Ernst stepped in front of her, blocking her exit through the tunnel, and her mind flashed back to memories that she wanted to leave buried.
When she was fourteen, she’d stepped into a bedroom in Max’s home to rest, escape the party outside for a few moments. Ernst found her there alone, but instead of excusing himself like a gentleman, he had cornered her. She’d screamed, and she remembered so clearly the shock in his eyes at her protest. Then the anger. He’d fled from the room as if she’d been the one to accost him.
She hadn’t told anyone what happened, but she’d seen him several times after that event, and each time she could feel his gaze. Not pleasant like when she caught Max stealing a glance at her. Nor friendly. It was as if he was biding his time.
She clutched her violin case to her chest as if it were a shield and veered around Ernst. Her heels clapped loudly on the stones as she rushed under the arch, through the corridor, trying to cling to the echo of song.
Ernst didn’t say anything, but she heard his feet falling behind her, keeping pace. She wanted to run, but suspected it would only encourage him, like a panther hunting its dinner. He might only toy with her, but then again... she didn’t want to think about what else he might do.
She rushed along the tree-covered walk in the empty park, the chaos of traffic in the distance, honking horns and squealing brakes replacing the music in her head. The noise was a beacon to her, the promise of a crowd to ward off this man.
“Luzi,” Ernst said behind her, her name like a growl.
She walked even faster, toward the streetlights she could seebeyond the trees. Surely, even at this hour, some students would be walking the sidewalks ofUniversitätsring.
Ernst grabbed her arm, whirling her toward him.
“What do you want?” she demanded, wrestling against his grip. She tried to remain strong, but she felt like one of the strings on her violin about to snap.
He tightened his fingers. “Why are you out so late?”
She straightened her shoulders. He knew exactly where she’d been tonight, and he would have been at the ball as well if he’d been invited. “I’m on my way home.”
He pulled her closer, and the stench of his breath, the stale alcohol and smoke, gagged her. The canopy of branches overhead blocked out most of the city lights. “It’s as if you wanted me to find you.”
“That’s not true.”
“Perhaps you were hoping for Max Dornbach, so the two of you could sneak away.”
“Max is a gentleman,” she retorted, her arm throbbing under his grip.
“Then I’ll show you what Max is too cowardly to do.”
If she screamed out here, no one would hear her with the noise of the traffic, so she shook her arm again, praying for deliverance under her breath, but he didn’t release her.
He forced her to turn toward him. “And I’ll protect you from the Nazis.”
She cringed. “I only need protection from you.”
He laughed as if she’d made a joke.
“Let me go, Ernst,” she said, harsher now, trying to evoke the courage of her father, a man who’d fought a war to stop foreigners from bullying them.
“You don’t want me to let you go, Luzi. Not really.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Think what I could do for you.”
Her violin case was lodged between them, and she feared what would happen to the instrument if she dropped it, almost as much as she feared what Ernst might do. “I don’t want anything from you,” she insisted.
The heat from his breath burned her neck, seared her skin. With one hand wrapped around her waist, he yanked up her gown, pushed it up her thigh.
She pulled away, slamming his chest with the case. “No—”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“I distinctly heard the Fräulein say no.” A man half a head taller than Ernst stepped from behind the trees, dressed as a gentleman with the air of someone accustomed to being in charge. A blonde woman wearing a sweater and short skirt stood beside him.
