Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
ANNA
Aweight dropped, and my heart stumbled with it.
Doom had visited my dreams. I sat up in bed, heart racing, a scream still echoing in the room.
I reached for my chest as I eased the pain, blinking away the last remaining shroud of sleep.
The room was dark. There was nothing but gloom crouched in all corners of it. Something was off.
His silk sheets slid off me like his personal touch. I slept in his bed, but he never slept next to me, except for that one time.
Dropping my feet to the floor, I stared at my painted toenails, but my galloping heartbeat wasn’t willing to come to a rest. When Papá was murdered, the cold weight of uneasiness had become my constant companion.
Over the years, it had become a familiar visitor.
Appearing at the most unexpected times and always uninvited.
I should have been used to it, yet somehow, the weight seemed heavier.
With a sigh, I wiggled out of my dress and padded to the dressing room. Finding one of his shirts, I slipped it over my head. I didn’t even know why I bothered when I had my own clothes. Only wearing his shirt made me feel a little less hollow.
I walked out of the room, allowing my gut instinct to lead the way. I’d just peep into his office, make sure he was there, and go back to bed.
What if he isn’t there? My breath shallowed.
I quelled that thought in the darkness of my chest.
But it snuck right out when I noticed the empty sofa in his office. The sinking feeling I’d woken up to flared into a full-blown sinkhole under me.
“Nico?” I called out tentatively into the empty room.
My hollow voice cracked on the walls. I turned, my feet racing through the house, heartbeat thundering, as I ran from room to room in search of him.
When I didn’t find him downstairs, I ran upstairs and went through the guest rooms. Doors slammed open and bounced against the walls.
Somewhere between his empty office and upstairs, I’d given up on the pretense. “Nico,” I screamed.
I heard nothing, but then I stilled. Something fell, followed by a swift curse. I was already moving toward one of the guest bathrooms before I’d given it any thought.
Another curse, and this time it sounded like he was in pain. My hand rushed to the handle and pushed. I burst through the door and froze.
He leaned against the counter with his shirt untucked and the buttons unaligned, as if he’d hurriedly put it on.
A red first-aid box and its contents lay all over the floor.
I followed the red drops around it all the way to his hand.
The one that was in an awkward place near his hip.
My sluggish mind took time to react, and when it did, I went entirely still.
It was blood. Seeping out from the edges of his hand and dripping onto the floor. It. Was. Blood.
My vision seeped black.
“Anna.” His voice thundered. A command that ripped my gaze to his.
He gave a satisfied nod and demanded, “Eyes on me.”
I tried. But my gaze was chaotic. Sliding up and down.
“Up here,” he snapped. I tried again. He kept talking. “What do you do to calm down?”
I didn’t know. I squeezed my lips between my teeth and fought to clear my mind.
“How about your father? What did he do to calm you?”
My lips wobbled. “I don’t remember.” My panic built again.
“It’s okay,” his voice was oddly soft. Almost a whisper. “How about your mother?”
I shook my head. I looked after her, not the other way around.
He gripped the counter. “I can’t come near you, stella mia.”
Why not? Then I realized he meant with the blood. I swayed on my feet.
He sighed. “Turn around.” I stared at him. He explained himself. “I need to bandage something, and you don’t need to see it.”
I nodded but still stood staring.
“Anna,” he encouraged, and slowly I turned toward the doorway.
“Good girl,” he murmured, and I didn’t know why, but I wanted to be one for him.
Things clattered behind my back. He must have been picking everything up. The vision of him with blood oozing out made me wobble on my feet again. I reached out and gripped the doorway. He must have noticed because he let out a frustrated sigh. “How about the prick?”
“Prick?”
“The prick who was here the other day,” he said tightly.
He meant Joel. How had Joel calmed me down? The only time I’d lost around him was after Papá’s death, and he hadn’t hung around to show me how he’d do it. “He wasn’t there.” ‘When I needed him’ went unsaid.
The noises behind me stopped. Steady footsteps approached me.
My body tightened, but it wasn’t the kind of tension as the terror that had held me captive at the sight of…
no… better not think of that. His calm voice fell on my skin like a warm scarf.
