9. Marisol
9
MARISOL
I thought if I could reach the forest, I’d be safe.
But now, terror and doubt suffocate me in the darkness.
The second I saw Junior step out of the black SUV that pulled up to the house, I knew.
Salvatore was giving me up. His boss was ordering him to give me to Junior, or he just got bored. Men lose interest so easily.
Junior saw me standing on the balcony. Blew me a kiss before he entered the house. Maybe it was his jerky movements or the look on his face, illuminated by the lights from the front door, but it struck a chord of horrible familiarity.
My mom was the same. Absolutely certain she deserved what she wanted. Even when the police were knocking at the door for another domestic dispute, she just knew Dad would see her side of things once the police left.
I’d been thinking about the ivy on the side of the house all day. It was a small drop from the stone balcony to the ground—less if I managed to fall onto one of the bushes.
I wasn’t wearing shoes, but I could use my toes for traction.
One of the patrol guards had stationed himself at the front door.
I would never have a better chance.
My heart thundered in my chest as I watched Camillo’s back. He hadn’t turned around yet. Maybe we’d built up enough of a rapport that he trusted I’d stay nearby.
I’m sorry , I thought in Camillo’s direction. Good luck with Nola.
I slung one leg over the balcony and smeared my sweaty, trembling palms against my jeans. The drop was so much taller now that I was at the edge. It wasn’t until I was lowering myself along the other side of the stone railing that Camillo turned around.
“Mari!”
I slipped and lunged at the ivy. The roots tore away immediately with a burst of popping sounds that rang like gunfire as I clawed at the stone for purchase. I crash-landed onto a bush, a scream lodging in my throat. My brain hurt, my teeth felt loose, and something was stabbing my arm. I groaned. Camillo’s silhouette appeared above me like a great bat. I threw myself off the bush, limping away as my whole body screamed in pain.
I had to get to the forest.
My lungs felt like they were going to explode as I sprinted across the well-manicured grass in my bare feet and prayed to all the gods that no one would shoot me in the terrifying openness of the lawn.
To my right, a man shot toward me like an arrow unleashed. He was fast—faster than me—and I put on another impossible burst of speed, fueled by wild panic.
Salvatore was going to be furious. He was going to shoot me in the back of the head and bury me in the forest.
I risked a glance back just in time to see Camillo launching himself at the other man. They slammed to the ground in a tangle of limbs. The other man wasn’t one of Salvatore’s—he was Junior’s.
“Don’t!” Camillo shouted after me, but I was already at the tree line.
The trees didn’t seem so packed together from the house, but now as I plow forward, the dense thicket of branches rakes at my face and hair, dragging me to a syrupy, nightmarish crawl. Not that I could go any faster when I’m forced to navigate by touch and shadows. Even with the half-moon glowing above, the web of tree limbs chokes out everything but a weak light. I’ve never had to move through darkness like this before, and a host of primal fears creep to the forefront of my mind. A soft patch of dirt buried between the jagged rocks and branches feels like a coiled snake. The dead leaves brushing over the tops of my feet paint swarms of biting ants and spiders on my skin. Some part of me, floating out of reach, urges me to breathe, to calm down, but I can’t, I can’t, I can’t .
He has to know I’m gone by now—if not from Camillo, then by some uncanny intuition of his. He could already be racing against Junior, both of them hurtling after their stolen toy—not that they give a shit about catching me. They’re just greedy monsters who want to make the other suffer.
They can find a different toy. I don’t want to play their stupid game.
The sweat on my chest and neck turns frigid, leaving me shivering as I creep through the forest. I didn’t think about the cold or the darkness. I didn’t think about anything. I just ran. Mom always said I was too smart to be this stupid. Guess she was wrong—I’m just stupid. I huff out a shaky laugh, but it sounds like a sob.
When I fell, I ripped a gash into the back of my arm. I should be grateful it’s the worst of my injuries, but blood’s streaming in rivulets past my elbow, and the pain burns hotter with each step. I pluck at my soaked shirt sleeve. I need to take a look at it, but I don’t dare stop now, and I wouldn’t be able to see much in the darkness anyway. When my hand comes away, it’s left slick and wet. How much blood loss can I handle? Maybe no one’s after me, and I’ll just collapse and bleed out on the forest floor, slowly buried under the autumn leaves.
Something snaps at the fringes of my hearing. I freeze like a startled rabbit, staring off into the darkness, straining my ears to hear something other than my own rapid breathing.
Snap.
There.
Fuck me.
I push myself harder. There’s absolutely something or someone behind me. Not that far by the sound of it. I hadn’t even considered the possibility of a wild animal in these woods. Or that Salvatore might have hunting dogs, somewhere deep in his house, locked in one of those secret rooms.
