Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Ella
It is ten p.m. when she unlocks the door.
Six hours. She locked me in for six hours.
I should be grateful. She could have forgotten me and waited until morning.
We do not talk as she walks away, her stilettos striking the floor with disdain and mockery.
I rush to my bathroom first, then hastily make my way to Dad’s bedroom.
I knock, but he does not answer, so I enter slowly, and the picture I find freezes me.
Mara’s back is facing me, her hands doing something in front of her, the sound of plastic bouncing hitting my ears, her body towering above Dad’s chest.
I knock twice, hard, against the wall, making my presence known before I circle the bed, checking whatever she’s doing. Her palms are flat on my dad’s chest. Empty. I wait for his lungs to prove they are working. Up. Down. My nerves loosen a little. Alive. He is alive. It is okay.
“What were you doing?” I sign at her, and she meets my gaze with a stupefied force that leaves me shaken by her audacity. Mara hardly ever comes here, and his care is handled by professional nurses.
“Can’t a wife kiss her husband?” she chants with that honeyed tone she uses to lull people who do not know her true nature.
“You weren’t kissing him. You were… You had something in your hand.”
“I wasn’t, Ella. You’re making things up.
” I frown, wanting to yell at her for locking me in my room, for doing whatever sorcery she was doing here to my dad, for ruining my life and my opportunities, for making me feel inferior every step of the way.
I want to love her. I do. Why can’t I find it in me? It’s just not…there.
“How was your afternoon, dear?” she sneers, then lets out a cold laugh and leaves the room.
Once she is gone, I look beneath the bed for anything that could help me, but I cannot find anything.
Dread runs along my spine. Would Mara be capable of hurting Dad?
After all, my parents had been extremely rich since they created their company, and then Dad remained that way after Mom died and his health declined.
I know he helped Mara a bit by investing in her interior design firm, but he seemed rational about it, checking in with her regularly.
What if Mara was trying to take more from him?
How could I check that kind of information?
A part of me tells me to stop this nonsense, and another, aware that evil exists, knows she was not kissing her husband, that the men from this morning were not normal investors, and that something big is stirring in front of my eyes.
I kiss Dad’s forehead and say silently, “I’ll protect you, Dad.
Always.” Closing the door, I make sure not to make any noise that could wake him up.
What if Mara’s businesses are not thriving?
God, no. Could she possibly be trying to hasten Dad’s death to inherit his fortune?
It does not make any sense. Still, a sour taste stirs in my mouth along with the intuition of betrayal.
I need to think. It cannot—
“Can you believe it?” Valeria’s voice snaps me back from my turmoil, both of us standing in the hallway behind the stairs, Dad’s door closed.
She is wearing a pastel yellow dress that ends at the knees, shoulderless, high-necked, in that classical, tasteful fashion I imagine debutantes from my romance novels would like to wear.
It is no wonder she studies fashion. Valeria has always had an eye for dressing well.
An embellished white headband is positioned in her impeccable wavy hair, holding itself like a wig from a sixties actress; her shoes are ballerinas with small bows at the ends.
A snake dressed like the heiress of a small foreign country.
“She refused to pay for my holiday in Aspen. I can’t believe…
” Her palms meet her forehead, a heavy sigh filled with the exhaustion of being born with everything and yet always wanting more.
Is she even talking to me? “Valeria, do this. Valeria, do that. Every day, all day. Smile. Sit straighter. Don’t eat trash.
” Her hand curls into a fist. “Doesn’t she realize how hard I… I try?”
“I’m sure she does,” I sign, the spectacular reverse card of comforting her feeling surprisingly natural.
Just because I am hurt does not mean I will hurt.
I have never been in a position to fight fire with fire.
Mother did not want me to do that. Kill them with kindness was her motto, imprinted in my mind.
“And all for what?” she gasps, a fake laugh trembling on the edge of her delicately filled lips.
“So she can use it for Ethereal Design? As if it could help.”
“What do you mean? Aren’t her affairs thriving?”
“Thriving?” Her perfectly champagne-shadowed eyes gawk at me as if I am the portrait of stupidity.
“You know what, Ella? Good thing you can’t talk.
I don’t think I could handle another person in this house blabbering nonsense to me.
” She inhales deeply, looking down before smoothing her brows, plasters a smile on her face, shakes her shoulders, and without another look, barges toward the living room, stomping like a model ready to strangle another one on the runway.
So Mara’s affairs are in difficulty. Would she ever do something to…
Dad? No. That is silly. She is his wife, his partner.
Do not make things up in your head, Ella.
Stay in your lane. Focus on working, saving, and finding a way back to university, and hopefully giving Dad better care.
It is late now, and I am back in my room, changing clothes and readying myself for sleep.
What a day. I brush my hair, making sure there are no knots, my reflection too pale for my complexion, red vessels in the whites of my eyes betraying my lack of sleep and peace.
I pull my hair behind my ears and catch the scar on my palm, barely feeling it anymore.
It is healing. Or on its way to. Did he see it this morning?
Why do I have the urge to feel his fingers run over it?
I slide into a white cotton T-shirt and shorts, tucking myself beneath the covers with my book keeping me company beside my pillow.
At least Mara locking me up gave me time to rest and lie down.
I will not say I loved the fact that I could not get out, but at least I was not kneeling and scrubbing floors.
I suppose I have to find a spot of sunlight wherever I can.
What a strange day it was. Having tea with Tristan.
I mean, Tristan Ashford. Walking together like…
like a couple, and tearing ourselves apart as if it were unnatural, painful.
My skin sizzles at the thought of his uneven smile, of the bridge of his nose, scarred and surely broken more than once, giving him the look of a boxer, contrasting with his perfect dark navy suit, making me imagine thoughts I never dared to entertain before.
Sleep catches me off guard as I go back to the park with him, existing in his orbit, becoming more than a girl who irons dresses and serves others.
I go back and drown in his distinctive masculine scent, imagining how his protective nature could wrap me in an embrace made of safety and comfort, and how sweet it would be, just for a second, to close my eyes, nuzzling into the crook of his neck while he holds me like I am everything in his world.
A beautiful dream.
That’s all it will ever be.
A dream.
Tristan
Sunday goes by at the speed of lightning, the sun setting over Westhaven as I drive toward the point of recollection, with Matt waiting for me with his most experienced men and ten vehicles filled with everything we could need in case things turn south.
I met him years ago, when we were not men yet, in the youth correctional facility I was sent to at sixteen.
My parents did not know what to do with me anymore, not when my fists kept meeting other students’ faces and their parents kept complaining and threatening to sue my family.
Anger pulsed hard in my blood, and at the time, I could not understand why.
Nor how to release it. One day, I woke up, and it was there, despite the privileges I was born into, despite having all the cards in hand.
Anger was eating me alive, and I could do nothing but unleash it on anyone who provoked me.
Nate would always try to calm me down, but as I grew up and started lifting weights, my body changed into a weapon, and I no longer wanted to settle arguments with words.
Fight after fight, breaking my nose multiple times when my ego betrayed my true skill.
The number of times my parents had to give me the talk about sending me to a correctional facility if I did not improve never produced the expected effect.
My mother was appalled, my father barely hiding his pride.
To have a violent son, what a joy. It was his idea to send me there.
To make me stronger, sharper, sweet-talking my mother into it by diminishing the true hell those places were.
So one day, after landing punch after punch into a seventeen-year-old who had seen it coming, after mocking Nate for choosing mathematics competitions instead of lacrosse, my father slammed his fist on the mahogany table in the dining room, and the next day, I was on my way to Blackridge Youth Correctional Center for a whole year.