20
trigger warning: blood, depiction of suicide
The scene at the beach flashes in my mind. Torren seemed . . . different. Sitting on the sand with him like that—it felt like a momentary truce. I know he wasn’t actually meeting someone at the beach. He took me there because I asked.
I’d felt lighter for a moment, and I’d wondered if I was wrong to consider my father’s escape plan. If, somehow, I could learn to live with the devil. I can’t deny that it would be easier. I wouldn’t have to uproot my life in New York. I could just . . . stay.
After all, better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.
But as soon as the car stops, I know something has changed.
I feel it immediately.
I follow my gaze to the dark silhouette in the driver’s seat. Torren’s hands tighten on the steering wheel as he trains his gaze straight ahead of him. Anger seems to seep from his pores, thick like molasses.
Something happened between the moment I fell asleep in the car and now. I just don’t know what.
My breathing grows heavy as I stare at him. He ignores me, opening his door before sliding out of his seat. And just like that, he leaves me in the car.
I watch as he tucks his hands into the pockets of his pants and walks toward the elevator, and I just . . . wait. I don’t make a move to get out. And then, he draws to a stop. A ripple of anger rolls through his shoulders and he turns, his gaze blazing. He stalks back to his side of the car.
My heart leaps out my chest as he opens his door and leans against the doorframe, narrowing his eyes at me.
“I’m tired,” I say, testing the waters, “Will you carry me?”
He deadpans, and his jaw twitches, an unrestrained anger lurking in his eyes. “Are your legs broken?”
“No. But I wore heels. And now my feet hurt,” I quip. “Can I at least get a foot massage?”
Something in his jaw twitches.
“Get out of my fuckin’ car,” he says, “Unless you want to be locked in.”
I roll my eyes, not doubting for a second that it’s exactly something he would do. “Fine.”
What the hell crawled up his ass and died?
I slip on my heels, getting out the car. True to his promise, Torren locks the car less than a second after I shut my door. I resist the urge to roll my eyes again.
I wasn’t joking about my feet hurting. Every tap of my heels on the polished cement floor sends a sharp pain shooting from the balls of my feet to my calves.
Wearing stilettos should be considered an extreme sport.
Wearing them for even thirty minutes is infinitely more painful than wearing skates for hours on end.
Torren enters the elevator ahead of me, and the doors start closing behind him. The asshole doesn’t even make an effort to hold the doors, so I have to quicken my stride to make it inside in time. The door almost closes on me and takes my arm off.
I shoot him a dirty look, scoffing to myself.
He doesn’t bother acknowledging my reaction, pressing the button for the top floor. I stand at the opposite end of the elevator, and he doesn’t look at me.
Not once.
It’s like he’s purposely trying not to — like he’ll spontaneously combust if he does.
Whatever brief, unwilling camaraderie that had settled between us on the beach has fizzled, and instead I feel a strangely one-sided animosity radiating from him.
Yes, I always retained my ill feelings toward him, but for the first time in a while, I feel a deep-seated hatred rolling off him in waves.
Finally, the doors open up on the top floor, offering some reprieve from the thick, suffocating silence of the elevator. Sighing, I follow him out and into the apartment. The view takes me by surprise.
The giant glass wall spanning the living space bares the view outside the penthouse. Lightning strikes through the air illuminating the blackened view with an electric blue. Thunder cracks through the air. It’s insane.
I turn back with my lips tipped up. “Is it always like this?”
Torren is shrouded in darkness, leaning against the kitchen counter across the room. Lightning strikes again, lighting up the harsh outline of his body, and the electric blue fire in his eyes. I swallow, the smile slipping off my face.
He stalks toward me silently, his hands tucked in his pockets. His gaze never leaves me, and he doesn’t flinch, even when the thunder that splits the air is loud enough to crunch bones. He keeps getting closer, and I back up against the glass behind me, nowhere left to go.
And just like that, he covers the space between us with a few meagre strides. He’s so close that I can feel the rise and fall of his chest, and the distinct line between his brows as he frowns down at me.
Then, he lifts his middle finger. The inked digit meets the point where the neckline of my dress, which plunges low, stops.
It sends sharp zing to my core. He trails his finger and the back of his hand slowly and faintly up the dip of my breasts.