The thing behind me speeds up, and the heavy crashing sounds it makes as it barrels through the trees seize my chest with fear. Those are the sounds of a man—Salvatore or Junior?
He’s going to get me. I’m so fucked. He’s going to skin me alive and dip me in a vat of acid.
I can almost feel his hot breath on the back of my neck. I swat behind me, but my fingertips skate along empty air. A clearing! I break through into a little clearing and sprint to the other side.
I can’t think about how fucked up my body is right now, or I’ll break down. My hand touches the edge of the first tree, and then my entire world flips upside down as pain explodes in my ribs. I hit the ground hard, and my body crunches like a dry eggshell underneath me. For a moment, my panic reaches its climax.
I can’t breathe!
Then the force that struck me lifts, and I suck in a deep lungful of air.
“ Marisol! ” a furious voice booms.
A strange sense of serenity washes over me as I look up into the face of my death.
In the clearing, moonlight bathes Salvatore’s dark hair in silver. His face twists in savage rage as his hips and hands pin me down in a contorted position along the forest floor. He slams a fist down on the ground inches from my face, and it breaks my calm. I scream.
“Marisol!” Salvatore shouts again, gripping my shoulders and shaking them roughly. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I cry out, my eyes squeezing shut because I’m too scared to look at his face. “I’m running!”
“ You can’t do that!” Salvatore shakes my shoulders again, harder and harder as his breath heaves over me. “I make the rules here, not you! And you are mine ! You will never, ever leave!”
I open my eyes and shut them again just as quickly. Red. Blood all over him. I can’t look at his face. “I can’t stay here!” I shout back. “You’re going to kill me! Please, please let me go!”
Salvatore hauls off of me, and I have the wild thought that he’s going to let me go, but instead, he jerks me upright and lifts me into his arms.
I stiffen my body to try to roll away from him, but Salvatore crushes my body to his, suffocating me against his chest. I open my eyes. He’s not bleeding—that’s my blood smeared across his cheek and forehead. He doesn’t even look angry anymore.
“Don’t,” he says. Some of the sanity returns to his voice, though it’s barely concealing a sharp edge. “You’re done running. I’m taking you back to the house, and you’ll only make it worse for yourself if you struggle.”
I want to. I want to fight and claw his eyes out and scream, but I have nothing. No weapons, no strength left in me. He already caught me with such a long head start. Tears prick my eyes as the hopelessness of my situation weighs down on me.
Salvatore’s chest presses up against me in intervals as his breathing returns to normal.
“Put your arms around my neck. It’ll make it easier to carry you.”
“No.”
He gives me a wild, violent look, and I fling my arms up to obey him. There’s nowhere for me to escape, to pull away from him. Every part of my body is pressed up against his.
You had it good, you dumb bitch . You were being fed and left alone, and you fucked it up .
Silent tears track down my cheeks as he walks me back through the forest, picking his path with ease. He doesn’t complain, though he does set me down once to stretch his back and arms. I stare at the dark, leaf-choked ground, facing away from him and hugging myself. When he picks me up again, I wrap my arms around his neck without hesitation. It doesn’t take long to break out of the forest onto his manicured lawn. I hadn’t even been running in a straight line. I made it easy for him.
“I told you what would happen if you tried to escape again,” he says quietly.
My body tenses, and I shake my head a little.
“I said I would punish you.”
Fear, anticipation, and hot shame have me tucking my face into his chest as he brings me inside the house where Giordana and Domenico are waiting.
Salvatore gives them orders in Italian and carries me up the stairs, two steps at a time. He’s bringing me back to my room. Is he going to lock me inside?
We don’t get that far. He takes me to his room instead, all the way to his bathroom. Some of my terror returns here, knowing that he could lock me behind that thick steel door.
Salvatore stands me up on the cold tiles and perches himself on the edge of the bathtub, big enough to fit three people, to start the water.
“Strip,” he says without looking at me.
A violent shiver wracks through me. “No,” I whisper.
Salvatore looks up at me, and something inscrutable crosses his face. “If you listen to me, I won’t touch you.”
I stand there for a long time, waiting to see if he’ll change his mind or if some other plan of escape strikes me.
“Now.”
I turn from him and slowly undress.
Fuck you, Salvatore.
I tuck my body into itself, staring at a small imperfection in the light grey paint on the wall across me.
“Get in the tub.”
I take a deep breath. He said he wouldn’t touch me. With that flimsy hope, I turn, crossing my hands over my breasts. He’s leaned against the bathroom sink, tapping a message out on his phone. He doesn’t look up at me.
Like he’s some kind of fucking gentleman for not watching me get into the tub.
I ease into the lukewarm water.
