Chapter Fourteen
Evelina Bianchi
I tried.
I tried so damn hard to compartmentalize what I knew about him. I wanted to believe that regardless of his feelings about the situation, he wouldn’t leave Beatrice in a dangerous situation.
But how could I know that?
From what I knew, I believed that Zeke was a good person. But he wouldn’t open himself to me. He wouldn’t open up to anybody.
I stared at the ceiling long enough that I could see faces in the divots and grooves of the textures. As I stared at the ceiling a little longer, I thought that one of those grooves looked oddly like Beatrice’s chunky face. Would she look the same when I finally saw her again, or would these weeks make her look different?
A knock sounded at the door, and I sat up in bed as Zeke eased through, holding a canvas facing him. I couldn’t tell what sat on the face.
“What do you need?” I asked, my tone flat as I turned back to the ceiling.
He didn’t speak as he propped the painting on a dresser and turned it to face me. The one he carried had me sitting up in the bed and staring.
“You’re right,” he commented.
“About?”
“I don’t open up to people. I never have and never thought I would. I haven’t been transparent with you about a lot of things, and keeping them from you benefits neither of us.” I nodded slowly, eyes darting between him and the painting. “I don’t know how to talk about all the fucked up shit that I feel and have gone through. I’ve never… I’ve never had someone to talk to, but I can try.”
I hugged my knees to my chest and exhaled. “And the painting?”
“You want to know why I kept them, and it’s hard to explain because I don’t know. All I know is that when I look at them, I feel something. And when I look at this one, it feels like it was painted for me. It feels like home.” He paused. “It sounds so fucking ridiculous.”
“It doesn’t sound ridiculous at all because that’s why I painted this one.” His eyes narrowed with confusion as he stepped closer to the bed and planted a foot on it, leaning on his knee as he waited. “I almost kept this one, actually. I painted it at a dark time, and it felt almost too personal to sell in the gallery. I painted it because it was what I felt. I wanted to keep it for myself. Alone. Empty. Hopeless.”
I stared at the textured canvas, displaying a foggy-looking home. It was a painting full of shadow and hidden details that presented themselves the harder I looked. The dark flowers. The wilting roses. The raindrops that clung to the house but didn’t have enough heaviness to fall. And inside one of the windows, a shadow sat at the sill, darker than the rest.
It didn’t have an outward meaning or message, but as he stared at it, I could see that the effect had landed.
Maybe we were more kindred than I had once believed.
“It’s my most vulnerable piece,” I admitted as the silence dragged on for another moment.
“The painting reminds me of how it feels to scream into the void and hear nothing back. To scream and scream that I’m not my father. I have morals despite my occupation. I have demons, but that doesn’t mean I am a demon. It feels like I scream those things into the world, and nobody hears.” He ran a hand through his hair and sucked his lip ring into his mouth as he looked past me. “My father’s name was Andrew Coleman, and he was a monster. He was a serial killer.”
It didn’t feel appropriate to tell him that I had already learned that, so I reached forward and grabbed his hand, holding it in the hope of giving some sort of comfort or comradery.
He swallowed, and the sound filled the room with the effort it took him.
“It’s because of him that I can’t let myself be attached to a woman. After what he did—” he cut himself off and looked to the ceiling. I saw moisture fill his eyes, but not a single tear fell. He held them back and took a long moment to gather his composure.
My heart shattered at the show of emotion that I never would have expected from him.
“My mother was an immigrant, and she married my father because she wanted a family, and she wanted to have a family in this country. Her name was Talia, and she was a bright light. She was kind, and she would give the clothes off her back to anyone who needed them. But Andrew was a monster. I think Mom was grateful to him for giving her a family. She was grateful to be living in this country. She endured his abuse behind closed doors and kept me and my sister safe from it. I was oblivious. I didn’t even know until the weeks before her death.
“Andrew became more erratic in those weeks, and I didn’t know why. But he seemed constantly on edge. Then, my mom did the one thing Andrew always told her not to do. She went into the basement and found out about his… hobby. I didn’t learn until after that night that my mom released a tied-up woman in the basement, and Andrew caught her. He beat her horribly before I came out of my room and saw him over both Mom and Fiona—my little sister. Fiona heard the commotion before I did and tried to stop him, but she was too small and couldn’t overpower him.
“I tried. I did everything to get him away from them, but before I got there, he had already killed Fiona. Before I came out, he threw her into a wall, and her spine broke on impact. She was too small to survive something like that. I didn’t know she was already dead when I tackled him and got him away from my mom. I put up enough of a fight that he pulled out a gun and used that to subdue me. While we were fighting, my mom called for help, and when he saw her on the phone…”
This time, a tear did fall from his eyes as he stared at his knee and shared everything he remembered. I knew what was coming next. I felt the tears streaming down my face as he told me the entire story. The news articles didn’t compare to the horror of what actually happened to him.
“He shot her, and he tried to shoot me. I was smaller, but I think I had enough adrenaline to give him a good fight. He did subdue me eventually. But because my mom called for help, the police showed up before he could finish the job. It wasn’t until much later that I learned about the woman my mom released—a woman who is alive because of her. I didn’t learn about the bodies buried beneath our house until weeks later when I was testifying in court. He was a serial killer, and he killed my entire fucking family.”
There weren’t words for that kind of tragedy. There was nothing I could say to make it better, but I continued holding his hand. I continued looking at him as he found his words.
“I became a killer just like him. And if I take the next steps with a woman—if I marry someone and have kids with them—will I take after him in that aspect, too? Will I hurt my family? I can’t take that chance. I can’t… I can’t hurt you .”