A shiver runs up my spine, and I can’t bring myself to move away.
But he continues his ambush, trailing his finger up my collarbone, intertwining it with my Morozov emblem. Lazily, he toys with the necklace at my neck. Time seems to move in slow motion, his pupils dilating into an inky black as he stares down at the silver M.
And I know, in that moment, that it’s too late for caution.
“Torren.” I shake my head. “Don’t —”
He rips the necklace from my neck.
It happens so fast that my neck burns raw with friction.
I stare at him, my mouth parting in shock.
He doesn’t even give me time to rebuke him—he just pockets my necklace at the same time as he threads his other hand into my hair, tugging at the strands so that I’m forced to glare directly up at him.
“Your allegiance,” he says, bringing his mouth to my ear. His voices levels, dark and low as he breathes down my neck. “Is no longer with your family. From now on, it’s to me and me alone.”
Fury rattles up my spine, and a now familiar rage fills every crevice of my being. I was right to consider leaving. He’ll never change. We’ll always be a disaster. What did I expect, anyway? He’s never claimed to be anything other than what he is.
I hate the way I am sometimes. So na?ve. So easily fooled. Our time at the beach—it wasn’t real. And even if it was, I don’t want false hope like that anymore.
Torren separates from me, his gaze rushing to my throat, where my heart locket still lies, untouched. My hand lifts instinctively to my neck as I clutch my locket closer to my chest.
The Morozov emblem was mine, and though it angers me that it was ripped away like that, I don’t feel its loss like I’d feel the loss of my locket. I have no idea what I would do if he touched it.
He pulls my hair further back, baring my throat to him. “Don’t think for a second that you’ll be able to escape me, little Morozov. You still have a debt to pay.”
“God,” I hiss, “What the hell is your problem?”
“My problem,” he says, tugging on my hair, “is you. You and your fucking father—”
“My father? What about your father, huh?” I snap up at him. “What about him?”
He lets go of my hair, taking a step back. Air rushes back into my lungs. Slowly, he asks, “What did he say to you?”
“He called me a whore,” I spit, “An expensive piece of pussy. That’s all I am to you, huh? You’re going to ruin me and then get some nice blonde Italian girl to have your babies?”
Torren goes rigid. “Is that what he said?”
I scoff. “Go to hell.”
He frowns, taking another step out of my space. Then he turns, and walks away, grabbing his suit jacket from the chair where he left it to hang.
I frown. “Where are you going?”
“Hell,” he quips.
My brows furrow. “What?”
“Go to bed,” he calls back.
I stay rooted to the spot.
He sighs deeply from the other side of the room. “Go to bed, Freya.”
Exhaling deeply, I back down. Whatever. I give up.
I’m too tired to argue, anyway.
I’m also scared.
Not because he left.
But because a small part of wanted him to stay. Despite what he just did.
I turn back to the window, and I watch as more lighting fills the sky, the thunder that follows shaking the foundation of the floor underneath me. I hear the soft click of the door as he leaves, and some traitorous part of me can’t help but wonder where he’s going. Who he’s going to meet.
Rain pelts furiously against the surface of the glass, the sound oddly comforting. When I grow too tired, I turn away from the view and head to the room, slipping out of my dress and into a t-shirt before I fall into my bed, where darkness finds me quicker than usual.
When I wake up, everything is blurry. I somehow get out of bed. I have so little control of my body that it feels like I’ve been drugged. A quick tour of the apartment tells me that Torren isn’t back. Annoyed, I decide to take a trip home.
I slip on my sneakers. Ana always used to tell me that she could never wear sneakers— that they looked too strange on her. That they didn’t fit in to the image of who we were supposed to be. They were too normal. And she could never have that kind of freedom. That kind of normalcy.
I open the door of the apartment, coming face to face with Salvatore Costa.
I frown, and suddenly, he brings out a knife. My heart gets stuck in my throat as I scream, and I manage to dodge the brunt of the knife, but I feel it nick my neck.
Somehow, I can’t form an appropriate reaction to what just happened.
All I can do is run.
And I am. Running, running, running, until I somehow get into a cab, keeping a hand against my neck to quell the bleeding as I spill the home address to the cab driver.
