3. Mackenzie
I sink aslow as possible in the car seat, my fingers lightly resting against my temple so my palm hides my face. I use my dark blonde hair as a curtain, creating an extra layer of protection against the world.
The doctors kept me in the hospital for two days before allowing me to be discharged. I’m still incredibly drained from going through such a bad episode, but I’m feeling a little better and the brain fog has lifted. Despite all my big words to Tino and Kirill about not coming back to Verona Falls, the truth is, I don’t have anywhere else to go. I feel like a prisoner to all the people who want to hurt me.
The tires crunch gravel as we navigate the winding driveway, with the tree branches tangled together overhead like lovers’ fingers. The ‘Keep Out’ signs and fencing make more sense to me now.
Ahead, the imposing building of Verona Falls University appears against the skyline. Gray stone turrets and pillars. Arched windows. I try to work out which window is mine, and which is Dom’s. We’re too far away to see any detail, but I wonder if he’s standing at his, watching us arrive.
I feel so stupid. How had I allowed myself to believe we had something between us—a connection? I knew Domenic was in pain, and so was I, and maybe I recognized his pain as my own. I’d wanted to take it and soothe it, and make us both better, but he’d never wanted that. No, Dom reveled in his pain. He enjoyed it. He took it and nurtured it and made it a part of who he was.
Now I find myself going back over every word, every touch, analyzing them for signs of his betrayal. The whole time we’d been together, he’d been planning to destroy me. Every word that had come out of his mouth had been a lie.
I’m struggling with how I feel about Tino and Kirill as well. I appreciate that they came to the hospital to check up on me, but I’m also angry with them. They could have stood up to Dom, told him they weren’t going to humiliate me in public, and they’d tell me this information in private instead. I don’t want to be the sort of person who shoots the messenger—it’s not Tino’s fault my mom turned out to be a cold-hearted bitch—but I can’t forgive the way he did it.
He broke my goddamned heart.
They all did.
Mom finds an empty spot and brings the car to a halt. She turns off the engine and twists her body to face me.
“Please talk to me, Mackenzie.”
I reach for the handle and open the car door without saying a word.
“You can’t ignore me forever,” she says from the driver’s seat. “You’re my daughter, and I love you. I’d do anything for you. You know that.”
I slam the door shut on her words.
I hate her. I never thought it would be possible, but I do.
The boys might have broken my heart, but so has she. Now it’s shattered into a million pieces, and I can’t ever imagine it being whole again. I feel like a shell of a person, like a ghost just floating their way through the real world, hoping no one will notice her.
I lift my gaze to the window I believe to be Dom’s. A shape moves behind the glass. My breath catches. Is he standing there, watching me arrive, or am I imagining things? The shape vanishes, and I tear my gaze from the window. I don’t want to care what Dom does. He’s a dark hole of a man, and he’s going to drag everyone and everything into that hole with him.
I put my head down and enter the building. I feel like everyone is staring at me. Hell, they probably are.
I know I can’t run, or more people will stare, but I walk as quickly as I can on my tired muscles, heading straight to my room. I plan to lock the door and stay in there. I don’t want to see anyone. I’m humiliated, embarrassed, more painfully self-conscious than I’ve ever been before. Not only is everyone going to know about my condition, but they’re also going to know the Devils were only stringing me along. What a stupid little girl I’ve been, thinking being with them somehow made me more important.
They put me on a pedestal only so they could knock me down again.
I’m fairly sure the news about what my mom did will have been covered up by Nataniele somehow. He’s probably threatened everyone in the church that if it gets out, they’ll be next.
I take the stairs, pounding up them and into the corridor that leads to the quarters where mom and Nataniele’s apartment is, and my and Dom’s rooms. Portraits of older men in their ornate frames on the walls watch me pass. I wonder who these men were back in the day—crime lords from decades ago who were revered enough to be painted? I wonder if I can request to be moved. I’m in South House right now, but maybe I can move to North House, so I’m as far away from the Devils as possible—away from Mom and Nataniele, too. But then I shake the thought from my head. Even being in a different part of the university is still too close.
I need to get farther away than that. Much farther.
I reach the corridor that leads to my room and draw to a halt. Just past my door, Domenic stands in the middle of the hallway, his hands shoved into his pockets. He looks at me sheepishly from behind a lock of light brown hair.
