10. Deirdre #3
His face goes a little pale, and then it looks like he’s making a mental note, and I realize with a roll of my eyes that the next time I come here I’m pretty sure all the chemicals are going to be locked up somewhere where I can’t access them.
I already told Elio I had no interest in dying just to escape him, but his men don’t know that.
And I wouldn’t put it past Elio to think that this whole we’re getting married thing has thrown me over some kind of mental edge I won’t be able to pull myself back from.
Which, I mean, it kind of has. He’s changed the game on me again, and I’m struggling to find my footing, that’s for sure. But things aren’t so dire I’m planning to swallow a bunch of toxic pool-cleaning chemicals over it.
I don’t bother explaining any of that to the mafia soldier assigned to babysit me.
Instead, I just go back the way we came, through the kitchen to the central area of the house.
There’s another door I haven’t gone through and I approach it.
Robbie seems to get a little stiff when I reach for the door handle.
“What? Am I not allowed in here?”
“That’s Mr. Titone’s office,” Robbie replies.
“OK. That doesn’t actually answer my question.”
“Well… He said you’re allowed anywhere in the house.”
He still seems uncomfortable, though. I eye him closely, then pull back.
“Let me guess,” I say. “I’m allowed in here. But you aren’t.”
His mouth thins into a hard line, and I know I’m right.
“Well, you just stay here, then!” I say, unable to contain my grin. It’s probably petty and childish, but I don’t care. I yank open the door, practically skip inside, then slam it closed.
One glance tells me there’s a security camera in the ceiling here. Since it isn’t one of the bedrooms, I know Elio’s security team will have access to this feed. Even without Robbie in here with me, I’m still being watched.
Well, it’s not like I plan on trashing the place or smashing a window for an escape attempt or something. I’m just exploring.
I survey the office. It’s lovely, which I find both interesting and irritating.
I know Valentina arranged the gorgeous décor for my bedroom, but everything in here just screams Elio, and I feel like he must have chosen everything himself.
The furniture is large, the desk a dark wooden one with clean, masculine lines.
There are bookshelves along the walls, a door that leads into a small adjoining bathroom, and a floor-to-ceiling window that looks out on the back of the property.
The bright sunlight filtering in makes everything feel bright and warm, like it might actually just be a normal office instead of the workspace belonging to a mob boss.
I wander past the desk with its computer and drawers and scope out the shelves of books.
There are a lot of books on law, which I find darkly ironic.
Studying up to best figure out how to circumvent them, Elio?
There are also books on local history, politics, industry, trade.
But those end abruptly, turning into something I’m familiar with from the upstairs.
Books on violin. Loads of them, stuffed into the shelves.
Just how many books on music and violins did he buy before I came to be here? He was watching me since I was eighteen, so presumably he’d have had more than a year and a half to collect all this stuff, but still. It feels wildly excessive, but then again, what about Elio isn’t?
I sigh, moving away from the books. This time, I cross the room behind his desk instead of in front of it. His computer screen is dark, but with a flutter of nerves in my belly I jiggle the mouse until the screen lights up.
It asks for a password, of course. Even a normal person’s computer asks for a password, let alone a member of the goddamn mafia.
I don’t even know what I’m looking for anyway. In fact, anything I find on there is probably just going to make me angry. I want to learn more about Elio… But is that really what I want when what I will uncover will probably just reveal more and more of the monster he truly is?
Not that I think he cares about hiding anything like that from me. He told me he was a monster my very first night here.
I’m about to turn away from the computer, but there’s something niggling in me that doesn’t let me. Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I take a wild stab in the dark, typing in the password box.
My mouth falls open when the computer unlocks. I got it right on my first fucking guess.
Songbird. He actually made his password Songbird.
Kind of a low-security password, to be honest. Although it isn’t a laptop he could lose, and I can’t imagine many people get access to this room to type in their guesses.
Besides me.
My heart hammers. I feel like at any moment someone, maybe even Elio himself, is going to bust down that door and punish me. Imagining Elio being the one to do it makes my clit twinge shamefully.
I ignore thoughts of him coming in here to discover me and take a quick look at the screen.
It looks like it’s an email that’s been left open. Based on the name in the sender’s address, it appears to be an email from Valentina. That alone isn’t anything weird or surprising.
