Page 12 of Claimed Through Deception

Every time I close my eyes, I am slammed back into the cold brick of the alleyway. I feel the suffocating, immovable weight of his body pressing flush against mine. I feel the iron grip of his fingers pinning my wrists above my head. I hear the dark, vibrating pitch of his voice dragging across my skin.

I am a monster who slaughters cowards. Do not confuse the two, Livia.

I shudder, wrapping my arms tightly around my waist. I hate him. I hate the power he wields, and I hate the casual violence he wears like a second skin.

But mostly, I hate myself.

Because when he pressed his body against mine, when he caged me in the dark and told me I belonged on my knees for him, my body didn't reject the threat. My skin flushed. My breath hitched. A dark, treacherous heat pooled in my center, completely betraying the years I spent building an impenetrable fortress around myself.

I insulted him. I called him a pathetic thug and compared him to the man who ruined my mother’s life. I spit in the face of the most dangerous predator in the city.

He is going to come back. Men like him do not let a bruised ego slide.

The fear has turned me into a ghost. At the bar, I flinch every time the front doors open. I drop glasses. I scan the crowd with frantic, darting eyes, looking for a bespoke suit and pitch-black hair. Sofia keeps asking me if I am sick, but I can't tell her the truth. I can't drag her into this.

I walk away from the locked door and move into the cramped living space of my studio apartment. The radiator clanks in the corner, blowing dry, lukewarm air into the room.

I pull a crumpled piece of paper from the pocket of my jeans and smooth it out on the kitchen counter.

It is a real estate listing. A small, abandoned storefront in a coastal town in Maine. It has peeling blue paint and large bay windows facing the ocean. The rent is cheap because the roof needs work, but it has a commercial kitchen in the back.

It is my lifeline. It is my only way out of the dark.

I grab my worn canvas tote bag and pull out the deposit slip from my visit to the bank this morning. I trace the printed numbers with a trembling finger.

Available Balance: $14,850.00

It took me almost a decade to save that money. It is built on double shifts, aching feet, split knuckles, and surviving on cheap ramen. It is blood money, paid for with my teenage years and early youth.

I do the math in my head for the hundredth time today. The first and last month’s rent on the bakery, the security deposit, a cheap used car to get me out of Massachusetts, and enough leftover for basic baking supplies and three weeks of groceries.

It is enough. It is finally enough.

I grab a pen from the drawer and circle the phone number on the real estate listing. I am going to call the landlord tomorrow morning. I am going to wire the deposit. I will work Friday and Saturday night at The Neon Crow, collect my final cash tips, and I will be out of this miserable city by Sunday afternoon.

I just have to survive two more days. Two more days, and the man in the dark suit becomes nothing but a nightmare I woke up from.

I leave the paper on the counter and strip off my dirty uniform. I step into my tiny bathroom, turn the shower handle as hot as it will go, and stand under the weak spray until my skin turns a bright, angry pink. I scrub myself raw with a cheap bar of soap, trying to wash away the phantom feeling of calloused fingers on my jaw.

By the time I step out of the shower and pull on an oversized, faded grey t-shirt and a pair of cotton underwear, my muscles are completely exhausted.

I check the locks on the door one more time. The chair is still wedged tight.

I crawl into my small bed, pulling the thin comforter up to my chin. The streetlights from the avenue filter through the cheap plastic blinds, casting long, barred shadows across the ceiling. I close my eyes. I force myself to think of the ocean. I think of the sound of waves hitting the rocks. I think of white flour dusting a clean wooden counter.

Eventually, the exhaustion drags me under.

I don't know what time it is when I am pulled from a deep, heavy sleep by a sound so loud it physically shakes the floorboards beneath my mattress.

BOOM.

My eyes snap open. The apartment is pitch black.

BOOM.

Wood splinters. The sound of tearing metal screams through the small room.

Before my brain can even process the threat, the front door violently caves in. The deadbolt rips straight through the doorframe. The wooden chair I wedged under the knob shatters into pieces, flying across the linoleum floor.