Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Killian
Normally I sleep like the dead, but when a shrill scream breaks the night, I shoot up out of bed.
Somebody has to be dying for a scream like that to be echoing through the house.
It’s Liliana’s; I know it without a doubt.
The guards on duty wouldn’t be screaming.
They would be shooting at whoever attacked them, and the maids know how to put up a fight.
Throwing the sheets back, I rush for the door, blood rushing and my heart in my throat.
She can’t be dying. Everything I have planned hinges on her livelihood.
After bagging up her torn lace thong and bra, I sent them to Alessio.
He will take me seriously now, even though my bridge with Darius and Cameron will be burnt.
I race down the hall to the bedroom set up for her, throwing open the door and seeing her thrashing in the middle of the bed. Her skin is damp with sweat; the sheets are sticking to her body. She screams again, her body arching off the bed like she’s a creature possessed.
“Wake up,” I say, rushing to the edge of the bed and gripping her shoulders. I give her a light shake. “Come on, you need to wake up. It’s just a dream. Once you wake up, it’ll all be over.”
She screams and tears away from me. I may not know how to handle this, but I know what it’s stemmed from.
My heart’s pounding in my chest, and it sounds like blood is rushing in my ears as I sit on the edge of the bed beside her. “Come on, Liliana, it’s okay. You’re not in that place anymore. Just wake up for me. Open your eyes, and everything will be fine. It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re here with me.”
I think that might be the first time I’ve really thought that my home was a safe place for somebody else.
Another scream splits the night, her body thrashing away from me, rolling off the side of the bed and onto the floor with a heavy thud.
I’m too slow to catch her from falling, but I get up and around the bed, helping her to her feet.
She’s disoriented as she stands, jerking from my touch, trying to put as much distance between us as possible as she flies to the other side of the room and sinks down to the ground, her knees held to her chest, her entire body shaking.
“Hey,” I say, voice slow. I approach her slowly, like I’m approaching a wounded animal, crouching down to her level. “It’s just a dream. You don’t need to be scared. I’m not going to let anything happen to you while you’re here.”
“When will it stop?” she whispers, her voice haunted, her eyes wide like she’s seen a ghost.
“I don’t know.”
“Why are you in here?” she asks, her voice breaking. A couple of tears slip out and roll down her cheeks. “I’m fine on my own. I don't need you to rush in here to save me like you're some sort of white knight.”
“I’m pretty sure I came from a line of knights. It must be built into me.” I crack a smile, trying to make her feel a little bit better. “I heard you screaming, though, and no sense in going back to bed if I’ll be woken up by someone who's going to scream themselves awake and back to sleep.”
“All I can dream about is what they did to me,” she says, her voice breaking again.
She sucks in a sharp breath, like she’s trying to hold back more tears, like she’s ashamed of crying.
“I didn’t even get the worst of it. There were women there who…
” She trails off and shakes her head. “I-I just can't.”
“Liliana, look at me.” I kneel down on one knee.
“Vidalia will be caught, and you can torture him all you want before you take his life. You’ll do it for you and all those girls.
I can’t promise we will set them all free or that you’ll forget any of this, but you will get your justice one way or another. ”
She’s broken and damaged, and no one can save her from those demons, except herself.
“How confident are you that you’ll catch him?” she asks, lifting her head and meeting my eyes.
“Well, thanks to you and your family, coming to rescue you meant there’s a target on my back. So I won’t need to worry if I can’t find him because I know he’s coming for me himself.”
“So you regret saving me?”
I shake my head. That’s a tough answer. In a way, she’s helping me get what I need here to protect my turf. Having a target on my back is just a minor inconvenience.
Instead of pressuring her to talk, I sit on the floor in front of her and cross my legs.
“What are you doing?” she asks, her gaze running up and down my body.
“Well, we are both awake, so might as well keep each other company.”
Her eyes dart to my briefs and my cock twitches.
“Can you stop looking at me like I’m a piece of meat?” I say, watching her finally crack a tiny smile.
“Get over yourself.” She rolls her eyes then wipes her cheeks.
“You don’t need to pretend with me, Liliana. You can fall apart as much as you need to, as long as you promise you’re going to get up and put the pieces back together.”
“I’m trying.” She lets out a breath. Her body tenses, and she holds her knees to her chest tighter and drops her gaze to the floor. “It was nothing compared to how the other girls were treated.”
I can see the worry in her eyes. The “What if I am the kind of woman who breaks? What if I’m the kind of woman who can’t put herself back together again? Then what? What happens then? I just have these nightmares for the rest of my life. I wake up screaming and not knowing where I am.”
“How would you torture him?”
She finally looks back up at me and shrugs, but sounds so sure of herself. “Take his eyes out. Chop each finger off.”
I nod. “So far I like it.”
“You enjoy it,” she says, “killing.”
“I’d say it’s more of the torture. Once they are dead, they are useless.”
“That adds up,” she replies softly. “You’re being nice to me.” There’s suspicion layered in her tone, her eyes narrowing, her mouth pressing into a thin line. “Is it because we slept together?”
“I’m always nice to you unless you give me a reason not to be. Sex has nothing to do with it. Why don’t you try and rest? I’ll sit in a chair till you fall asleep.”
She says nothing for a moment before nodding. Slowly, she gets up and makes her way over to the bed. Getting to my feet, I watch her get into bed, her back toward me.
“They watched,” she confesses as though talking to herself.
So I don’t say a word and just listen. “They made me parade around the room naked, touched themselves in front of me, came on me like I was a piece of rag. Sometimes they would let me wipe it off, or other times they’d make the other girls lick it off me.
Each time I would protest, they would…” She begins to sob.
“They would rape one of the girls in front of me.”
Walking around the bed, I make myself comfortable on the chaise chair by the window across the nightstand. “I’ll make them pay for it, Liliana. I give you my word.”
Her gaze locks on mine, and there’s nothing said between us for a long few minutes.
I don’t know if it’s the pounding of her heart that fills the room or the pounding of mine.
Blood rushes in my ears as I look down at her lying there in the white tank top and underwear.
The collar around her neck fits perfectly there.
“Killian.” Her words are soft but hold a weight. “When did Cameron call you to come find me?”
This is a tricky question, but the fact she’s asking means she is trying to connect the dots, and now that makes me curious. “I think it was a few days after you went missing before he called for my help.”
There’s hurt in her eyes. “How did you find me? How did you know where to look?”
How do I say this without looking like I hang out with those sleezy men or that I was using her as bait. “I happened to be there grabbing a drink. Not to participate.” There’s a pause. “Did you think Cameron didn’t try hard enough?”
“I think it was an inside job,” she blurts out, still holding eye contact.
Propping my elbow on the armrest, each finger taps one by one. “And you ruled me out?”
She nods. “If you wanted me, you’d take me yourself. You wouldn’t cross the ocean and spend half a million dollars.”
“What if I made it look that way?” I want to test just how keen Liliana is.
“It’s possible.” Now she sits up in bed. “But if you wanted Alessio’s attention, you would have gone after the woman carrying his child. Not his mistress.”
I don’t flinch. “I didn’t know you were his mistress.”
“Liar.”
I smirk. “There were signs if anyone paid attention closely.”
“You don’t get this feeling that it was an inside job?”
“If it is, then I’m in bigger trouble than I thought.”