14. Luna
FOURTEEN
LUNA
Luna hated the white dress she wore. The straps were too tight on her shoulders, and it showed off too much of her legs. Her hair was pinned back, curls flowing down the length of her back. The pearl necklace hung around her neck like a collar; a gift from her mother to celebrate her engagement.
Her cheeks were pink as if she were a young blushing bride, but really it helped to hide the fact Luna was as pale as a ghost.
The ballroom her parents had rented out was decorated with white doves hanging from the ceiling, the tables covered with food and drinks. Luna didn’t recognize most of the people there, but they weren’t her focal concern right now. She tried to find a way out, a window or door, but security stood at every entrance, keeping her locked inside. Her parents had assumed she would try to run, so they made sure there was no place to go.
Soon she would be meeting her future husband for the first time. The thought made her feel sick; everything in the room made her feel sick. The music, the bright lights, the fake smiles from the guests even though she was practically being sold off. It was all disgusting.
“There you are. We’ve been looking for you,” Cecilia told her, rushing up. Blair and Gianna followed her.
“Here I thought I was blending in,” Luna said.
“You’re the only one wearing white, you stand out like a sore thumb,” Gianna said.
“Have you met him?” Blair asked.
Luna shook her head. “Not yet.”
“I can look at the contract again. Try to find anything that forces Valerio to stay in it,” she suggested.
“No. I’m not forcing anyone into anything,” Luna said.
“What’s your plan then?” Cecilia asked.
She didn’t answer the question. Her mind had gone to a dark place far too many times in the past week, but she didn’t dare voice that out loud. If she was truly trapped with no way out, then she would have to do whatever was necessary.
She just feared it might be sooner rather than later.
“Have you seen your parents anywhere?” Blair asked.
“My mom was down here talking to some people, but last I saw my father he was upstairs,” Luna told them. She didn’t have to think hard to know who he was meeting with or what he was discussing.
“Speaking of your parents, they’re literally over there with some old dude,” Gianna said. Her eyes were wide, her face pale.
Luna turned around for a moment. Her mother shook hands with the older dude, her father stood beside him with a bright smile. She recognized him as one of her father’s business friends that attended the same galas and balls they did. Someone that had been in her father’s life since she was a child. That was all Luna knew about the man, other than that he was single with no children of his own.
She turned back around with horror. “They want me to marry him?” she asked, her voice fearful. A panic attack was on the horizon, building and building until it hit completely. “I need to get out of here.” Her hands reached for her neck, rubbing at the skin with brutal force that shocked her. She felt like she was suffocating, the pearls around her neck starting to choke her.
Cecilia grabbed her hands, pulling her along.
“Where are you taking her?” Blair asked. “There’s no way out of here.”
They were able to hide in between the crowds of people and away from her parents’ sight.
“She needs to get out of here,” Cecilia said. “I just don’t know how. Maybe we can cause a distraction?”
“Finn is over there,” Gianna said. He stood right beside Augustus, sporting a black eye. Luna had to assume there were more bruises where that came from. He shot back another glass of some dark liquid.
“No,” Luna disagreed. “I don’t want to drag him into this.”
“He’s your brother. He’ll want to help you, and if he doesn’t, then he’s more useless than I thought,” she said.
Luna wanted to shake her head because Gianna didn’t understand. She didn’t understand that her brother had probably already taken another beating trying to stop the events of tonight just because her father couldn’t put his hands on her himself. If he wasn’t in the meeting earlier, then he had to have seriously pissed off their father. She didn’t want him putting himself in harm for her any more than he already had.
Gianna stomped over to Finn and Augustus, shoving his shoulder. “Tell security to let Luna out of the building for air.” Of course he knew they weren’t just going out for air, but it was an alright lie for the moment.
“They’ve been given strict orders not to let her out anywhere,” Finn said. “You can thank my father for that.”
“Is that who fucked up your eye?” Blair asked.
Finn’s mouth turned up into a snarl. “Watch your mouth.”
Luna could feel her time running out. She was going to break. It was only a matter of time. “Please, Finn,” she begged. “I can’t do it. I swear to God, I can’t.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “You know what he’ll do to us.”
“Grow the fuck up,” Augustus said, shaking his head. “I would send a bullet through his head for every time he put his hands on you if I was you.”
Cecilia placed her hand on Finn’s shoulder, which was quickly pushed off by Augustus. She ignored the latter and instead focused on the issue at hand. “No woman deserves to suffer like this, especially not Luna.”
Luna hated hearing the desperation in everyone's voices. How quickly it seemed that the situation had turned into life or death.
“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to help,” Finn said. He looked at Luna, setting his glass on the table. “Come on. You all stay here.”
She followed after him, walking as fast as she could in her heels. They maneuvered through the crowds, narrowly missing their parents that were still engaged in conversation but would probably be looking for her soon. They made their way into the hallway where the bathrooms were. The first place in the entire building that seemed bare of people. Had they not been in a rush, she would have asked him a million questions, but silence was the best option. Once they made a sharp turn entering a more desolate hallway, Luna ripped the heels off her feet.
