Chapter 17
Salvario
I get out of bed.
It’s not working.
I walk out of my room.
I tried.
For three hours, I tried. Like every night, I didn’t go to her before bed, but it’s not working. All I can think of is her.
I don’t know when it happened, but I’ve crossed the line where staying away from her might have solved the problem. Now I can’t. Not when I know she’s here, within my reach. Instead of letting thoughts of her occupy my mind, I can let her presence do it.
I walk into Bruno’s room and quickly move closer to her. She’s sleeping on her back, her hands resting on her stomach, her chest rising and falling with steady breaths. Her lips are slightly parted.
I sit on the floor and remove my glove. I reach for her hair—wavy brown strands spilling across the pillow—and lift one, feeling its silk slip through my fingers. I rub it between thumb and forefinger, then let it go.
Slowly, I lift my hand to her face and brush my thumb over her cheek. Her skin is soft as a rose petal.
I caress her cheek with my fingers, my touch no more than the weightless brush of fingertips, too scared to apply any pressure, as if she’s something I’ll ruin with even the slightest force.
And she is. She’s like the roses: you want to pluck them and keep them with you, but they wither once removed from the plant.
She’s the most beautiful rose I’ve ever seen. I want to keep her hidden from the world, safe in some place where only I can see her, but she’s not mine. Not mine to touch. Not mine to want. Not mine to keep. I won’t be able to keep her blooming.
Yet I can’t stop the need—growing fiercer by the day. The need to make her mine.
My thumb traces the outline of her lips lightly. She frowns, closes her mouth, and turns onto her side, away from me.
I pull my hand back and put the glove on again, trapping the memory of her skin against mine.
I rise from the floor, cross to the couch, and lower myself onto it. I lie down facing her, arms folded over my chest.
The couch isn’t long enough to hold me, and it’s certainly not comfortable for anyone to sleep on, but for me, it’s the most restful place I’ve had in years.
I don’t have to fight with myself when she’s in front of me. She keeps my brain focused on her.
Without her, I have to force my mind to stay in the present by keeping my focus on the moment. As soon as I lose that grip, the memories drag me into the past, and then nothing stays in my control.
The boy takes over. He forces me to relive the past. For him, it’s a never-ending present. He never escaped those eleven days. He’s still trapped there—and he won’t be able to leave until I take his revenge.
Only one person remains. Then he’ll be free. Then he can meet my mother again and tell her we gave back tenfold what they took from her.
Before I brought her here, I was counting down the days.
Only a few were left for me to endure in this cage of life.
The day I brought her here, I marked the date on that knife, but she changed everything.
I can’t follow the old plan anymore. I have to hold on a few more days. Until I kill her father.
I close my eyes slowly. As soon as my brain separates from reality, the memories begin to take over.
I know I’m in a nightmare. I always know when it starts, but I can’t pull myself out. Soon, it grips me completely, leaving no escape. It pins me in place and forces me to watch.
My uncles and their friends are sitting in our living room, drinking, smoking, and laughing. It’s the second day after my father’s death. For two days, my mother has kept me locked in the storage room that’s become our new room. Today, my aunt pulls me out and brings me to these men.
“Il bastardo di Corrado,” Uncle Justin laughs.
(Corrado’s bastard.)
I clench my jaw at his insult, anger rising in my chest. He gestures for me to come closer, frowning.
“Cos’è questo? Rabbia?”
(What’s this? Anger?)
I step closer. “Sei il bastardo.”
(You’re the bastard.)
His face twists in rage. He stands and backhands me across the face. I fight back, but he’s so much bigger and stronger. He grabs my hand when I lift it to punch him and throws me onto the table. My face hits it, the corner splits the skin above my lip. Blood seeps from the wound.
Footsteps rush into the room.
“Justin, please don’t hit him.” My mother’s voice, breathless and sobbing.
I turn and see my uncle raising a bottle above me. He lowers it and watches my mother with a disgusting smile. I grit my teeth. He looks down at me, his anger flaring again.
My mother rushes to me and hugs me tightly.
