4. Sienna
FOUR
SIENNA
New place. New people. New me. New beginnings.
I’d been saying this to myself for the past five years. The bottom line was that I’d been lying to myself, and deep down, I knew that.
However, on the surface, I pretended everything was okay.
Fake it until you make it.
Fuck, how long would I have to fake it for? Maybe until I died? Or until someone found me and ended this miserable existence?
Whatever end it would be, I just wished fate would hurry up, because I didn’t know how much longer I could do this.
The rattle of a door in the darkness.
Screams.
A hand over my mouth.
Muffled screams that nobody heard.
I pulled my legs to my chest, making myself smaller, and rested my head on my knees.
I wished my stepfather hadn’t rescued me from the kidnappers. Then I wouldn’t have fucked up so badly. I would surely be dead by now, and I wouldn’t feel anything anymore. I wouldn’t be alone.
Some nights, I needed alcohol to forget. Others, I took pills to help me sleep. And many nights, I did both.
It offered a small reprieve at best.
And then, the following day, everything would start over.
These memories would be the death of me.
I sat in the armchair, my knees still pressed against my chest, gripping the shawl around me. My eyes were locked on the darkness outside my window while the fire crackled inside, bringing shadows to life all around me.
It was well past midnight, and I shuddered, my soul shaking like a leaf, at the thought of closing my eyes.
Nightmares always found me, and tonight, I wasn’t strong enough to battle them.
My gaze flicked to the sleeping pills and the bottle of Jack that sat on the little table next to me. It would offer short-lived relief, but they made me feel like shit.
“Just a bit longer,” I whispered to myself, delaying the inevitable by staying awake. I needed rest, and those pills offered a way to get through the dreams.
I tightened the shawl around me despite the heat coming from the fireplace.
It was funny—not really—how a single event could change you so much.
My childhood was fairly normal.
I had a loving mother and a biological father who was mean to my mom. He was okay—I guess—toward me and my baby sisters. They were too young to pick up on any of it, but I did.
My biological father made my mom cry often, and even though she hid it, I knew it was a result of their fights.
So when he died, I wasn’t terribly upset. In fact, I was happy our home was quiet, and even more so that my mom no longer cried.
Then Kristoff came into the picture and he was really good to my mom. He took care of her, and was amazing all the way around.
Life was good.
When I went to college, it was without a single worry on my mind. Kristoff took care of my tuition, gave me a generous allowance, and I was so lucky to have a best friend like Kai. My roommates were okay, although a bit out of touch, and always cooking up a party or a shenanigan.
It was how I ended up in a sex club, kissing Tyran Callahan. Of course, at that time, I didn’t know he was a mobster.
God, that first kiss.
I still couldn’t decide whether to wish more had happened or curse that even that single kiss had because it had ruined me.
I stared at the night, but all I could see was that day I bumped into Tyran Callahan.
I ran into him—literally—and nothing had been the same since.
When our gazes locked, my vision dimmed while those blue eyes made my heart ping-pong in my chest.
We exchanged a few words and then his mouth was on mine. His one hand fisted my hair and his other wrapped around my neck while he kissed me like a starved man.
Kissing him back with the same kind of desperation, I realized I was finally kissing a man. All the boys I’d kissed before this one faded into a distant memory.
Gasping for air, I pulled slightly away and watched his eyes darken as he ran his hand down my throat.
“You’re…” His jaw clenched. “So fucking sweet.”
I blinked, unsure whether that was good or bad, but before I could ask, his mouth was back on me.
He ran his rough hand down my breasts and my stomach before it came to stop at my hips.
I thrust my hands into his hair, holding on to him while sinking my teeth into his lower lip in a feral act of passion.
Who was this passionate woman? I had no idea, but I didn’t fight her. Instead, I took and took, letting fire consume me.
He gave me everything but also demanded more, his hard ridges holding me while I rubbed myself shamelessly against him, my hips arching into him.
My skin burned, and I was terrified that if he asked me to give him everything right now, I would fall down to my knees and thank him for it.
“I’ve never been kissed…” I trailed off when I felt his hard length against me and a moan traveled through the air. It was mine.
He wrenched his mouth from mine. “What do you mean you’ve never been kissed?”
I blinked in confusion, my chest heaving and my thoughts a jumbled mess. The muscled width of his shoulders hid everyone else from me and I was glad, because I looked like a wanton ready to have sex with this god right here and now. He bent his head, towering over me.
“Answer me.”
“I meant that I’ve never been kissed like this,” I murmured, answering his question.
He took a small step back, almost as if he needed space to think clearly. God knew I needed to get my brain back.
“How old are you?”
The impact of the kiss turned my brain into mush and made it hard to think straight.
“I just turned twenty.” Shit, I was supposed to lie. The club was twenty-one and older.
This was the reason lying was bad. I always forgot my lies.
My shoulders slumped.
“I’ll be twenty-one… next year,” I whispered.
He grabbed my wrist while watching me with a dark, half-lidded stare. Something in his gaze warned that this man was as depraved as I currently felt, but the idea excited me rather than scared me.
He captured his bottom lip in his mouth, let go of my wrist, and smoothed down the front of his slacks.
“Leave the club, Sienna. Now.”
“But—”
“I’ll have you thrown out.”
I turned around and left on unsteady legs, but I knew this—whatever this might be—was far from over.
That was the beginning. My kidnapping was the end.
I let out a tired sigh and stretched my legs before standing up.
“I’ll stop taking pills tomorrow,” I said to the empty room.
All these memories just hurt too much tonight.