His arm flexed, pulling me tighter to him.
For days we’d been holed up in that small motel room.
My strength had greatly improved with the increase in calories and fluid. My skin no longer looked like a corpse. My eyes were no longer encircled by darkness. Even my weight had begun to bounce back a little.
After five days, the biggest secret had been revealed. We were both part of the same family organization, only I was a deserter. That was why my treatment was different.
Later in the day, I was reading when a question that nagged at me sprang forth. “That Russian girl was only there a few days. Why was I given a rose and she wasn’t?”
He looked at me, his thumb making small circles on my ankle. “The rose was your father’s doing. I didn’t understand why, obviously, but it’s now apparent it was a way to make you stand out. However, it only made you stand out as valuable.”
“That girl had value,” I argued. I hated not knowing what happened to her, remembering how terrified she’d been.
“Yes, she did, just like all others before her. Hers was monetary. Yours…I haven’t figured out yet.”
There were only two reasons—to get rid of me or to use me. Both terrible options. “Once upon a time he was a loving family man, but the deeper he got into bed with the Ferrante, the more he changed. Slowly at first, but by the time I was twelve, his quest for money and power were the only things he loved. That was the first time I saw him hit my mother. She protected me from him for years after that until she couldn’t take it anymore.”
“What happened?”
I twirled the locket in my fingers. Talking about my mother’s death was difficult because I was never allowed to talk about it before. It was one of those forbidden topics—and also the reason my father slapped me for the first time.
I stared down at the locket, tempted to open it up and look at her picture. “She killed herself after making me promise to get out. I think she hoped my father would grieve and it would give me a chance to escape, but it didn’t work. He became a tyrant, and I was guarded every minute of the day.”
“How did you get away?” he asked.
Not without help and careful planning. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done. Months of prepping. “I went to the mall, slipped my guards by telling a store attendant while in the dressing room that they were stalking me. While security questioned them, she snuck me out the back. I left my phone in the dressing room and my wallet, along with a bracelet my father insisted I always wear. I could never confirm it, but I think it had a tracking device in it.”
He nodded. “It probably did. Then what?”
I closed my book and sat up to face him. “I hitched a ride with some guy out smoking. Holed up in a hotel for a few days. I was out but constantly on edge that they were going to find me, so I moved to the South Side, and that is where I met Al. He hired me and helped me find a temporary place to live, and the rest is history.”
“That’s all you’ve done? Strip?”
I shrugged. “There weren’t many other options. I lived for myself for the first time in my life. I made my own money, paid my own bills, and looked out for myself. Yes, I was always looking over my shoulder, but even that lessened. At least until a year ago when two guards showed up trying to tow me home.”
His brow scrunched. “Are you sure they were sent by your father?”
“Who else?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure, but when we spoke he made it sound like he’d just found you. There was little time given, just two days, to get you into that cell. He was practically frantic about it, which was only one reason you were different.”
Frantic. The only reason he would be frantic was to have me under his control again. I was worth something to him, but I had a feeling love had nothing to do with it. “I have no idea what he wants and why he can’t just let me go.”
“Because…you belong to the family.”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t.”
“You did then, and you especially do now,” he said as he reached out to lightly caress the letters that lined my collarbone.
“Even if we’re on the run from them?” I asked.
“I have a few ideas brewing.”
Ideas. For days, that was all he would tell me. He kept his phone charged and close, occasionally typing something on the screen.
I just wished he would fill me in, tell me something.
“Let’s do some exercises,” he said as he swung his legs off the bed.
We began working out together once I had energy again, because I needed to build my muscles and range of motion back up. I think it was more for me than him. A therapy of sorts after weeks of neglect.
It was amazing the kind of workouts you could come up with lacking any type of equipment, like him bench-pressing me. Pushups, sit-ups, yoga, burpees—we did them.
Whatever we could to get some physical exercise in, including lots of sex, which was where most workouts led.
By day nine, we were both a little stir crazy. While I was happy for temperature control and showers and clean clothes, the room had become another cage.
I’d finished all the books I’d managed to grab, and I was ready for something, anything, to end our purgatory. Because that was what we were in. Trapped between the life we ran from and the next phase, whatever that was.
“What about the diner across the street?” I asked as I packed my bag. Domenico wanted all bags ready to go just in case, which was a wise idea.
“What about it?”
I was desperate to get out, to walk more than the path I’d created around the room.
“It’s close and would get us out of here for a few minutes. Breathe some fresh air.”
“I think we need to move. We’ve been here too long.” It was the first time he talked about our next step, but there still didn’t seem to be a plan.
“Where are we going now?” I asked. As crazy as it seemed, I would follow him anywhere. My feelings for him grew deeper every day, but I knew there were still secrets we were both carrying.
I’d given up one secret that changed everything he understood about me, and the other one was just as bad. His? In my gut, I knew his secret was just as powerful as mine. Everything about him screamed power, but there was also the softer side. Dark and turbulent to everyone, he was nothing but intense and caring with me.
Which was just another reason I was falling hard for him.
“Out of this city for now.”
“They’ll never stop looking for us, will they?” I asked. I knew from experience.
He shook his head. “And I stand out too much.”
Between his scar and the red and black that covered his left arm, not to mention all the other ink that covered his skin, he was very recognizable.
“Why are we biding our time?” I asked. It seemed odd that we’d been just sitting on our hands for over a week.
“I’ve got Marco working on something. I’m just waiting for word.”
I pursed my lips. After everything, he still had trouble opening up. In reality, I knew what it meant—he didn’t fully trust me. That was something we would both have until all the secrets came spilling out. Until the truth that weighed us both down was revealed.