“Please. I beg you.” She sobs, her whole body trembling.
Vinci, my other uncle, rises and yanks my mother away from me.
“Gli insegneremo solo le buone maniere, Alba,” he oozes, pulling her close. His voice makes me sick.
(We’ll only teach him manners, Alba.)
Vinci looks at Justin. “Lascialo andare dopo avergli bruciato le mani.”
(Let him go after burning his hands.)
My mother falls at Vinci’s feet, crying and begging him not to. He just laughs.
Justin drags me to the fireplace. My mother tries to get up, to come toward me, but Vinci kicks her, then plants his shoe on her back and presses her down.
I scream, “Mama!”—but the word dissolves into a cry of pain as Justin presses the backs of my hands against the burning coals.
I try to pull back, but his grip is too strong. The pain builds and builds. I keep crying.
Finally, he lets me go.
I run out of the living room, not stopping until I realize: I didn’t bring Mama with me.
Where is she?
I stand on the staircase, calling her name. She doesn’t answer. I left her there—left her with them. Now they’ll torture her. I didn’t save her. I failed my mama.
I scream her name, again and again, but no one answers.
I run upstairs. I’m not in my father’s mansion anymore, I’m in my house. I hear music and rush up to the rose garden.
There’s Mama. She’s playing the piano.
She smiles at me when I reach her. I’m still sobbing. I run to her and fall at her feet, wrapping my arms around her knees.
“You didn’t leave me,” I sob into her lap. “Please don’t leave me. Please. I’m so scared.”
She strokes my hair but doesn’t say anything. I look up to see her.
But she’s not there.
She left me.
I spin around, searching for her, but I’m alone.
Suddenly, the piano plays again behind me. I turn.
Someone’s on the bench now, but it’s not Mama.
She stops playing the piano and looks at me, her golden eyes shining in the light.
She reaches out to touch me.
I open my eyes. She’s holding my face in her hands.
“Don’t leave me.” I repeat the same desperate plea I made to my mother.
And then I realize—this isn’t the dream.
I rush up from the couch and leave Bruno’s room.
I wipe my face with my sleeve as I walk to my room. Once inside, I collapse onto my bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.
“Why did you leave?” I whisper to the empty room, knowing no one will answer.
I close my eyes. The boy is waiting there, staring back at me from behind them.
He’s angry these days. I’m not doing what he wants—I’m not torturing Alexander’s daughter. When he gets mad, he locks me inside the memories. He does the same this time. And like always, I’m helpless, I let him show me whatever he wants.
It was the fourth day.
They caught us while we were planning to run away.
First, they whipped us both. Then they moved on to removing our skin from our flesh.
My mother begged them to let me go, to do whatever they wanted with her, but they didn’t.
They ripped the skin from my chest in patches.
They stopped after five, but they kept beating my mother. They broke one of her hands.
That night, they locked us in a room where we stayed, starving, for two days.
On the third day, Antonio brought us food. He promised my mother he would get us out. We just had to survive a few more days.
He loved my mother. For her, he became a killer. Antonio was my father’s accountant. He had never once killed so much as a bird. But after what they did to us on the eleventh day, he killed many to drag us out of that hell.
He still couldn’t save the woman he loved.
A knock comes at the door. I blink out of the memory. The door opens. I sit up in bed.
She enters with two cups. Bruno follows her in, he reaches me first, climbing onto the bed and lying down beside me.
She hesitantly steps closer, reaches me, and extends a cup toward me.
When I don’t take it, she pulls it back and sits on the edge of the bed, both cups in her hands.
“I know you want me to stay away from you, but I’m a little thick-skinned.”
“Non sai niente.” I mutter.
(You know nothing.)
Her eyes widen slightly, then she smirks. “I knew you were Italian.”
She shifts a little closer. “I’m half Italian, but I can’t speak the language. I only know a few words.”
She extends the cup again. This time, I take it.
She takes a sip. I do the same. It’s the same honey chocolate milk.
“This is the only thing I can make,” she chuckles. “It’s my sister’s and my comfort drink. I’ve made it hundreds of times. I’m an expert.” She finishes with a grin.
