Chapter 9
ALICE
My head is heavy and my eyelids are impossible to raise. I can’t even move my limbs, and voices float in and out of my head as if spoken from a distance.
I can’t focus, my mind is gone, and if I’m in a deep nightmare right now, I hope to wake up sooner rather than later. It’s as if I’m dead and the mourners have gathered around my coffin. Whispered words come from far away, and I have no ability to answer them.
I sense movement and a blast of warm air hitting my skin as strong arms lift me from the car and sling me over someone’s shoulder.
I attempt to form words. “Ste…”
My mind forms the word, but my mouth doesn’t cooperate. It must be Stefan. It can’t be anyone else, but why is he carrying me this way?
Were we in an accident? Am I being lifted out of a wreck? Is this what happened to my mom?
Tears trickle down my face, reminding me I’m still alive at least, and then I’m roughly deposited onto something hard.
The light fades behind my eyes, and the dull thud of something closing leaves me in complete darkness.
The air is stale, there’s a faint odor I can’t place, and my head hurts.
My heart is racing and breathing is difficult, and then I hear an engine and we set off.
What’s happening? I am so confused, and where is Stefan?
I’m so muddled, I can’t think straight, and my only memory is of falling asleep in the truck.
Something happened between then and now, and I am so worried about Stefan. This isn’t right. What is happening?
As my body thumps against the confines of my space, it hurts like hell, and my mind struggles to keep up. This isn’t right. I’m in danger and now is not the time to have a panic attack. Am I being kidnapped—but why?
‘You know why.’
That voice kicks the cage door down and berates me for being so stupid. There is only one person who hates me enough to stage something like this, and I pray to God I’m not being delivered back to her.
Morgan Sorcusi, our hated stepmother, who insisted on the title despite the fact she never married my father. Is this her? If it is, I should be very afraid because I’m guessing with my father gone, she has no reason to keep me around and every reason to get rid of me.
Understanding dawns as the dots connect, as my father’s empire rears its ugly head. The Diamond Dynasty. The bane of our lives is a ship without a captain, and it’s only now I realize that as the eldest daughter, that captain is now probably me.
Tears trickle down my face, but they are angry ones. How could I have been so stupid? Of course it’s her. I wouldn’t put it past her to have kidnapped me from Stefan, and my heart clenches as I imagine what they did to him.
Morgan always was a vindictive bitch, and her cruelty knew no bounds. It’s why we were so happy to be sent to boarding school, out of her clutches, away from her demonic mind.
I will not allow that woman any space in my head because what she did to us was nothing short of depraved. It must be her; it can be nobody else, and I have until this car reaches its destination to figure out a plan of escape.
Sleep is impossible under the circumstances, but my mind wouldn’t allow that, anyway.
The trouble with minds and time is that it reopens old wounds and allows the demons in.
Despite how hard I try to bat them away, they refuse to back down, and I stifle the sob catching at the back of my throat as the biggest demon of all rears her crazed head.
They’ll never find me in here. I giggle as I press to the back of the cupboard, hoping my sisters didn’t notice me come in here. Hide and seek is always a fun game, and I pride myself on remaining undetected.
I hear footsteps and freeze, pressing my hand to my mouth, containing any sound from my lips as I shrink as far away into the darkness as possible,
I listen, my ears trained and acutely alert to every footstep, every breath drawn, and every opening of a cupboard or drawer. However, these footsteps are sharper, the distinct click of heels against the marble floor.
I freeze as I sense this person is not one of my beloved sisters but the most hated one of all. Her. The woman who pretends to be a loving mother in front of our father but is a cruel, evil stepmother when he isn’t looking.
I still as her breathing filters through the cracks in the wood and then her sinister voice wafts through the keyhole.
‘You are always playing your stupid games, aren’t you, Alice?’
I say nothing, hoping she doesn’t open the door because knowing her, she will inflict some form of undetectable pain on me.
‘Perhaps you should choose more wisely next time.’
The sound of the key turning in the cupboard causes my heart to jump, and her evil voice filters through the cracks as she whispers, ‘I wonder how long you will last before your oxygen runs out? Such a foolish game that could bring about a horrific demise. So sad when your father discovers that his daughter killed herself, just like her mom.’
I don’t register the threat on me, only the way she referred to my mother. My mom didn’t kill herself. It was an accident. My father told me.
‘Yes, such a tragedy when her car ran into the wall on the mountain road. Nobody would suspect that she did it intentionally to get away from you. Your father told me she hated you and wished you had never been born. That she regretted the pain of labor because you got to cause her agony. She detested the sight of you and death was preferable rather than raising the brat who ruined her life. So, I’m doing what she should have done all those years ago and putting you out of your misery. ’
I hold my hands over my ears because even at eight years old I know she is lying. It’s something deep inside me, a memory of a loving smile and warm kisses. Murmurings of love from a woman who couldn’t be the person Morgan is referring to.
‘She tried to smother you as a baby and only stopped when your father came in. You were a difficult child, and never stopped screaming by all accounts. I wonder how it feels to be you, Alice. Knowing how unloved you are and always will be. That your own mother wanted you dead and wished you had never been born. It’s such a shame that she took the easy way out and left me to deal with the problem.
Not anymore. Not after your stupid little game turns deadly. ’
Her footsteps blend into the background, and I resist screaming out loud because her words have overtaken my mind and rendered me devastated.
My mom didn’t want me.
She killed herself to escape me, and as much as I try to push away her words as the cruel ranting of a psychopath, I can’t.
My sister’s voices are outside, and I jump up to bang on the door, only to hear Morgan cry out, ‘Girls, stop running around the house and report to the nursery where your tutor is waiting.’
Their voices fade into the distance, and as I open my mouth to scream, it’s with a sinking heart that I realize I chose the music room and, due to the soundproofing on the walls, nobody will ever hear me.
An angry sob reminds me how hurtful the memory is. I passed out after the air grew shallow and woke to find my father staring at me with concerned rage, Morgan beside him on the other side of my bed.
‘Oh, thank God.’ She was openly crying and sobbed, ‘Thank God, I found her. I have told the girls so many times not to play tricks on one another.’
My father’s face was like thunder as he snapped, ‘Tiffany will be punished for the cruel trick she played on you, Alice; mark my words, she will never do anything like this again.’
‘But it wasn’t her.’
I pointed to Morgan, who merely shook her head sadly. ‘I told you they lie to protect one another, Enrico. You don’t know how difficult it has been for me trying to get them to love me.’
‘Enough, Alice.’
My father’s frown was angry as he hissed, ‘You will apologize to your stepmother and make her a promise to be kinder and behave. It’s not easy for a woman to care for three children who aren’t her own, and Morgan has worn herself out trying to make your lives happier.’
They say you grow up when you realize that your parents make mistakes like everyone else, and in that moment, I aged several generations.
Nothing I said would have made a difference, and the gleam in Morgan’s eyes told me she was fully aware of that.
She had won and she always will because I’d stake my life on the fact that I’m locked in this trunk at her request and this time I may never see the light of day again.