“Do you need medical attention?” he asks, eyes locked to his phone.
I mentally scan over my body. I feel like one big bruise, but otherwise, I’m whole. The cut on the back of my arm had mostly coagulated, but it’s opening back up in the warm water, tinging the bath pink.
“No.”
“The cut on your arm?”
“No.”
Salvatore shrugs. “You have five minutes. Clean up.”
I sit there sullenly. I’m not going to get clean just so he can do whatever he pleases after.
His gaze flicks up. He looks bored. I wrap my arms around my knees, splashing the water.
“Either you bathe yourself, or I will.”
He fixes his gaze on me until I reach for a washcloth, and then he returns to his phone. I work quickly, watching him the entire time. His shirt’s torn in a few spots, I note with a tiny measure of satisfaction.
I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.
Salvatore reaches out of the room for a moment, and when his hand draws back in, he has a tidy pile of my clothes. He sets them on the edge of the sink without looking at me.
“You can’t keep me here forever,” I whisper. I don’t know what stupid urge is overcoming me to poke at him now when I’m at my most vulnerable, but I just need some resolution. I’ve been tense, waiting for something Bad to happen for a week now, and I can’t take any more uncertainty.
“Of course I can,” he says, without looking at me.
I let the tub drain and stand up, a torrent of water pouring from the ends of my hair. I reach for a towel without covering myself, but Salvatore maintains his gaze on his phone.
“Clothes,” I say, holding a hand out.
Salvatore passes them over to me. His gaze flits over me once, and his pupils swallow the honeyed color in his eyes as he takes me in. A thrill passes through me, and then he’s back to his phone, but this time his thumbs aren’t moving.
Once I’m dressed in leggings and a t-shirt, and my hair’s towel-dried, he slides his phone into his pocket. He turns to grab a clear container from underneath the sink, the same as when I cut my lip.
“Sit,” he says, nodding to the bathroom sink counter.
I don’t move.
“Now, Marisol.”
Reluctantly, I move to the counter and ease myself up onto the edge as Salvatore digs through the medical supplies in the box. He takes out a few bandaids.
With a featherlight touch, he rotates me enough to expose the back of my arm. He swipes a gel over the cut there, and I grit my teeth to keep from whimpering. He makes eye contact with me in the mirror for a split second before he refocuses on applying a bandaid. His gaze touches every part of me. He picks up another bandaid and places it on a small cut on my neck.
“What were you thinking?” he murmurs. “You could’ve been hurt.”
I inhale sharply. Anger and arousal swirl through me at his touch.
“You were going to give me to Junior,” I say, staring at him through the mirror.
Salvatore sweeps his gaze over me again. “No, passerotta. I was protecting you from him.”
Oh.
More lies?
What does he want? It’s unthinkable to consider he could be doing all of this for me .
“I can’t live like this. You put me in limbo,” I say, turning toward him. “I don’t know what you want. I don’t know where my life goes next.”
Salvatore rests his hands on my arms. My spread knees skim along his stomach.
“I thought I’ve been clear with you,” he says gently. “I want you, Marisol. I want you to stay with me.”
I’m tired. I haven’t masturbated in days and haven’t had sex in weeks. I just want one kind touch from one kind person, and Salvatore’s a close enough approximation that I have to resist leaning into him.
“You can’t take my things and ignore me for days and expect me to fall into step for you.”
Salvatore blinks. He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “I haven’t been ignoring you. I’ve been watching you. Constantly. I can barely work, barely think, because all I do, all day long, is watch you.”
My breath catches. Every part of me is screaming to stop fighting and just give in to him, but I can’t do it.
“We can’t have a relationship that exists just in your head.”
“I know.” Salvatore gathers me in his arms, and I relax against him, just a little. I’m tired of fighting.
I tense slightly as we pass his bed. Will he drop me there? Is that what I want?
But he doesn’t stop. Instead, he takes us down the stairs. I’m starting to feel sleepy, but I revive at the sight of Domenico standing next to the door on the first floor. The one with the electronic lock.
Domenico has a hard look on his face that makes my blood run cold.
“You’ll spend some time here until I have something better designed,” Salvatore murmurs into my hair.
“Wait, what?”
Salvatore sets me down. Immediately, Domenico hauls me into the room by my arm, slamming the door shut behind me. Locks slide into place with two clicks.
I take in the room at a glance. One naked bulb screwed into the ceiling casts my surroundings in a sickly light. The floors and walls are bare concrete, perfumed faintly with bleach. Someone set my mattress and blankets in the center of the room with a stack of books next to the bed. There’s a camping toilet in the corner.
A dungeon. He’s locked me in a dungeon.
I whirl and pound on the door, screaming until my throat is raw, but no one comes.