PROLOGUE
GABRIELLE
“You have no reason to be afraid of me,” he says.
I stiffen, my back to him. I thought I was safe in the kitchen, out in the open where anyone could see us, but of course that’s not true.
Nowhere is safe in this house.
Especially not at night.
“Gabrielle.” He says my name. This time his voice is softer and therefore more cunning. He’s used that voice on me so many times in the last few years. Once upon a time, when I was young and I was off-limits, I was given only a simple smile. I wish I had known then how much malice that simple smile held.
I don’t want to turn around, but I have to. I don’t want to be caught off guard like I have been before.
I twist my body to look at him over my shoulder. “Can I help you, sir?”
“I would like a bottle of Bordeaux, vintage 1986, in my room. I would like you to sit and have a drink with me.”
I know this routine. I’ve tried to say no before, but it never works. It only makes him angrier. It only makes the suffering worse.
“I’m not sure that your wife would like that,” I say, even though I know once the words are out of my mouth, they were a mistake.
There is silence behind me, a stiff kind of silence, like how a forest must go quiet before a volcano explodes, igniting every tree in flames.
I turn around fully to see him paused in the doorway. The light from the hall illuminates his silhouette, hides his face. It doesn’t make him any less scary.
“You know better than to mention her,” he says, his voice dripping with venom.
My heart beats loudly in my ears, faster, turning into a drumroll, and the pain that I’ve carried with me these last few days spikes through my core, making me want to hunch over. I fight against it, pressing my fingernails into my palms. I feel nothing but scar tissue from doing this so often.
I’m so fucking afraid.
I can’t go through this again.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly, even though I’m not. I’m only sorry that I wasn’t quick enough. I should have run to my room when I had the chance, though there is nothing stopping him when he’s determined.
He sighs loudly and then straightens up, chin raised. “It doesn’t matter. She’s not here anyway. No one is. You can’t get in trouble, Gabrielle.”
“I . . . I’m not feeling well,” I tell him, averting my eyes. “You know I was at the doctor’s the other day.”
“Yes . . . what was that for? Is there something wrong with you?”
I can’t tell him the truth. It would either enrage him or make him proud of me, and I’m not sure which one is worse.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
I’ll never be fine.
Not after what he did.
What I had to do.
Before I can even process what’s happening, suddenly he’s no longer across the kitchen. He’s at me, pressing me back against the counter and wrapping a hand around my throat. He’s pushing me back enough that the counter digs into my lower back, causing me to convulse with pain.
“You know what?” he hisses at me, his face just inches from mine. “I think you’re lying. I don’t even believe that you went to the doctor. You just wanted a day off. You just wanted to be fucking lazy, didn’t you?”
I can barely breathe. My hand moves around the counter, searching for something, anything, to defend myself with. He likes to play rough, but I live in fear he might take it too far, further than he already has.
I don’t doubt he has it in him to kill without conscience.
His grip on my throat tightens, his fingers digging in, as if to prove my point. I stare up at his eyes, awful eyes that are dark and lit only by the blue electronic clock of the nearby microwave. They glint like fires of ice.
“You think you’re better than me, isn’t that right?” he asks, voice rough and rising. “You think you’re something special, Gabrielle? That I feel something special for you? I don’t. You’re nothing to me, just something to keep me entertained until I’ve grown bored of you. And when I grow bored of you, I will dispose of you.” He leans in so close, I can smell the booze on his breath. “But only I get to decide that. Not you. And when I tell you to get me a fucking bottle of vintage 1986 Bordeaux, then that’s what you’re fucking going to do!”
Spittle flies from his mouth onto my face. I try to speak, but I can’t. I can’t get in any air.
His grip gets tighter and tighter, and the world starts to turn black.
“Trash,” he growls at me and lets go, stepping back.
I gasp for air, hunching over and wheezing to get my breath, my throat burning. I can feel wetness in my underwear, probably blood. It reminds me that no matter what happens, I will not go with him to his room.
If he wants to try to rape me here, so be it.
I’ll be ready.
The thought gives me the last bit of power I have.
I slowly straighten myself up and, out of the corner of my eye, spot the drawer that has the knives. It’s close, but I’m not sure I can get to it without making him suspicious.
“Well,” he says, gesturing at me, “catch your breath and get the wine.”
The wine is in the cellar, a place I normally hate going to, but tonight, dread fills me head to toe. He could get away with anything down there. He could lock me up there for all he wanted. Dead or alive. Beaten or not. Would anyone notice? Would my own mother?
That’s my greatest fear. That she wouldn’t even notice if I were gone, that she would be so blinded by her duty and devotion, so fucking brainwashed, that she wouldn’t even care.
I nod, gathering my thoughts, trying to stall going down there. “I’ll just get the corkscrew and the glasses first,” I say, heading to the drawer. I pull it open and see the knives, but then he’s right behind me, hovering. I grab the corkscrew and slam the drawer shut, trying to sidle out of the way, but he’s pulling my hair back over my shoulder and placing his lips at my neck.
It takes all the strength I have left not to shudder, to hide my revulsion.
“You never wear your hair down,” he murmurs while my hand tightens over the corkscrew. “Perhaps I should make that a rule.”
I don’t say anything. My eyes are closed, and I’m just praying for him to step away.
Instead he presses himself against me, and I can feel his erection.
“On second thought, I don’t think we need the wine,” he says, and then suddenly he grabs my hair, making a fist, yanking my head back. A sharp cry dies on my lips. “I don’t think we need to go anywhere at all.”
I hear the unzip of his pants and feel his free hand move up my legs, pushing up my skirt while the other hand pulls my head back so hard and far that I’m afraid my back is going to crack in two.
“No,” I tell him, as I’ve told him many times before, my voice ragged and gasping. “Get your fucking hands off me.”
That last part is new. I’ve never said that before.
I’m so afraid now that I’m no longer afraid. Like the fear and the knowledge of what this monster is capable of have morphed into something bigger than my fear.
It wants justice.
It wants revenge.
It won’t take this anymore.