Songs begin and end in a perpetual loop, and I get no closer to Thorne taking me upstairs. All I’ve got going for me is the peculiar interest he’s taken in Aurore Dupin. Though I suppose it’s not peculiar if I do in fact look like his dead wife. She was a notorious recluse, so she could’ve looked like the back of a truck for all I know.
“Are all the paintings down here ones your wife chose?” I ask as he drags me around in his offbeat way.
He shakes his head. “No. Only the Romantic and Baroque pieces were Paulette’s. The other ones are mine.”
The other pieces are awful, I think to myself. They’re tacky and militaristic and clash with the aesthetic of the interior. “I’d have to agree with your wife. I enjoy the Italian Baroque classics.”
“You collect?”
“On a much smaller scale.” Oddly, that’s the biggest lie I’ve told tonight. My house is a veritable museum of wonderful paintings due to my mother’s interest in and love of art, and I’m uselessly learned in art history. “Some I inherited from Father, others I finagled via lucrative business contracts.”
“You’re a businesswoman?” he asks with a condescending chuckle.
“I didn’t receive an invitation for your party based upon my looks.”
Thorne hums in thought. “I never let Paulette in on the business. It is not an appropriate sphere for women. Far too cutthroat for your delicate natures.”
I want to slam his misogyny down his throat, but I heroically maintain my composure. Remind myself he’s about to get his stupid, sexist ass killed at the hands of a woman, and smile. “I don’t scare so easily, Leader Thorne. I think you’ll find I’m not like most women.”
“Surely not,” he replies, yanking me in against his chest and snarling into my ear, “Because you’re no ordinary woman, are you, Miss Piccolo?”
Well, shit.
My eyes immediately flit up to the top of the staircase, but all I see is darkness. “I beg your pardon?”
Adding aggression to our arrhythmic ambulating, he squeezes my hand. For a slight man, he hides a lot of strength, because I cannot move. “Do you think I’m stupid?”
“Before tonight, I was thankful to never think of you at all.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t recognize my wife’s dress?” He shakes me in his arms and tightens his grip. “I knew it was you the second you spoke to me, because while you may have the unearned cockiness of your father, you’re also the spitting image of your mother. Luciano must’ve been devastated by her death, though he never deserved her to begin with, the rotund bastard.” We swing around the dance floor and I hide a whimper as he clenches my hand harder. “When you came of age, I offered your father quite a sum of money for you. I couldn’t have Katherine, but your father was always ready to sell you, wasn’t he?” Angerroils inside my mouth, frothing like saliva. “I can’t wait to tell him his precious heir whored herself out to me for free.”
Taking three deep breaths, I settle my gaze on him. If there was any fear in me, it’s gone. A hatred bone-deep as marrow has replaced it. Her name from his mouth besmirches her memory. “How did your wife die, Thorne? I heard she was sick, like my mother. But the rumors…”
“What rumors?” he spits, sliding his hand down to my wrist to clutch that instead of my fingers.
“I didn’t pay them much mind. Nothing about you or your sickly wife or your pathetic region was of any interest to me. But now that we’ve met, I understand why people think she killed herself. I’ve been in your presence for less than an hour and I’m ready to kill us both.”
His beady bird eyes flash with anger. If I’m dying here, I’m bringing this man’s ego with me. “How dare you, you two-bit slut. Sneaking into my party and siccing yourself on me like a bitch in heat. Like a—what’s the word you dirty Italian rats use? Like aputtana.”
Repulsiveandoffensive. “What are you going to do about it, Leader Thorne? Interrupt your bourgeois party and murder me in front of your guests? What do you think my father will do when he finds out you killed his only child?”
“Your father and his overfed Force don’t frighten me. And neither do you.” Thorne yanks me to the staircase with his weird strength and shoves me toward a CO. “Take her upstairs.”
As I’m handed off and accosted, a commotion erupts behind us when a body lands on the middle of the dance floor. Taylor vaults the second-story banister and lands directly on a standing CO, crumpling him beneath her. Like cockroaches in the light, the guests scatter toward doors in a frenzy of screams, tangled dresses, and overturned chairs. Taylor yanks the body up and uses him as protection against the barrage of bullets senther way. Her human shield jerks and stutters with each shot, absorbing the impact with his armor and flesh. She fires back at them from over the shoulder of her shield with a deadly precision that’s startlingly comforting.
Thorne drags me up the staircase despite my protestations. “Taylor!” I call before he smashes my face into the tacky wallpaper. My vision blurs, but I do see Taylor look up at me for a split second. Her attention turns back to her enemies, and she kicks her bloodied human shield into another assailant.
I’m hastened into Thorne’s wife’s bedroom, the door slammed behind us. One guard lies on the floor, either dead or unconscious. Thorne switches on the light and shoves me toward the bed. Using any strength I have left, I turn and knee him in the groin. He growls in pain and grips me by each arm, spinning me around. I’m shoved face-first into the mattress, getting a mouthful of stale bedspread.
When I look up, I catch a glimpse of the painting I’d seen earlier.Amor Vincit Omnia.Probably one of the only Caravaggio’s I actually like. It depicts Cupid happily trouncing on violins, manuscripts, armor, and other worldly pursuits. Truly love conquering all. It’s an outdated sentiment, if it were ever true. Love doesn’t conquer, people do.
I need to focus.
He brings down the back of his hand against my temple so hard I’m disoriented for a few seconds. His legs lock around mine, arms pinning me flat against the bed.
“I’ll scream.”
He chuckles. “For whom? My guards? Nobody will hear you. Nor will they care what I do to some imbecile’s licentious, deviant daughter.”
