Chapter 12
Emma
Darkness surrounds me as I lie in the center of the bed. The only source of light is the sliver beneath the door. It’s been on all night, almost like they’re trying to make sure I don’t ever feel alone enough to try to run.
Not that I could get out if I wanted to.
The door is once again locked from the outside, and the window is sealed shut.
I wonder if they didn’t think I’d notice that I’m sealed in here like a prisoner.
Or if they even care. Why try to put up all the family gathering pretenses last night if they planned on holding me hostage all along?
Tears stain my cheeks, and my heart is heavy. I prayed all the prayers I could pray, then climbed beneath the covers in hopes of finding some sleep. Unfortunately, so far, it’s eluded me completely.
“Lord, I need help,” I whisper into the darkness.
A shadow passes beneath the door, and my heart slams against my ribs just as it has every time someone has walked by. I keep picturing Mattheus coming into the room and drugging me again. Who knows where I’ll wake if he manages to knock me out a second time?
What will they do when I continue asking to go home? Will they lock me in this room forever? Put me in shackles? Worse?
And why do all of this? What do they want me here for?
Felicity made it sound as though they had some grand plan for me—marriage to a monster. I shiver as bile burns my throat. Surely I’m past that risk, right? I’m in my thirties. In the movies, forced marriage happens to younger women in their twenties. Not a kindergarten teacher in her thirties.
Things like this only happen in movies, TV shows, or books. They don’t happen to ordinary people like me. Right?
Except this isn’t fiction.
It’s my life.
And it absolutely is happening.
Did my birth family really track me down just to marry me off? Anger and betrayal war within my heart. How could this happen? How could they do this to me? I know I’m a stranger, but I’m still family—right?
Marriage.
“He would have used you as a pawn. You would’ve ended up married to someone just like him—or worse.”
Her words have been on my mind ever since she left me in the hallway, promising that she would do what she could to get me home. But what then? He’ll just find me again, won’t he?
I curl into my side and grip the cell phone I can’t even use because they’ve apparently tapped into it somehow and will know exactly who I call and what we talk about.
If Dylan figured out the message I was trying to give him, or Felicity did as she promised and called them, the last thing I need is Gio and Mattheus finding out and putting a stop to it.
Felicity said he would’ve killed her if he found out she was the one who orchestrated my fake death.
His own wife.
Forcing me into marriage doesn’t seem like too much of a leap when you compare it to that.
A gilded cage. That’s what I’m in.
Lord, why? I trust in You, but please get me home. Please, God. I need to be home. For the fall festival, for my students. So I can have a makeup birthday dinner with Talia and Connor. So I can tell Dylan—
The fight we had in the parking lot of the church comes to the front of my mind.
I was so angry—furious—at him for leaving the flowers and then pretending not to care.
My heartbreak left a fissure where that anger took root, seeding until I couldn’t help myself.
Because I wasn’t clear-headed, I completely ignored the fact that perhaps those flowers are his only way of telling me he cares.
Shouldn’t I be appreciative of that? Just because he doesn’t want to go back to what we were, should I really write him off entirely? It’s not as though he cheated on me or purposely broke my heart.
He was held captive and tortured for months.
Yet he still chooses to pick me wildflowers for my birthday and leave them in a pretty vase.
That’s kindness. And it didn’t deserve my reaction.
I wipe tears away from my cheeks, even though more are falling from my eyes right behind them. Right now, I’d give about anything to hear his voice again. To apologize for what I said and how I reacted without thinking.
Will I ever get that chance?
“Emma.” His voice fills my mind now. That tortured tone that I’ve come to know him by ever since he came home.
The tears come faster now, and I hug a pillow against my chest, curling around it and burying my face in it to stifle my sobs.
I want to go home.
To lie in my bed, with my pillows and blankets.
I want to cuddle my cat.
Grab breakfast at the diner.
And above all, I desperately want to see Dylan. At least one more time.
“Good morning, Emmaline,” Gio greets as I take a seat at the breakfast table. I set the piece of paper he’d used to summon me down beside me. It had been slid beneath my door right as dawn began to break.
Pretend. I force a smile. “Good morning.” The same woman who delivered dinner last night sets a cup of hot coffee in front of me, alongside a small container of cream. It smells amazing, but I eye it warily.
Could it be drugged?
“How did you sleep?” he asks.
“Okay,” I reply.
He narrows his gaze. “You didn’t sleep at all, did you?”