But the body of the message certainly fucking is. My eyes get wider and wider as they fly over the letters on the screen.
Elio Titone of Toronto, son of Florencia Titone, is honoured to announce his engagement to Deirdre O’Malley of Toronto, daughter of Fiona O’Malley.
Mr. Titone is a purveyor of multiple business interests, and Miss O’Malley is an accomplished violinist currently completing her Bachelor of Arts in Music at the University of Toronto, due to graduate with honours next spring.
The wedding is set for February twenty-ninth of this year.
It's an engagement announcement. No fucking doubt about it.
But it’s just in an email. It must be a draft version, or something…
Unless…
I check the CC column and gasp when I see other emails listed there. All of them appearing to belong to local news stations and papers.
No longer worried or nervous about doing something wrong, my fingers fly to the mouse and keyboard. I click out of the email and open a search engine, hastily typing in “Elio Titone engagement.”
Oh. Oh no.
There it is. Dozens of times over in the search results, displayed digitally by publications from the tiny to the national. My face goes hot while my body goes cold, fury flashing through me.
I told him no. I told him I wouldn’t marry him.
And he just told the whole damn world I said yes.
There’s a real, virulent urge for me to type a new email and send it to all those news outlets Valentina CCed.
This is Deirdre O’Malley and I would like to make a correction to your recent publications.
I am actually not engaged to Elio Titone.
In fact, he never even asked me. Technically, I’m some kind of prisoner, or maybe a victim of Stockholm Syndrome, so if you want to write a story featuring my name maybe you should write about that.
I don’t type any of that, of course. It’s one of those mental exercises where you compile a letter even though you know you’d never send it.
I can’t even imagine the chaos that would ensue if I went to the media and told them what Elio’s done.
If they’re friends of the family, they probably wouldn’t even publish it anyway, but I know there would be hell to pay. For me, and maybe for Elio, too.
I actually play through the scenario in my head. Think about what would happen if even one good journalist got their teeth into this story and helped to push it out there. Even someone like Elio wouldn’t be able to wiggle his way out of that one.
He could actually be arrested.
He could go to jail.
Once, that thought might have given me a righteous sort of relief. I would have thought, Good. So he should. The kidnapping bastard.
But now…
Now it makes my stomach clench with dread. Which is frankly fucking infuriating. After everything he’s done to me, including this engagement announcement cherry on top, I should rejoice about him getting his due.
But I don’t. I can’t.
A part of me wants to protect him. Even if there’s no one left to protect me from him.
I let out a shaky breath, clicking open the first news link from The Toronto Trumpet . I re-read the engagement announcement, shaking my head numbly as I do so. That numbness evaporates when I read the final sentence of the announcement again.
The wedding is set for February twenty-ninth of this year.
This year?!
That can’t be right. That must be a typo. But a frantic click through of the other news links shows me that they all have the same date listed, and it correlates to the date Valentina had in her original email.
So this is how he’s going to play it, then.
Force me into this marriage and make it happen so fast that there’s no way for me to escape it, no way for me to explore any other options.
There’s no chance to wait a year or two and see if Darragh cools off, or if he’s willing to make some other kind of bargain.
Nope, it’s just straight to the altar for us, then.
Once again, I can’t get over the shocked confusion that Elio is actually going to these lengths to protect me.
Or maybe just to own me. Who even knows at this point?
But I can’t deny the slight twist of toxic pleasure I feel in my belly when I remember what he said last night, when I assumed he couldn’t actually want to marry me.
Do I look like the sort of man who does a single fucking thing he doesn’t want to do?
Whatever the outcome with Darragh ends up being, Elio does seem to think he wants to marry me. Which is insane, considering we only officially met about a month ago. His stalking behaviour aside, anyway.
I let go of the mouse, noticing the anxiety-sweat handprint I’ve left behind.
I rub my clammy palms on my leggings and then straighten up.
I’ve seen enough in here for now. I yank open the door to find Robbie standing directly on the other side, as if he was trying to use X-Ray vision to peer through the door.
I don’t say anything to him. I just walk past him to the kitchen. I pick up the cup of tea I abandoned and take a huge sip.
But the tea’s gone cold. And it doesn’t do a single thing to help.