Chapter 14
ELSIE
His family left a little bit ago, and luckily, no one asked me any more questions about our nonexistent relationship.
I can’t believe I’m actually married, or that my fake wedding to a mobster is in a week or so.
His mom was already calling up caterers to set up a date.
The wedding will be here on the property, and considering how large the grounds are from the tour I got after they left, I’d say there’s plenty of room.
He has everything you could possibly want right here: a tennis court, an indoor swimming pool, a movie theater for a dozen, a bowling alley. The grounds are filled with acres of greenery, a large oval pool that I got to enjoy the other day with Sophia, and a gazebo beside it, filled with loungers.
I remember when Jade, Kayla, and I would sing karaoke by my parents’ pool. We’d play songs, and I was always forced to sing. Apparently I’m good at it. I haven't sung the way I used to. I miss it. But when the Bianchis stole me, they stole my voice too.
My mind drifts to Kayla again, wondering, hoping that she’s alive enough for me to save her.
“Goodnight, princess,” Michael says, kissing Sophia on her cheek as he tucks her in.
And me? I’m staring at him. This father. This man. This awfully attractive man.
But it’s not his looks or his clothes that are drawing me in now. Not even the commanding aura about him. It’s the tenderness that he hides within. That’s the most beautiful thing about him. And I don’t think he even realizes it.
His love for his daughter outshines everything else, even when I know that the man underneath the clothes is a cold-blooded killer. But that same man saved a child. Risked his life and rescued her from a fate far worse than I even had. He did that.
How do I make sense of him? This contradiction before me?
“Elsie, could you read me a bedtime story?” Sophia asks, glancing past her father, her toothless grin hitting me right in the heart.
My eyes sting at the thought of something as simple as reading a bedtime story to a child. Something I’ve never even done before. But I want to.
My feet are moving before I have a chance to run into the bedroom Michael and I share.
“Of course,” I tell her, blinking back tears.
Michael catches it, his gaze seeing them even as I try to hide them away. But there’s no hiding from him.
His features grow intense, that rugged jaw clenching as he gets off the bed. I hurry to the huge bookcase against the left side. It’s one of those that are part of the wall, books filling all four shelves.
“What would you like to read?” I run my hands past the spines, and all the time, I feel his eyes on my back.
“You pick,” she offers, and my heart flutters.
I wanted this someday. A family. Children.
But this is all pretend. I’ll be gone in a year, and this little girl and her father will forget me like I never existed.
I remove a copy of The Wimpy Kid and make my way to the bed.
“I love that one!”
Her head hits the pillow, and she pulls the covers up to her chin while I take my spot on the edge, starting to open the book.
“Can you lay next to me?” Her brows knit.
I couldn’t say no even if I wanted to. And I don’t want to.
I scoot in, tucking her over my chest. Page after page, I read her the words, her giggles uncovering a world of forgotten dreams trapped in my soul, helping to replace the nightmares now buried there.
I peer up at Michael as I lie next to his daughter, pretending she’s mine. And as he observes us together, the harshness on his face cracks just a little, and I swear his lips move to form a twinge of a smile.
We make it back into our bedroom, and it still feels weird calling it ours. I don’t belong here—in this house, in his world. None of it is mine, and I don’t want it to be.
He pushes the door to a close, and I’m suddenly alone with the monster beneath the man. My skin skitters with tiny little ants.
“We have to talk,” he says, stalking over to me, his baby-blue button-down practically ripping at the chest, conforming to the pecs underneath.
“About?” I finally slip out of my heels, groaning, my feet aching.
I glance up at him, catching his nostrils flaring as his gaze languidly slips down my figure.
“The Bianchis know you’re with me.”
“Oh, God.” My arms spread with goose bumps, my heartbeats thumping loudly in my throat. “Don’t send me back there. I have to help—”
“Help who?” He tilts my chin up with the back of his index finger. “The girls at the house?”
When I don’t say anything, he only continues.
“You can’t save them, Elsie. There’s nothing you can do for them. Do you understand me?”
But I refuse to accept that, hostility filling my eyes. He gives me a frustrated slip of his breath.
“Tell me you understand, Elsie.” His voice drops into something deep and raspy, causing my stomach to bottom out.
He drops his lips too close to mine, our eyes tangled, seeking more. That pull…it’s there whether we want it to be or not.
“I need an answer, Elsie. Tell me you understand. Tell me you didn’t do something stupid.”
I scoff, shoving his hand off my face. “Married the wrong woman if you thought I’d listen to what you had to say.”
In a blink, his arm sweeps around my lower back, the large span of his palm clenching around my ass, pressing me into the swell of his bulge.
“You’re maddening, you know that?” he growls on a sigh. “I’m trying to keep you safe. Believe it or not, I don’t want you back with them either.”
His lips hover above mine, and I taste the liquor from his breath.
“So, God damn it, say you’ll listen to me. Don’t you dare try anything.”
“You don’t understand.” The words tremble out. “My friend Kayla is there. She’s one of my best friends.”
I don't want to give him a piece of my past, but maybe if he knew me, really knew me, he’d want to help us.
“Jade, Kayla, and I were best friends in high school. We took a road trip together after our senior year, and they sabotaged Jade’s car and took us from the side of the road.
I don’t know where Jade is now, but Kayla and I have been together for the past nine years, Michael.
Nine whole years with those animals. The things they did to us…
” The back of my throat throbs with the painful memories.
He breathes out heavy, that face turning with rage. It’s everywhere on his features.
A chill skitters up my back, but I continue. “I swore I’d go back for her. She was too scared to get in your car.”
I feel the tears trace down my cheeks, and as he stares deep in my eyes, his brows bend with emotion. He reaches a thumb toward me and wipes away a single tear.
“Can you imagine what they’re doing to her because of me?” I grip his wide wrist. “Please, help her. I’ll do anything you want.”
He draws in a long breath, eyes hooded, and my hope grows that maybe he’ll actually do something. That maybe there is a hero beneath the killer.
“I’m sorry, Elsie. But there’s nothing either one of us can do for her.”
“No!”
I shove at his chest, but he doesn't move an inch.
“You bastard! How can you just stand around and do nothing? How?” I roar, a sob slipping out. “How?!”
I shove at him again, but his arm remains fastened around me.
“What if this was your daughter? Would you just leave her there?”
I swallow past the raw pain carving up my insides. I can’t give up. I won’t.
“You’re a coward!” I swipe harshly under my eyes, and when I push at him again, he lets me go.
Anger, so much of it, fills my veins, hating this man I was starting to…I don’t know, like? But now I don’t even want to look at him.
With a long sigh, he passes a hand down his face. And without turning back, he enters the walk-in closet and stays there even after I get into bed and cry myself to sleep.