She left them in the hallway, the cool marble floors relieving her feet. Finn opened a door at the end of the hallway. It was another entrance into the kitchen. Cooks were rushing around, plating food and carrying it out to the ballroom. They paid no attention to the two people who had no business being there. She narrowly avoided running into any of the chefs but slammed against Finn’s back when he stopped abruptly.
He held open a thick, silver metal door, letting in the frigid night air. She stepped out apprehensively, wishing she had more on her than what she currently did. She turned to look at her brother, wondering if that would be the last time she would ever see him again.
“I never took you back here and I didn’t see anything. You got it?” Finn asked.
She nodded. “Thank you.”
“Do what you have to do.”
He didn’t say anything else, but she had learned that he wasn’t one to comfort anyone. The fact he gave her an out was enough for her at the moment.
With that, he shut the door in her face, leaving her outside all alone. That was all the sign Luna needed to start running. She ran away from the building, trying to get to the back lawn of the property. Her lungs burned and her feet ached with every step she took on the uneven concrete, but she kept running. She ran down the hill, seeing the statues and decorated bushes in front of her.
Her legs took her as far as the last statue before she fell. How she was able to get all the way down here all those years ago in a drunken stumble was a mystery to her. Pebbles dug into her hands as she held herself on all fours, her knee burning from scraping it. She sat up, leaning her back against the statue’s base, staring at the blood that dripped down her leg.
It was when her mind finally stopped that everything hit her all over again. When the first tear fell, she wiped it away furiously, angry at herself for crying so much. All she had been doing for the past two weeks was crying and she was sick of it. She didn’t want to cry anymore. She didn’t want to feel so helpless, and yet, she couldn’t help it.
She had nowhere to go, no money, nothing to her name. That was why her father kept her isolated and under his wing her entire life, so she wouldn’t know how to live without him or without a man.
She looked up into the sky, letting her tears and sobs escape as she looked at the moon. Most nights, it gave her comfort. Tonight, it did nothing for her.
She looked over at the large pile of rocks that sat off to the side at the edge of the forest. One of them would be able to do enough damage to her, maybe even end everything.
Could she really go through with it though? The brutal strength and force it would take to end her life that way was horrifying to consider, but really what were the alternatives?
Maybe there was a body of water somewhere close by.
“I think congratulations are in order.”
Luna turned her head in shock. Valerio’s large figure stalked out of the darkness slowly, allowing the little light from the moon to finally immerse him into visibility.
“I don’t need them,” Luna said. She wiped her fingers under her eyes, collecting the tears and makeup trailing down her cheeks.
“Who knew that white was your color?” he asked, his voice full of sarcasm. He kept walking until he stood directly in front of Luna, forcing her to look up at him. She hated how handsome he looked; his face menacing, the black T-shirt tight around his arms.
More than anything, she hated how familiar he felt and how relieved she was to see him. How quickly he could calm the chaos in her mind and silence her demons.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “I’m not your problem anymore.”
Valerio gave her a small smile before letting it slip off his face. “You weren’t ever a problem, but you just had to run off and get another husband.”
“Don’t call him that.”
“Why? Looks like a decent enough guy if you ignore his age and the fact he’ll be taking Viagra to get it up on your wedding night. Bet he’ll make a great husband.”
“Shut up,” she spit out. “You can leave.”
“No, I can’t,” he muttered. She hated the way he was looking down at her, knowing he had all the power in the world at that moment. “I came to collect.”
“Collect what?” Luna asked, looking down at the ground. She couldn’t stand the intensity that shined through the blue in his eyes.
Valerio kneeled in front of her. “My wife.”
His hand found its way under her chin, lifting her head so she had no choice but to look at him. The butterflies returned in her stomach at his touch. She hated the effect he had on her, despised it.
“You know what I hate? I hate that even though I shouldn’t be here, even though I let you go, even though you’re not my problem, I still couldn’t help but run over. I hate that I haven’t been able to rid my mind of you for seven years and that I would do anything you asked,” he said. His voice was hardly more than a whisper, but every word sounded like it was being amplified in her ears. “I want to make you a deal.”
“What is it?” she dared to ask.
“You ruined The Chase for me, so I want a redo. This time, if you win, I will get you out of the country, away from any marriage prospects,” he told her, trailing his thumb under her eye to wipe a tear away.
“And if I lose?” she asked in a whisper.
“Then you are mine for the rest of our lives.”
A sharp chill ran down her spine. Another game where the chances were stacked against her, but he promised her things only he could grant her. She had no chances otherwise. The stiff reminder
that she had nothing left to lose, but potentially everything to gain, was enough motivation to agree to the insanity he was proposing.
“Okay.”
Valerio’s grin was sinister. He grabbed her hands, helping her off the floor. He turned them around to the forest, pressing her back against his chest with his hands on her hips and his lips grazing her ear.
“I’ll give you a fifteen-second head start,” he said. “Run like your life depends on it.”
He gave her hips a squeeze before he moved back. She waited for him to say the words that would send her sprinting into the forest.
“Go.”
And just like that she was off, fleeing like a lamb trying to escape a wolf. All she could think about was the one thing he had told her before: He never loses.