“Sister?” I didn’t know she had a sister.
She nods. “My uncle and aunt’s daughter. We’ve spent our whole lives together.” She pauses, then adds, “You might know her.”
“King’s daughter?”
She looks away, takes a sip, then nods.
“King’s daughter.”
After another sip, she meets my eyes.
“Elowen,” she says. “Her name.” The smile is gone from her face.
We stare at each other for a long moment. Then she speaks, looking down into her cup.
“Try not to forget her name.”
“Why?”
She smiles. It doesn’t reach her eyes. She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t look at me.
We sit in silence, sipping the milk. I don’t even like milk, but I can’t refuse her.
Once we finish, she takes my cup and gets up. I stop myself from asking her to stay.
She sets the cups down and moves toward the door. The cold wraps around me again, once she leaves through that door, it will be the only thing keeping me company.
Bruno is still on the bed, but I know he’ll leave with her. Given the choice, no one would choose to stay away from her.
But she doesn’t leave. Instead, she moves to the switchboard and turns to me.
“I’m changing the lights.”
I nod.
She presses each button, dismantling the peace of my room—flicking lights on and off from different spots, glancing around in irritation every time a wrong one clicks on. Finally, she finds the combination she wants: dim yellow light. Relaxing. The one I hate.
I knew before agreeing that she’d change the bright white into this. And I also knew I wouldn’t utter a single word of refusal.
She moves to the other side of the bed—where Bruno is—and sits with her back against the headboard, her pale legs stretched across my black sheets.
I fight the urge to touch them, to touch her.
She’s in my bed, and it’s nearly impossible to stop myself from getting closer, but the barrier between us is enormous.
Bruno gets up and settles close to her. I shift back too, pressing my back against the headboard.
“Why aren’t there any AI assistants in this house? It feels ancient.”
“I don’t like them.”
“What’s not to like? My family can’t go a day without them—or the robots. They’re so handy.”
When I don’t reply, she sighs, adjusting the pillows behind her. “But you’re also ancient, so it’s understandable.”
“You’re calling me old.”
She grins. “Aren’t you?”
“No.”
She clicks her tongue. “Someone lied to you. You’re old.” She leans in, her face close to mine. “Too old.”
She tempts me, speaking in that voice, teasing me, looking at me with those glistening, wide eyes, smiling like I’m not someone she should stay away from.
I turn my head away.
After a silent minute, she asks, “How old is Bruno?”
I look back at her. “Three.”
She runs her fingers through the fur around his neck.
“Did you bring him here?”
“Antonio did.”
She chuckles, turning onto her side and pressing her temple to the headboard.
“I bet you must have sulked.”
I turn too, facing her fully.
“I did. I wanted to throw him out.”
“And then you got attached to him.”
I look down at the dog.
She pats his head. “He loves you, you know.”
“He loves you more.”
She grins. “Are you jealous?”
Yes. I’m jealous that he gets to have your love in return.
When I don’t answer, she turns her attention to Bruno. She slides down to press kisses to his head. The bastard takes each one with his eyes closed.
“I’ll miss him terribly,” she sighs, then looks at me. “And you too.”
I want her to miss me when she goes back to her happy life—the life I don’t want her to return to. I’ll still send her away, knowing that eventually, she’ll forget me. One day, someone will come along to love her, to keep her shining and smiling forever.
“What are you thinking?” she asks softly.
“About your future.”
She raises her brows. “What about my future?”
“You’ll move on with your life. Meet new people. Live among those who love you. Marry some good man. Adopt a dog. And easily forget Bruno and me.”
But Bruno and I will never forget you.
“That’s what you think.” She holds my gaze. “And what you think isn’t the truth.”
I want to ask her what the truth is. But I know that would burn the line I’ve drawn between us.
Neither of us speaks after that. A thick tension of unspoken words hangs between us.
Slowly, her eyes close. But mine stay open.
I won’t like what I’ll be forced to see after closing them. And I love the sight before me—so much I want to trap it in time, never letting it go.