And then I’m home. I feel woozy from blood loss, but the driver pulls up a few minutes later, despite the fact that the drive normally takes a half hour. There are no guards outside the mansion. I open the front door, running inside to find Ana in the kitchen. But she’s not facing me.
“Ana,” I say, my voice strangely steady. “I think I’m bleeding. Can you get me a bandage or something?”
“Freya?” she says, still not facing me.
“Yes,” I say, “It’s me. Why won’t you turn around?”
“Freya,” she says, her voice scared. “I did something bad . . .”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“I didn’t mean to. I’ve just been so lonely . . .”
“What do you mean?” I echo, “Ana, turn around.”
And then she turns, and her wrists are slit open, blood spurting from them to the floor.
Bile rises up my throat, and my eyes go wide. I shake my head. “No.”
No no no no.
I try to reach for her, but she only sinks further away from me. I’m stuck, and it’s terrifying. I know my mother and father are upstairs, but they aren’t replying when I call their names.
I can’t see them, can’t see anything but her. I can only see Ana. I can only help her. I reach out a hand for Ana, calling her name repeatedly, but she won’t wake up.
Something cracks in my chest—something fundamental— and I lift my palm to my forehead trying to calm down, but my vision is already blurring and it’s painful to hold back the tears, so I let them stream down my cheeks.
The ache in my chest makes it too hard to stand, so I sink down to the floor as a sob breaks through.
I feel my skin burn, slowly, the heat intensifies. There’s a loud, ear-splitting sound, and I see my sister. My vision’s blurry, but I can make out her frame. Her eyes are shut abruptly, and her crumpled body is a bloody mess.
It looks like paint, blood red splashes of paint, and she’s the canvas.
Blood pools on the carpet, reaching my sneakers.
It’s a menacing magenta, the consistency of ink.
I scream for help, my voice raw, but no-one comes.
I felt tears running down my cheeks as my body catches alight.
I can feel the smoke and heat clouding around me.
Voices blare in the background, cutting through the ringing in my head and my heavy heartbeat.
“Freya.”
Someone’s shaking me, but I can’t move. My bones ache and feel completely hollow.
“Wake up.”
The voice gets louder, and my eyes flash open. Sweat trickles down the back of my neck. A hand pushes the hair in my face behind my ear. I’m gasping for air, tears running down my cheeks.
“Freya.”
It’s Torren. He’s leaning over me at the side of the bed, lifting my entire upper body from the bed by grabbing a single fistful of my t-shirt. His hair dishevelled and wet, his shirt drenched. More tears rush out of my eyes. I can’t get them to stop.
A moment’s worth of confusion marks his features, a deep line forming between his brows. “What’s wrong?”
I rush into him, into his chest, my arms around his neck and my legs around his torso as I cling to him like a marsupial.
His hand reluctantly settles on the crown of my head, the other on my lower back. I’m pressed against him, shaking in his arms. My cheek is against his chest. He smells like midnight rain. And I refuse to lift my face from my shirt.
Because I don’t want him to see me cry.
I?m awake, it was a dream, I repeat to myself, taking deep, irregular breaths, just a dream. But that wasn’t anything close to a dream. That was a fully-fledged nightmare — and I haven’t had one that bad in ages.
Frowning, Torren puts me at an arm’s distance to inspect my face. “What wrong?”
I shake my head in a weak attempt to deny it.
But he presses on. “What happened?”
Then I shove at his chest, but it’s futile, because he gets a hold of my wrists easily. Gently.
My eyes tear up, threatening to spill over my cheeks.
Torren makes a sound at the back of his throat. “Don’t.”
He edges closer to me as another sob breaks through. I bite down and look away, trying to control my stupid, unnecessary tears, and fuck, why can’t I just stop?
Torren gently cups the sides of my face with his hands, his touch so light it might not even exist. I wonder how it’s possible, how someone can look like the devil but have the touch of an angel.
Swallowing, I chance a second’s worth of eye contact with him. His dark eyes lack the same harshness as before. And when he drags the rough pads of thumbs underneath my eyes, I take a deep breath. And another.
And then everything becomes clearer. Sight, sounds.
I look up at him again, but his gaze doesn’t meet mine. It’s lower. On . . . my — my lips. And I swallow, opening them in the slightest as I exhale. His breathing quickens, sweet and warm, like the blood that spreads across my cheeks.