Despite all his faults, he’s still breathtakingly gorgeous, those intense, troubled, green eyes seeming even more soulful. My skin tingles with a need to touch him, to rake my fingers through his messy hair.
My entire body craves him, as though it misses his touch, completely independently from my heart and mind. Is it possible to become addicted to a person?
He takes a step toward me. “Mackenzie. You’re back.”
“Yeah, sorry to disappoint you.”
“I didn’t know…”
I’m aware he’s talking about my epilepsy.
I hold up a hand. “Don’t. I don’t want to speak to you.”
He seems torn. Like he wants to approach me but knows he shouldn’t. I hate that a part of me still wants him to take me into his arms and hold me tight, to tell me he’s sorry, and he made a huge mistake, and beg my forgiveness. That’s not who Dom is, though, and I’m dreaming if I actually think he might be sorry. He didn’t get what he wanted—we’re still here.
Why do I still feel like I can fix him? I ache with the need to make him better, even after everything he’s done. I was as screwed up as he was, two broken souls needing to mend each other, matched like pieces of a puzzle. Except I was the only one who felt that way. He’d only wanted me gone.
Maybe he’d get his wish after all.
He reaches a hand toward me, and I flinch back.
“Please, just listen to me for a moment. Seeing you like that, in the church, it changed something. I-I thought I was going to lose you.”
“Isn’t that what you wanted?” I snap. “If I’d died, I’d be out of your hair for good.”
He rubs the muscles at the back of his neck, his head dropping. “I never wanted that. God, Mack. Never.” He lifts his gaze back to mine. “I was so fucking scared.”
I can’t trust him. I can’t trust a single word he says. Is he just telling me what I want to hear so he can mess with me all over again?
I want to throw myself at him, to scream, and cry, and pound my fists against his chest and beg to know why he did it. Why couldn’t he have just allowed us all to be happy? Mom could have married Nataniele, and I’d never be any the wiser. I could have continued my relationship with the Devils, and we would have only gone from strength to strength. We could have been amazing together, the four of us. We could have taken on the world. Instead, Dom decided to burn it all down.
I force myself to straighten my spine and lift my chin. My heart is breaking, but I can’t let him see that. I don’t want him to know the effect he has on me. I have nothing left, but I can still scrape together the fragments of my pride that lie scattered around me.
“Good. I’m glad you were scared.”
He stares at me. “How can you be so cold?”
I bark laughter. “After what you did? You have the nerve to call me cold?”
“I said I was sorry, Mack. Fuck. What more am I supposed to do? I’ll throw myself to my knees in front of everyone and beg for your forgiveness if that’s what you want. Anything, if it’ll make things better.”
“Why? Because now I’m the sick girl?”
“It’s not like that. I’m telling you that I…care about you.”
It’s as though he’s struggling to say the words. I don’t believe him.
“Did your dad put you up to this?”
His brow furrows. “My dad? No. Why the hell would you think that?”
I fold my arms across my chest and glare at him. “Go make nice with the stepsister or he’ll cut you off? Something like that?”
“What? No—Fuck.”
I find myself enjoying the hurt in his eyes. I want to deepen it. I want him to feel the pain I’ve felt.
“Why don’t you go cut yourself some more, Dom. Give yourself a hand job at the same time. Imagine it’s me, ’cause it’s the closest you’re ever going to get to me again.”
I spin on my heel and storm into my room, slamming the door behind me. I press my back to the wood, my heart pounding, struggling to breathe. My promise to myself to stay calm has gone out the window.
How can I stay here after all this? I can’t see the Devils, day in, day out. It will grind down my heart until there’s nothing left. I can’t stand to be around my mother either, or Nataniele. He helped with arranging my father’s murder.
It doesn’t matter what kind of excuses Mom and Nataniele come up with; there is nothing that makes what they did all right. My dad is dead because of them. They stole him from me. Maybe he wasn’t the perfect man I’d believed him to be, and he’d gotten us in a whole heap of trouble, but that didn’t mean they had the right to take his life.
And now they’re cozying up like two lovebirds, and it makes me sick.
What can I do? I know I can’t stay here. I have so much to consider, though I don’t want to think about any of it.
I only want to get away and never see any of these people or this place again.