CHAPTER 17
SARAH
No traffic. Very few cars. The garbage trucks are out, blocking narrow streets with crashing and banging. Otherwise, the city is asleep. The twenty-four-hour convenience stores are lit, but empty. The storefronts between them are shuttered and dark.
Before Dr. Palmeri’s drive to Precious Blood, I’ve only been in the front seat with Dario, where the driver was both comfort and temptation.
Now the silent, seething man next to me is a threat and an adversary. I can’t crawl far enough away from him. My skirt’s twisted under me, and the diamond ring inside my pocket jabs my thigh.
I put the ring in there out of habit, but almost took it out before tiptoeing downstairs. The man who gave it to me killed my mother, and the battle between love of what Dario’s done for me and rage over what he did to me is still being waged as we roll through the nearly empty streets.
I want to find a way to break Dario’s heart, but I don’t know if I can.
Palmeri doesn’t go into the parking lot but stops across the street and shuts off the car.
“Wait here.”
He leaves me alone and shuffles across the street to the back entrance, using his thumb to get into a narrow side door.
Outside. By myself.
Anything could happen.
I was taught that I am a target. Outsider men wait in the shadows to hit me on the head and drag me away. I laugh to myself. Stupid. We are all so stupid. We’re more likely to find help than harm out here.
Before Dario, I would have been terrified to be here alone. Now I’m fidgety and impatient with a desire to get out of the car into freedom. Figure out what to do by myself.
Connor isn’t standing by the flyer-frilled pole. Must be too late. What’s he been waiting for anyway? A sign from heaven? A message from a man in a cage?
Tell him to choof off.
I gasp.
It comes to me like a blow to the head.
That message wasn’t for Massimo.
With a glance at the door Palmeri went in, I open his glove compartment. I find a pen and paper and scribble CHOOF OFF as big and thick as I can, tracing the letters over and over until they’re as visible as they’re ever going to be.
I get out of the car and go to the pole. There are offers of apartments, guitar lessons, massages. A reward for a stolen bike. A poem. I find a piece of tape holding a flyer for a lost dog and rip half of it away. I stick my CHOOF OFF on top of a hot pink gallery opening that has passed.
“What are you doing?” Palmeri says, and I gasp again.
“Just… I…”
“I told you to stay in the car.”
“This dog is so cute.”
He seems disappointed but unsurprised by my lack of discipline. “Let’s go.”
The night guard isn’t Sam. He’s younger. His head rests on the desk under the glowing screens. Palmeri must have given him the same sleep-helper he gave my grandmother.
When I saw Dario before, I went through the door to the right of the glowing screens. I never saw a door into the cells. Just empty cells behind glass I couldn’t pass through like vapor to my husband.
Now, we pass through a door so like the color of the walls that I didn’t notice it before. We turn down a different hall and to a door he uses his thumbprint to open. Beyond it is a short hallway with a door at the end. It has a little square window in it.
I look at Palmeri, and he seems to read my mind.
“I’ll be in the guard room,” he says, leading me down the hall. “Remember why you’re here. And remember, he’s dangerous.”
“Okay.” The window is too tall for me to see through. I don’t know if he’s awake or sleeping.
“Thirty minutes.” With a press of his thumb, Palmeri unlocks the door and backs out of the hall, locking the first door behind him.
This is it. I’ll see Dario. We’ll breathe the same air in the same space.
Do I even know who I’ll be trapped in a jail cell with?
I do. It’s my husband. Finally.
Deep breath.
I push open the door and step in.
It slaps shut behind me.
Having seen him through glass, I expect him to look the same—like a caged animal. I expect to feel fear from him and for him. So many expectations, all exceeded by his naked torso, beaten but flexing, tightened with ever-expanding strength, loosened for the next battle.
My first thought is that he’s too big for the cell. Not that the room is too small, because the meat around any skeleton of any man would fit inside it. He’s too expansive for not just this cage, but a cathedral. His energy presses against the concrete walls and domes the glass into a convex bulb. The sky couldn’t hold him.
Neither can I. With just his voice, he is in my body—a rattling core from the hollow of my throat, through my heart, to the floor of my pelvis.
It’s physically impossible for him to be contained in here, yet here he is.
We stare at each other for a precious minute before he speaks.
“You found her.” He’s trying to read me, but I’ve had my emotions buried for so long, I don’t even know what I feel anymore.
“Why?” My voice creaks. “Why did you let me think she was alive?”
He scoffs. Shakes his head slowly. Takes a single step closer. I’m drawn to him by a gravity I can’t explain, moving to the side as if I need to orbit him like a planet.
“Turn around.”
We circle each other, getting closer with each step.
“Tell me,” I insist.
“I told you to turn around.”
Before I can ask again, he takes me by the shoulders and spins me to face the empty hallway behind the window.
“Why, Dario?”
“Put your hands on the glass.”
I ball my hands into fists and make my arms rigid. “First—”
The rest of the sentence leaves me as he pushes me forward. I have to use the glass to steady myself.
“You come in here asking questions while they watch.” He reaches around to my breasts, squeezing them through the fabric. “Show them what a faithful Colonia servant you are.” He pushes his erection against me, grabbing between my legs, through the fabric, stimulating me with hooked fingers.
“Tell me.” I jab my elbow back and start to turn to face him, but he holds me.
“You’re going to try to fight me so they don’t know how bad you want it. But you’re going to lose.”
He’s giving me instructions, and he’s right. I can’t want him as much as I do. This lust is a betrayal I can’t afford, but I’ll spend every last bit of treasure on.
“Pick up your skirt.”
“No!”
He does it for me, exposing my underwear. He runs his hand up and down, then between my thighs. “You’re so soft. So clean and sweet. My cock’s already hard for you.”
“I hate you.” But I croon it because no matter what words come from my lips, my body is telling me something completely different.
I want this.
I want you.
I love you.
He jerks my underwear down and fingers the seam between my legs.
“You hate me, but you’re wet.” He kicks my feet apart and spreads my lips open. In the reflection, I see him checking over his property like a mechanic checking an engine. “But I can’t believe you came here just to get fucked.”