11
Thalia
One week later.
Christian lurked in the corner behind my mother's gardening shed, the same place he always hid when he needed a cigarette break. We'd never discussed why he helped me, or what his motivation was in risking my father's wrath to give me the outlet he did.
Slipping my shoes off, I crept around the corner behind him. Keeping my body as still as possible outside of my toes that dug into the ground with every step, I restrained the breath in my lungs.
Crouching low quickly, I swept a leg at his feet, groaning my frustration when the bastard hopped over it. "What the fuck!" I exclaimed with a laugh, jolting to my feet as he turned smiling eyes my way.
"You still breathe too heavy," he chuckled. I pursed my lips at him in a pout, straightening my dress as he put out his cigarette against the edge of the gardening shed and tucked it away in the vase he kept tucked beneath the shrubbery. "What do you want, Monster?" he asked with a sigh.
"I need a favor," I said, holding my head high as I prepared to ask for the one thing I thought even Christian wouldn't give me. If anyone ever discovered the truth, which seemed like it would take careful planning on my part to avoid, he would be punished right alongside me. He'd pay the consequences with his life.
Guilt consumed me at the thought, making me hesitate to voice the favor. It'd be stupid and selfish and pointless in the end.
"What is it?" he asked, his brow furrowing in concern.
"Nothing," I said with a smile.
"Thalia," he said, reaching out a hand very slowly to take mine in his. "You know you can ask me for anything. If it's within my ability, I'll give it to you."
"I wanted a night. To be free to choose who I want for my first time," I said with a swallow. "If there's a way to do it without getting caught, then I have to try. But I need to find a way to do that without involving you. I won't let anyone else suffer for my choices."
He leaned back into the shed, crossing his arms over his chest and staring at me with wide eyes. "You want me to help you get laid?" He swallowed as if the thought was insufferable, and I pushed down the old hurts of being an awkward girl who nobody ever looked at twice.
"No. I want to choose for myself, and I think I can manage to convince one man to fuck me." I laughed. "I just need the window for it to be possible."
He sighed, running his hand over his face. "Okay. Give me a week or two to figure something out and make the arrangements. I can't guarantee anything, but I'll see what I can do," he said, nodding back toward the house where Lydia poked her head out to look for me. "You get your ass back to the house and act like you didn't just ask me to help you commit suicide. Fuck," he groaned.
I flung my arms around him for a brief hug before making my way back to the house, keeping with the shadows until I could come up into the still living gardens at the side of the manor itself and pretend I'd been sitting among the flowers.
Nobody could know.
12
Calix
My cell vibrated on the desk as I looked over the reports Enzo had sent to the house. The Bellandis wouldn't leave me to fight my war alone, not after Rafael and I had given everything to help them in theirs.
By the time Thalia's wedding came, we'd be ready. We just needed to develop the perfect strategy in the meantime. I picked up the phone when Christian's name flashed on the screen, knowing that he would be safely tucked away in his tiny apartment at the late hour. "What's wrong?" I asked, jolting to my feet as every muscle in my body tensed. The thought of Thalia being harmed at all was enough to send me into a furious rage, but for her to be hurt severely enough that he would risk his cover to contact me?
It was unthinkable.
"She's fine," he reassured me quickly. "I promise. No one has hurt her in the last few days from what I've seen."
"Then what the fuck do you want?" I snarled, dropping my weight back into my chair.
"She came to me with a request today. It isn't something that I'm comfortable dealing with on my own, so you might have to move up your timetable." He gave an uncomfortable chuckle, and I could just imagine the man rubbing the back of his neck with his other hand.
"What are you talking about?" I asked, exhaustion creeping into my tone. Every waking hour had been spent making arrangements and contacting allies in the region who would be willing to go up against the five remaining families to have me reinstated.
Or to kill them all and take the city for myself. Either option worked just as well for me.
"She doesn't want to lose her virginity to Damianos," he said suddenly. "She asked me to help her get a window where she can find a man and..." he trailed off, the hesitance in his voice making me grind my teeth together.
"Don't you fucking say it," I warned with a growl.
He ignored me, continuing on. "She wants to find someone to fuck her, so she can say that for just once she had a choice in who she took to bed. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you are not down with that idea, so how would you like me to handle it? I saw the look on her face, man. If I say no, she'll just find another way."
My chest vibrated with the need to rip his vocal chords out of his throat for planting the image of Thalia with someone else in my head, but as much as I hated his insistence on telling me what I didn't want to hear, I knew he was right.
She was nothing if not rebellious at her core. She was never going to go quietly into a loveless marriage.
"Set it up. Get me a day and a time, and I'll fucking be there," I said, gripping the edge of the desk with my free hand.
"You're going to stop her?" Christian asked, his voice full of questions. We both knew Thalia knowing I'd returned would ruin all our careful planning.
"No. I'm not," I snapped, pulling the phone away from my ear and jabbing the screen with furious fingers. I stood from the desk and made my way to the screens to watch Thalia sleeping peacefully in her bed.
She was beautiful, peaceful, as she laid there curled up into a ball beneath her blanket. Like an angel of death, just waiting for me to defile her.
If she was so desperate to be ruined, I'd happily oblige.
13
Thalia
Two weeks later.
I paced back and forth in my room in the ballet flats I'd slipped onto my feet. I didn't own anything even remotely resembling sneakers, at my father and step-mother's insistence.
With my shoes for the night packed into the designer tote slung under my arm, my lungs heaved with the panic that threatened to take everything from me. By the end of the night, I wouldn't be a virgin.
By the end of the night, I'd have experienced what it was to be normal for just a few hours. To do something foolish and impulsive purely for the sake of it, because I wanted to.
Glancing at the watch on my wrist, I blew out a breath as the time finally reflected ten at night. The quiet knock on my door came promptly, leaving me to move toward it as quietly as I could and pull the door open slowly. Christian's kind face stared back at me on the other side, and he waved a hand to signal me to step out. "You've got everything?" he asked, looking down my body with a furrow to his brow. "Where did you get that dress?"