“I’ll walk you to bed.” I made to turn around, but he put his index finger on my cheek and gave it a gentle shove to the front. “No looking.”
That he knew that I’d freak out even at the sight of his red-tinted shirt made me want to sag against him in relief. Instead, I forced myself to put one foot in front of another and walk.
“What happened?”
“Got distracted when I took the garbage out,” he muttered like it was an everyday occurrence.
The thought that it might very well be in his world made me come to a dead halt.
“Does it happen a lot?”
A pause. I didn’t need to look to know he was studying my reaction.
“Don’t worry. I’ll save the last stab for you, mia piccola assassina.”
Ice shot through my veins. I have to do it. For Papá. But the very thought of it… I forced down the bile rising in my throat. “Promise?” I choked out.
He laughed. It didn’t sound funny. “One hundred percent.” I started to walk again, but his next words froze me on the bottom step. “You’re the only one capable of ending me, stella.”
I turned to look at him, carefully avoiding his midriff.
Looking at him felt like I was looking at a lost soul desperately seeking a home.
The torment in his eyes seared through to my chest. My lungs tightened.
It felt like an elastic band wrapped around too many times.
I couldn’t survive this man. It felt like I was trying to breathe shards of glass.
“Come on.” He cupped my elbow and gave me a gentle turn. “Time to go back to bed.”
I let him walk me to his room. I got into his bed alone. He went into the dressing room, and when he came out, he had a clean shirt on. Black this time.
He stared at me from the doorway. Taking me in, seated with my knees folded to my chest, arms wrapped around them. He was frustrated. I could see it. I had a question for him. But it melted on my lips when he stalked out of the room.
I stared at the doorway. The silence was too loud in the room. He hadn’t laughed at my panic. He’d taken control and guided me gently. No one had ever handled me like that.
When he walked in a few minutes later, my relief must have been clearly visible. I stared at him as he came toward the bed and handed me a cup. “Maybe this will help.”
Chamomile tea. That’s what I did when I was gearing up for a panic attack. I wondered if Papá would have known that? Mamá definitely didn’t. How well does this man know me? He turned to leave.
“Stay.” I followed his gaze to my hand, where I had captured his. I pinned my eyes to him so he’d know how much I wanted this. “Por favor.”
He stilled. Jaw locking into place and eyes studying me with intent. Uncertainty vibrated with every breath. I didn’t know why it made me sad that he didn’t want to sleep with me.
He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “If that’s what you want?” It was a question to which he wanted the answer to be a negation. I refused to give it to him.
His shoulder sagged. In resignation rather than relief.
He dropped to the edge of the bed. I placed the cup on the nightstand and shuffled out of the way. With a shake of his head, as if he couldn’t believe what he was doing, he kicked off his shoes and lay down on his back. Fully clothed and stiff as a plank.
I lay down next to him. As rigid as he was. My throat ached. I wanted to tell him that what I wanted was him. But saying those words meant I was betraying another, so I swallowed them down to the pit of my stomach.
“Does it happen often?” I repeated the question that was still on my mind instead.
He didn’t answer. I rolled my head to his.
Jaw locked tight, one hand tucked under his pillow, and the other folded above his head, he was staring at the ceiling as if he were solving a mathematical equation.
He probably was. His lips tightened, but his voice was calm when he spoke.
“It only happens when I’m distracted.” He took a deep breath. “I’m never distracted.”
I wanted to ask him why he had been. I wanted to beg him to be careful next time. Then I thought how ridiculous it was when I was meant to end his life.
But the thing was, I didn’t want to do it anymore, and I didn’t even know why. And even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. Not without his help.
So, I kept all those words locked behind my lips. Crawled closer to him and put my head on his chest. His heartbeat thudded against my eardrum. It calmed me. Soothed me.
This big, cold dangerous man had found a way to calm my panic attacks.
It wasn’t chamomile tea that put me to sleep. It was his heartbeat. The one I was supposed to take away. My blood chilled to icicles at the thought of it.
He only made it worse. Because just before I slipped into darkness, his hand moved to my head. A stroke of his palm on my curls and three words next to my ears.
“Mine. All mine.”