Sighing, I press the heels of my palms into my eyes until I see stars. But all that does is send the image of Nico’s face swimming to the front of my mind.
As soon as it does, another, unexpected surge of heat rushes through me and I force my eyes open, staring at the door that he walked out of a few moments ago.
There’s no easy way out of here. Hell, I’m not even sure if thereisa way out. He drove like a maniac to get me here, pushing well over a hundred for practically the entire trip. We must be out on the far end of Long Island.
I look up at the unreasonably tall ceilings of the room and sigh again.
Mom…
Did she even send me that text? For that matter, is she even still alive? I’d been so shook by the text that I had come running back to New York without thinking.
And now, in a cosmic twist of fate, I’ve ended up in the same position that she did: on the verge of marrying a man who’s given me no choice.
Mom didn’t want to marry Frank. She’d grown up with him as children. And after a date with him in high school, she quickly figured out that she didn’t want anything to do with him.
Frank, on the other hand, outright refused to accept that.
After Dad died, that was when the incidents started.
One morning, we woke up to her tires slashed. And wouldn’t you know it, Frank was there to tell us he’d give us a lift. Another day, someone threw a brick through the living room window, and Frank showed up to help put up bars on the window.
It went on like that for weeks and months.
Mom wasn’t dumb. She knew that Frank was probably the one behind all those incidents. But what could she do when Frank was a rising star in the precinct? And it’s not like all these little bits of vandalism were cheap. There was only so much she could hold out on, and after three years of endless incidents, she agreed to marry Frank.
Anger burns through my veins, chasing away the last drops of pleasure from Nico’s hands. I push myself up to my feet with fresh determination.
I’m not going to stick around to marry him. I’m going to go find my Mom, and then I’m going to save her.
Throwing one last glance at the door to see that it’s still closed, I start taking in my prison to see if maybe there might be a way out.
Under normal circumstances, the room would’ve been a dream. The lofted ceilings are easily fifteen feet tall. In the center of the room is a four-poster bed made of dark carved wood, layered with heavy sheets. There's a dresser against one wall, an upholstered chair by what I suspect is an actual working fireplace, and a nightstand with a large ornate lamp. On the other wall, I see a marble-covered bathroom through a half-open door.
It’s a pretty prison, I’ll grant him that.
Walking over to the large window, I stare out into the dark and see no lights winking back at me. For all intents and purposes, I’m on an island surrounded by God knows what.
I turn from the window and yelp in surprise when I see the same old woman who had greeted Nico upon arrival standing at the doorway with towels in her arm.
“Good evening, dear. My name is Giorgia.” There’s a warmth to her voice when she speaks, and her eyes betray no malice. “I have the towels that Mr. D’Ambrosio requested for you.”
“Lydia,” I introduce myself warily.
Giorgia’s smile widens a bit and she walks in to lay the towels down on the bed. “A pleasure to meet you, dear. Would you require anything else? I know Mr. D’Ambrosio said towels only, but I can bring you tea. Or something stronger if you’d like.”
A car. A phone. A door that locks from my side instead of his.
I swallow every one of those answers. This woman saw Nico march me up the stairs with a dead man's blood on my cheek, and didn’t question a damn thing. Whatever Giorgia is in this house, she is his before she will ever be mine.
"No," I say instead. "Thank you."
I walk over to the towels that Giorgia laid down on the bed, and that’s when I see a small silver picture frame on the nightstand, half-hidden behind the lamp. The edges are tarnished, which makes it look even more out of place.
The picture inside the frame is a woman sitting in a garden chair in a pale summer dress. A boy stands beside her. Neither of them is smiling.
Upon closer inspection, I notice a scar running from his right ear down to his chin.
It’s Nico.
