Chapter 7
DOVE
“Closed-off” is sort of my default mode, and how I typically present to the world.
I’ve also heard the word "prickly" one or two hundred times. Defensive. Unapproachable. Combative. Unreadable. Thorny.
I mean, it doesn’t take a psych degree to understand why I’m like this after everything I’ve gone through.
But yes, all those adjectives are apt. And in the last week, since the video and photos appeared of Bane and I making out on the top of the Empire State Building like some sort of goth-emo romcom, I’ve doubled down on all of it.
My walls are taller. The spikes at the top of them are pointier. I’m even more aloof than usual.
At least my friends at the Zakharova aren’t pushing for any details about it. I guess that's because many of them are from Mafia families themselves, and have been arrange-married.
Bottom line, no one’s being annoying at rehearsals. No one is asking questions I don’t want to answer, or making it weird. Even Val, king of the inappropriate jokes and comments, has been oddly quiet. Everyone's happy to give me space on the subject.
I shiver as the man all in black opens the car door.
I step out, reeling in my nerves as I glance up at the tall, gothic building near the northeast corner of Central Park.
Whenever I passed this building before, I always assumed it was a museum, or a private library, or home to a mustache-twirling supervillain.
How right I was.
Well, minus the There Will Be Blood mustache.
My throat bobs as I look up at the dark, imposing, almost cathedral-like building that Bane calls home because of course he does.
Yeah… My friends have been giving me space on the subject.
My captor is another story.
I pull my eyes away from the gothic spires and gargoyles—yes, really—as the man who drove me here calmly walks over and opens the front door.
Passing through a lobby guarded by men wearing black suits and covered in Russian tattoos, we take a brass elevator lined with red velvet up until it stops and the doors glide open.
My guide stays put, wordlessly nodding for me to step out.
“Good evening, miss.”
A man who looks to be in his mid-thirties with handsome features, blue eyes and dark hair, also dressed in a black suit, nods stiffly as I exit the elevator.
“Master Anontov will see you in the library.”
Master Antonov.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding.
Although, when you think about it, I already feel like I just walked into Bruce Wayne’s gothic house of horrors, what with the marble floors, the dark old-world wooden paneling on the walls, and the gilded, dim chandeliers.
…Guess it makes sense that he’s got an Alfred, too.
I follow the tall butler-or-whatever-he-is through the sprawling apartment…if you can call it that…until we get to a set of heavy double doors. The man raps his knuckles once on the wood.
“Enter.”
I hate that I didn’t instantly recognize his voice up on the roof that first night. If I had…well, I don’t know. Maybe I would have jumped.
Possibly.
I’m not sure.
All I know is that when that deep, rich baritone rumbles through the door, something tingles inside me.
The butler swings the doors open, revealing a huge, stunning room, every wall covered in floor-to-ceiling shelves of leatherbound books.
I don’t have time to admire Belle’s library, though. Instead, my eyes are utterly arrested by Bane’s dark glare, leveled at me through the doorway.
The Lord of the Castle himself is sitting at a heavy, old-school dark wood desk, his feet propped up on one corner of it as he lounges back in his chair. A glass tumbler of what looks like vodka sits on the desk in front of him, glinting in the low light of the room.
“Ms. Marchetti, sir.”
“Thank you, Alfred.”
I blink, my head whipping around quickly as I rip my gaze to the butler, then to Bane, then back to the butler. I wait for the snicker, but it doesn’t come.
The butler—I'm sorry, there is no way his name is really Alfred—clears his throat quietly, gesturing for me to enter the room. When I do, albeit only by a few steps, he bows and then closes the doors behind him as he retreats.
Then I’m alone with King Asshole himself.
I drag my eyes up to Bane’s in the silence of the room.
“His name is legit Alfred?”
His brows knit slightly. “Yes?”
“Really?”
Bane frowns. “Really.”
“That makes you…what…Batman?”
“I’m heir to a bratva empire,” he growls. “Not sure I’m cut out to fight crime.”
I swallow, resisting the urge to pick my cuticles as I glance around the—frankly—stunning library. Under other circumstances, I could lose days in here. Give me a barre, an easel, and some paints?
I’d never fucking leave.
You might not…
I pull my gaze back to Bane, suddenly considering how insane it is not to keep your eye on the predator in front of you.
“Thanks for dressing up,” he says dryly.
I glance down at my outfit: black knee-high Doc Marten boots, fishnets, an inch-too-short pink and black plaid skirt criss-crossed with low-slung studded belts, and a black Nine Inch Nails hoodie.
I lift my saccharine-sweet smile to him. “I wasn’t aware that Wayne Manor had a dress code.”