Every domino fell into place. Every single thing. He was a killer, but he didn’t kill innocents. He had a dark history that shaped him, but it didn’t define him. I thought back to what Jaimie had said a few days ago. I didn’t particularly believe that people could be read as easily as she thought, but… I had always been gifted at knowing people.
For those of us who grew up as ghosts with unreadable faces and stories, it’s easier to see past the “bullshit” and masks.
I could see past every one of Zeke’s masks, and what I saw didn’t scare me.
He wasn’t evil like his father.
I brought myself to my knees and scooted to the end of the bed. I was at eye level with him as I grabbed each side of his face and held it between my palms. “You’re not him,” I swore to him. “I see you, and you don’t scare me, Zeke.”
He wouldn’t meet my eyes as he shook his head. “I have spent my life trying to become a better man than him, yet I still kill people for a living. I live in a life of crime. I am him, and if I allow myself to fall for you, I will hurt you. I can’t risk that.”
“Zeke, you won’t.”
How did I show him how much I believed in him? How did I prove to him that he wasn’t a monster, and I knew it with every fiber of my being? How did I tell him that his fear of commitment was rooted purely in fear, and he wouldn’t be this afraid if he were like his father. If he was this worried about becoming a monster, it would be impossible for him to become one.
“Evelina…”
A thought came to me, and I didn’t hesitate before acting on it. I grabbed one of his wrists and brought his hand to my throat, pressing it there as I grabbed his face again. His eyes went wide as he held my throat in his hands. “If I thought for a second that you were capable of hurting me—that you were anything like that man—I wouldn’t let you this close to me.” I scooted as close to him as I could bring myself. “You can do whatever you want with me. My life is in your hands. My future is in your hands. Everything I am and will ever be is in your hands, and I know I can trust you with all of those things because even though I didn’t know all of your past, I have always known you. ”
As I spoke the words, I knew they were true. Maybe he had not opened up to me. Maybe I had not known the reasons for his behaviors or how deep that trauma went. But I knew that I would always be safe with him.
“I’m safe with you, Zeke. That will never change. I trust you, even if you don’t trust yourself.”
His throat bobbed as I swiped my finger beneath his eye and wiped away another tear.
“I will never deserve someone like you, Evelina.”
His lips were on mine in an instant. He wound an arm around my waist, not moving the hand that rested gently on my throat. He tightened it just enough to pull my head forward, and with my gasp, his tongue swept into my mouth. I shuddered beneath his touch, the exhilaration of trust and emotions rocking me to my core.
“You deserve everything.”
He pressed me back onto the bed and came down over me, grinding his hips into mine. “Evelina,” he whispered against my lips. “I can’t hurt you. I would kill someone for looking at you the wrong way, and letting myself become too attached to you could be dangerous.”
“You are not dangerous,” I declared. “Not to me. You and I are the same, Zeke. We have demons, but we can get through them.”
He rested his forehead against mine and closed his eyes, his entire body trembling.
“I fucking love you, Evelina.”
Before I could reply, he was moving. He had me in his arms and across the room in an instant. He pressed my back to the wall as his lips worked every inch of my face and neck. My jaw and chest. He was everywhere, leaving me no room to think before our clothes were flying through the room and our bodies were pressed tightly together.
His warmth seeped into me, and the warmth that pooled in my core and oozed from between my legs was an uncontrollable force. He lowered me to the ground just long enough to drop to his knees and feast.
Zeke didn’t take it slow. He put everything into unraveling me, and it worked so quickly that I screamed. His name. A series of pleading phrases. I unraveled and reformed myself beneath his touch. Stars exploded in my vision.
“Louder, Princess,” he said.
My cries increased as I wound my hand in his hair and pulled him closer. More, more, more. I needed him in every perceivable way.
When he retracted and stood, gathering me in his arms, the temporary loss of his touch had me whimpering, but as he pressed me back into the wall, he filled me wholly. The sensation of him—the utter fullness—had my eyes rolling as I clawed at his back to pull him closer.
“Zeke, God,” I cried out. “Oh my God.”
“Easy,” he whispered into my ear. His breath tickled the lobe, sending goosebumps up my spine.
“Faster,” I cried as I buried my head against his shoulder. My face pressed into his neck as he thrust into me over and over again. I bit down to silence my cries, and he grunted, grabbing both of my arms and pinning them in one hand over my head. He thrust into me with a passion that sent me reeling. It sent me into another dimension.
And then his other hand grabbed my jaw and forced my face toward his.
“Look at me when you scream my name.”
I exploded, and when I found myself again, the pleasure only built again. It was all-consuming as his presence surrounded me. His eyes pierced into my very soul and unraveled me even further.
My back left the wall as he turned and brought us back to the bed. The cool, plush blanket under my back met me, but he didn’t leave me for even a moment as he continued. His chest turned splotchy, and when he bent this time, he gathered my nipple between his lips, the lip ring scraping it gently.
All the orgasms I had felt before now were nothing. It had all been mere touches of pleasure compared to this flood of ecstasy that filled my chest. My belly. My entire body.
“Oh my God, Zeke. Don’t stop. Oh…”
I shattered, and as he quickened his thrusts before stopping with a long breath, he released my nipple from his teeth with a sucking pop and smirked down at me.
I love you, too.
The words were right there, but I didn’t allow them to leave my lips. Not until I had the chance to tell him the whole truth.
I would tell him the whole truth. About Beatrice and Maggie and the danger she would be in if I returned to her. I would tell him everything.
But not right now.
Tomorrow. I would tell him tomorrow.