Abruptly, he seems to shake off the thought, narrowing his eyes as he scans my face. “Are you hurt?”
I shake my head, the memory of the dream flashing back in my mind.
“Ana.” I harshly extract myself from him, landing on the bed as I reach for my phone on the nightstand. I manage to unlock it, but when I try to dial, my vision’s blurry and my hands are shaking. “Something happened to Ana.”
Exhaling, Torren snatches the phone out of my hold, tapping on the screen. It rings in his ear for a while before she picks up.
“Anastasia,” Torren says, his voice deep and certain. “Your sister is concerned about your . . .” His gaze drags to me. “Wellbeing.”
I hear her talk on the other side, and Torren passes me the phone. Frowning, I glance down at his hand. His knuckles are raw. Ripped and bloody. Swallowing, I ignore it and take the phone.
“Ana,” I speak, “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she says, concern evident in her voice, “What’s going on, Frey?”
I breathe out. “I’m fine. Just a nightmare.”
There’s hesitant silence on the other end, and I know she’s worried. “Maybe you should come back for a while?”
“Yeah,” I say, meeting Torren’s gaze. “Maybe.”
We exchange a few more words, and a glance at my phone tells me that it’s 3am. I tell her to go back to sleep, and reluctantly, she says bye. When the call ends, a mellow silence ensconces the room. Torren is still standing at the edge of my bed, staring down at me with his jaw tight.
He’s never come into my room before. Even if it is technically the guest room. He allocated me my space and he’s never crossed that boundary, despite me crossing his countless times.
“Just a nightmare?” he echoes.
“Yes,” I mumble. “Just a nightmare. I haven’t had one since I was seven. But I’m fine now.” I offer up a reluctant half-smile. And even though he barely deserves it, I mutter a clipped, “Thanks.”
I expect him to walk away, but he doesn’t move. There’s a disturbed look in his eyes as he stares down at me. And then, he says, “Sleep with me.”
My eyes go wide. “What?”
His expression sours, like the thought of sleeping with me is just as abhorrent to him as it is to me. “Just sleep.”
“No, thanks,” I murmur dryly.
A flash of lighting fills the room, and he glances toward the window, then back at me.
“I’m not scared of the lightning,” I say, “Or the thunder.”
The darkness in his gaze dims. “I know.”
I frown. “What are you trying to save me from, then?”
He stares at me for a while before he says, “Yourself.”
I tamper down the spiral that cuts through my stomach, waving a dismissive hand instead. “Go away.”
He doesn’t. Instead, he bends, snaking an arm under my back and another under the back of my legs before he lifts me in his arms.
A flurry of emotions hit me, and my first instinct is to protest, but I’m too drained to physically fight him. I throw a weak punch to his chest instead. “What are you doing?”
“Shut up,” he grunts.
My body barely jolts in his arms as he strides out of my room and up the stairs. I glare up at him. “I thought you said you didn’t want to carry me.”
“I don’t.”
Ugh.
“Where did you go?” I ask him.
Nothing.
I try again. “What happened to your hand?”
Still nothing.
We enter his room, the scent of his cologne growing stronger. It wraps around me like an envelope. He throws my body onto the right-hand side of his bed, and my body bounces with the impact.
“I hate you,” I grumble. And I’m not sure whether I’m reminding him or myself.
“Good,” he says, like it genuinely satisfies him. “Go to sleep.”
“And I hate it when you tell me what to do.”
He unbuttons his shirt, then slips under the sheets on his side. “Shut up. And go to sleep.”
Of course, he tells me what to do. Again.
I grumble but comply. Only because, if anything, I’m actually exhausted. And his bed is somehow more comfortable than mine. I turn to my side, shimmying to the furthest edge of the bed.
He?s right there, breathing just an arm?s length away from me, and I don?t know how to deal with the proximity. Or the fact that we?re somehow in the same bed.
His bed.
When I push my hand under the pillow, I feel the cool metal of a gun. My heart skips a beat.
Guns were a common sight in the Morozov household, but not so common that we saw them in our bedrooms. I leave my fingers on the cold surface of the gun and allow myself to drift into the darkness.
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author?s note:
officially halfway!!!
spoiler for chapter 21 on my instagram @rhianovakauthor and more on my twitter @rhianovakauthor
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