My brain short-circuits completely.
He stands, watching me the way he watched me in the history aisle.
"You." The word comes out like an accusation and a question at the same time, barely above a whisper.
"Miss Marino." His voice is exactly the same. Deep. Controlled. That same quiet gravel underneath. "Please, sit."
It's not a request.
I don't move at first, but my heels remind me that I can be upset from the chair.
My mind is scrambling through the afternoon, rewinding every exchange, every glance, every carefully chosen word. I wanted something specific, or should I trust the librarian? Already found what I was looking for. I wasn't only talking about the book.
Every single moment of it. The warmth, the charm, the way his thumb grazed my hand like it meant something, it was all planned.
The rage that moves through me is so white-hot and clean it almost steadies my hands.
I walk to the chair. I sit. Spine straight. Chin up.
Elio closes the doors behind me. The soft click might as well be a cell door locking.
"You came to the library." My voice is steadier than I deserve credit for. "Yesterday. That was on purpose."
"Yes."
“Why?”
“I wanted to see you.”
I hold his gaze even though every instinct screams to look away. "You wanted to see me before you had me taken?"
Something unreadable crosses his face. "I wanted to see you before I made you, my wife."
"Before what?"
The absurdity of this conversation of sitting across from the man who made my pulse stutter in a library aisle two days ago, who now sits behind a mahogany desk like a king receiving tribute, is so enormous I can barely hold it all at once.
“Look, if you plan to hurt me in any way.”
That depends entirely on you. Your cooperation. Your obedience.
The way he looks at me when he says it, makes my breath hitch. “Okay?” he asks.
“Okay.”
I take a deep breath to keep from panicking. The slight tilt of his head, like I'm a puzzle he's still turning over. The complete stillness of his body. The faint scar bisecting his left eyebrow that I didn't notice the other day, or maybe I was too distracted to look closely enough. The silver threading through his dark hair at the temples.
He looks the same.
He is something completely different.
"You look like her," he says finally.
I blink. "Excuse me?"
"Your mother. Maria." He leans back in his chair, and somehow that makes him more intimidating, like he needed to exude any more power. "You have her eyes. Her bone structure. Her mouth."
The mention of my mother sends ice through my veins. "Is she—" I can't finish the question.
