What is she doing here?
“What are you doing here? I thought you ran away?”
She shakes her head, and I don’t know how to feel when I see tears streaming down her cheeks. “I didn’t, Bella. He’s kept me here since the wedding.”
Her lips quiver and my eyes widen. “W-what?”
“Father…he. Oh God,” she bites her lips and looks up as if that could stop her tears, but it doesn’t. “He kidnapped me, said he doesn’t trust me around Dominic and…I’ve been here since.”
Blood rushes to my head, and for a split second, the world tilts. She’s been here? Dumbfounded is an understatement for the expression that overtakes me.
“Why would he do that? Why wouldn’t he trust you around Dominic?”
“Because I know his secret.” She rests her chin on her knees, her thin, dirty hair framing the side of her face.
My mind races, wheels grinding in my skull. The wedding was months ago, and she’s been here the whole time? Dad kidnapped his own daughter?
“What secret?” I ask, holding my breath. As she lifts her head to mine, I catch a deep purple bruise that stretches around her neck in a pattern of finger marks. God, that is…that’s a sign that someone tried to strangle her.
My heart wrenches.
“I heard him speaking about how some assassination that he ordered had gone wrong,” her voice shakes, her hands trembling as if the mere memory of it hurts her. “And how…how they needed to pin it on the Moretti Mafia.”
I release a sharp breath and stagger to my feet. “What?!”
“It was the night before the wedding. I went to his room, but he wasn’t there. Shortly after I entered, he came, so I hid in his closet. Then he started making a call.” She pulls her kneestighter to her chest. “He found me and…I begged and...and I thought he’d let me go, but the morning of the wedding, at the hotel, he...knocked me out and I woke up here.”
Something about the way she says it makes my chest tighten. She must have been so scared.
“You know, I wish I had never moved to steal that money. I probably wouldn’t be here.”
I cock a brow at her. “Steal?”
What did she need money for? She was always beautifully reimbursed by Father.
“You’re the favorite child, you could have easily gotten money if you asked,” the words come out harder than intended. My vein pulses beneath my skin as I sharply glance around the cell, eyes searching for an escape.
I suddenly don’t want to be here longer than I should be. I sympathize with her, but that doesn’t erase how she treated me all those years.
“Things aren’t always how they seem, Bella,” she sighs. “I didn’t have the easier life like everyone thought.”
“I can assure you, you did,” I spit out without looking at her.
“Father never allowed me to treat you as anything more than…the usual.”
That halts my movement against the iron bars. Slowly, I turn and slant my brows at her, which causes more pain on the side of my head.