“I mean, most of the world has an adult dress code of slightly above angsty goth middle-school theater nerd,” he says with his own humorless smile. “But you do you. The black and white photography class is right down the hall past ‘Hating Your Parents 101’. Not to be missed, either of them.”
I can feel myself start to grin, but I keep that same sugary smile on my face as I glare at him.
Silence blankets us, him still sitting casually in his chair, me standing stiffly in the middle of the room.
I clear my throat. “Why the fuck are you doing this?”
“Because in our world, one in which we’ve both been raised, marriage is a business transaction,” Bane says evenly. “Your father has a new shipping port. My father has men—”
“You know what the fuck I’m asking,” I snap. “Stop patronizing me. Why, Bane?” My temper flares. “Why are forcing the friend of your dead fiancée to marry you?”
Bane’s small smile fades. His eyes narrow a little, sending a shiver down my spine.
“You loved her,” I say quietly.
His face darkens. “More than you know.”
“You’re angry because I persuaded her to come out that—”
“Stop.”
He doesn’t raise his voice, but his commanding tone slices through me, silencing me.
“Bane.”
“Yes?”
I clench my body tight to stop from shuddering.
“Why are you doing this? Why me? Look, I know you manipulated me, and pretended to be up on that roof to…” I trail off, shaking my head.
To pretend you’re as fucked up as me to get past my defenses.
“You used my mental state against me, Bane. Why?!”
He lifts an eyebrow, a smug hint of a grin curling his lips. “For this,” he murmurs, waving his index finger back and forth between us.
I bark out a cold laugh. “If you’re that desperate for a woman to be in the same room as you, you’re even more pathetic than I thought. And I'm not here willingly, so—”
“Here’s how this is going to work,” he sighs, sounding bored. That just pisses me off even more.
“What. The fuck. Do you. WANT!!” I scream at him.
“You.”
The word silences me utterly. My pulse skips as a clammy tingle creep-walks down my neck.
Bane smiles like a shark as he steeples his fingers in front of him.
“I want you.”
I blink quickly, my blood turning to syrup in my veins.
“Meaning?” I croak, my voice quivering. I hate that.
“It wasn’t that complex a statement,” he growls. “And there’s no double or secret meaning to it. I. Want. You.”
“I—”
“You’ll be my whore. My toy to play with as I wish, when I wish, how I wish.”
My pulse is pounding like thunder in my ears as he drums his tattooed fingers quietly on the desk.
“That…” My throat is dry, making my voice husky and unsure. “That’s not happening,” I croak. “That’s obviously not happening—”
“I have something for you.” He nods to a folder on the edge of his desk, smiling chillingly. “Go on… Take a look.”
My nerves jangling, I walk over to the desk and take the folder. It falls open in my hands, and when my eyes drop to the first page, my eyes widen.
What the fuck.
What the actual fucking FUCK.
I’m looking at my patient intake papers, forms, and records from Il Refugio, the rehab facility I spent nine months in before moving back to New York.
Black and white evidence of my sordid past.
“Fuck you,” I choke, almost dropping the folder. “You had no right!” I yell loudly, shaking. “These are private, motherfucker!”
Bane smiles coldly. “They were, yes. And they’ll remain that way.”
I blink at him.
“These are my medical records—”
“More like a written record of your history as a needle-jabbing heroin addict, aren’t they?”
I freeze, numbness spreading out from my heart down every vein, as he frowns thoughtfully.
“I wonder how many of your friends at the ballet know the real you? The one who got kicked out of the illustrious Oxford Hills Academy for—”
“Stop it,” I hiss, shaking. “Just stop it!”
I can’t do this. I can’t spar like this, not the way I’m wired—not with the fucked-up way my brain works. I just fucking can’t. Anxiety claws at me, my nerves fraying and splitting. I want to curl in on myself, or melt through the floor.
Seconds tick by. Slowly, it occurs to me that he has stopped. I take a shaky breath, realizing my arms are wrapped around my body protectively, my nails digging into my arms through the hoodie. I force myself to unclench a little, relaxing as much as I can.
I close my eyes and inhale through my nose.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Fill the space. Just be. You are on your way to recovery.
Slowly, I open my eyes again.
Bane's gaze is still locked on me, but I resist the urge to flinch this time.
“Fine,” I say coolly. “You stole my private medical records. Congrats, you’re a piece of shit. So, what, you’re going to hold them over my head until I fuck you?”
He smiles widely. “Precisely. That wasn’t such a hard concept to grasp, was it?”
“You’re disgusting. A deviant,” I spit. “A fucking freak—”