“No,” I admit. “I’m sorry, I’m just homesick.” Stick to the truth but pretend.
“Understandable. It has been a relatively stressful time for you since your arrival.”
“You mean since I was drugged and abducted from my house?” I ask. Gio talks about it like Mattheus simply lied and manipulated me into coming. Instead, he’d done something that would land him in prison.
“Yes.” Gio’s tone is harsher now than I’ve heard it since I was brought here. “He’s been punished for it, I can assure you that.”
“Punished? He’s in his thirties.”
“Does that mean we no longer need direction from our parents?” The way he asks the question slithers beneath my skin, but before I can respond, the door opens. “Ah, yes. Just in time. Please, come in.” He holds out his hand, and I turn to see a man walk into the room.
A chill runs up my spine as I watch him stroll into the room like he owns the place. He’s tall and muscled, both arms covered in dark ink. A gigantic snake is tattooed up the side of his neck, with the mouth opening right beside his as though it’s ready to devour whatever he wills.
Both ears have large black gauges in them, and his blonde hair is slicked back. His eyes are so dark they might as well be black, and when they land on me, my stomach churns in response.
When he takes a seat right beside me—between me and Gio—I shift my focus straight ahead, not missing the pitying expression the woman who brought me my coffee wears when she looks from him to me.
Never in my life have I met a person who managed to instill fear into me by simply being in the same room—until now. And somehow I know, without a doubt, that this is the future Gio has planned for me.
A wife for this monster.
I swallow hard—my heart hammering. Pretend, Emma. You have to pretend.
Lord, please help me.
“Heath, this is my daughter, Emmaline.” Gio gestures toward me, a proud smile on his face. “Emmaline, this is Heath Slater.”
Heath reaches out and takes my hand, then presses it to his lips, eyes on mine the entire time. “Emmaline, you are a rare beauty indeed.”
“I—thanks.” The area of my hand where his lips pressed burns like his mouth is coated in acid. My skin crawls as he releases me, and I have to fight the urge to gag when bile burns my throat.
“Of course.” He turns to Gio. “You did not oversell her, my friend. She is beautiful.”
“As I said she was. The spitting image of her mother.”
“Yes, yes. You were right.”
Nausea churns in my belly, so even though the last thing I want to do is turn my gaze away from this monster of a man, I prep my coffee, hoping I can manage to diffuse this conversation before it takes the turn I fear it will.
I no longer care if it’s drugged. Maybe by the time I wake, the Hunts will be here to rescue me.
“Have you heard from your pilot?” I ask Gio, fighting to keep my tone level even as my hand shakes while I stir my coffee. “Has the storm passed?”
“It has,” he replies, though he doesn’t elaborate. “Emma has never been married and is a kindergarten teacher.”
“You like kids?” Heath questions.
“Yes. I do.”
“Why have you never been married?” he asks.
Breathe. I’m honestly shocked neither of them can hear my hammering heart. “Just never met the right man, I suppose.”
“Ah. Yes. Well, perhaps that will change.”
Unlikely. “I think that I should—”
“Emmaline, Heath is a very powerful man.”
“Congratulations.” I force another smile, trying to keep my gaze on the man beside me, even though every second I’m looking at him, I’m sure I’m staring at the worst of humanity. How I know that, I’m not sure.
But I do.
Heath continues looking me up and down, like he’s willing to sic his tattooed snake on me at any moment.
Every single muscle in my body is tensed. I have to get out of here. I cannot wait for the Hunts to show up. Otherwise, I’ll end up shackled to this monster of a man. Of that, I have no doubt.
I start to open my mouth to ask when the pilot will be ready to take off so I can return home, but the door opens. Felicity strolls in, dressed in a white button-down shirt and a pair of loose-fitting red pants the same shade as the lipstick painted on her lips.
“And speaking of beauty,” Gio says as he stands. “Look at you, my love.”
“Good morning, darling.” She kisses him on the cheek, then turns to Heath. “Well, Mr. Slater, this is quite the surprise.”
“The surprise is all mine, Mrs. Karver.” He stands and kisses her hand just as he did mine, though her smile doesn’t falter. Does she feel the same distaste I do? Or is she better at hiding it?
Or—a worse thought—did I place my trust in someone who won’t do anything to free me?
She turns to Gio. “Darling, I was hoping to take Emmaline shopping in the village today. Is that all right? I want to show her more of our home.”
Gio looks at Heath, who offers the slightest nod, as though giving permission.