I bet he got an eyeful of my ass last night. “I said I have a headache,” I say, unable to mask the defensive tone of my voice.
“I have questions, Gabriela.”
I turn back to him, narrow my gaze to study him. What the hell happened last night? What could I have said that he has questions?
I fold my arms across my chest and try to look bored.
“Who put the marks on you?” he asks.
The instant the words are out, I feel my entire body flush. But it’s not heat I feel, it’s cold. Ice cold.
“What?”
“You heard me. Who did it?”
I’m at a loss. I just stare back at him at a total loss.
Then instinct kicks in.
Distract.
“What did you do, strip me naked so you could have a good look? What else did you do? Huh? Did you touch me, Stefan?”
His eyes harden. His jaw tightens.
I should stop. I should stop now. But I know myself. I won’t. I can’t.
“Or more?” I ask.
At that, he stands, his chair scraping loudly as he pushes it back.
“That’s too far, sweetheart.”
He takes a step and I don’t wait for him to take another. I turn, and I run. I run back to the stairs knowing there’s nowhere I can go. Nowhere I can hide from him.
By the time I reach the staircase, he’s right behind me. I trip more than once in my haste and have no doubt he can catch me, but he doesn’t. Instead he chases me to my room, and I get the feeling he’s just herded me.
When I go to slam the door shut behind me, it bounces off his shoe and shudders as it opens.
I scurry around the bed.
He closes the door behind him and stands there. He’s pissed but he’s not out of breath. Not after that sprint up the stairs.
I am, though.
“Get out, Stefan! I mean it!”
Without a word, he stalks toward me
“Are they cigarette burns?”
“Get out!”
He doesn’t though, he just keeps coming.
And I do the only thing I can. I take the only thing I can protect myself with. The knife I’d swiped from breakfast.
I grab it out from under my pillow and hold it up between us, pivoting from foot to foot, not sure what the hell I’m doing because I have no plan. The knife isn’t even that sharp, but still, it’s a knife.
“Put that down.”
“You shipped me back here yesterday so you could play house with your cousin in Rome. What did you call her? A kissing cousin? You left me here alone, locked up, not even able to leave the house. I have nothing to do. No one to talk to. I am completely alone until you get the idea you’d like to fuck with me? Is that it? What, are you bored now? Am I your plaything when you’re bored, or you happen to be home and don’t have anything better to do or whenever the hell it suits you?”
His eyes narrow and he sets his jaw.
“I’m your pawn in this stupid game you’re playing with my father. I get that. I accept it, even, as fucked up as it is. Hell, I’ll even let you dress me up and flaunt me under his nose because I heard your warning loud and clear and I have no doubt you will bury me without a second thought. But understand this. I have no intention of tucking my tail between my legs at your command.”
“Gabriela.” The single word, my name spoken so quietly, so calmly, is a warning on his tongue.
I’ve never been one to stop, though. Never could back down.
“You told me respect is a two-way street. I’ll remind you of it. You may think you own me, and maybe you do, maybe you own my body. But my mind, my thoughts, my secrets, they’re mine. Not for you. My past is my past. My scars are my scars. Don’t ask me like you care. Like you give a single fuck. You don’t. You’re a monster, Stefan. Like him. Like the man you hate. Do you know that you and I, we’re even repeating history? My mom. My dad. Are you going to drown me too?”
I gasp.
I hear the words too late. Only after they’re out.
Shit.
What did I do?
What did I say?
His face is unreadable. A crease forms between his eyebrows as he takes this in.
God.
Fuck.
I’ve never said it out loud. Not to anyone. Not even to myself.
Why did I say it?
“Gabriela,” he starts, his tone no longer a warning. Almost softer. Almost.
I can’t read him. He’s so closed, he doesn’t give anything away and I’m so stupid.
“Get out, Stefan. Leave me alone.”
“You don’t want to be alone. You said so last night.”
“I was drunk. Drunk people say stupid things they don’t mean.”
“The opposite is true, actually.”
“Get out. Please.”
He opens his mouth to speak and I don’t wait to hear what he has to say. I don’t want to hear. I can’t.
I lunge and I don’t mean to. I don’t mean to hurt him. It doesn’t occur to me that I even can.
But he moves too and then there’s blood because he catches the knife. Catches it by the blade.
I gasp, look at his hand. Look at the blood. I let go.
When he releases it, I watch its progress as it twirls, falling to the floor. Watch the splatters of blood on the white sheets, on my legs. On the marble when it clatters to the floor.
And I expect him to be raging. It’s what I’m prepared for. What I deserve.
But when he grabs hold of my wrists and tugs me close, it’s not rage I see. It’s something else. Something worse.
Pity.
Fucking pity.
And I can’t stand it.
“Get your hands off me!”
“I won’t let him put a mark on you again,” he says, and his words, they somehow surprise me because I know he knows who did it. Who burned me. Who cut me. He’s not stupid. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out who put the marks on me anyway. I handed him the answer on a silver fucking platter.
I feel the heat of more tears sting my eyes, but I steel myself against this man. This monster. Because even if he’s not the same as my father, he is still that.
Just a different sort of monster.
I have to remember that.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
“Only your mark going forward, Stefan? What will you use? What should I prepare myself for?”
I don’t know why I’m pushing. Why I’m goading him. I remember him from the night of my sixteenth birthday. Remember his rage. How there was just the thinnest layer of control shielding me from it.
“Shut up, Gabriela.”
“Tell me. Tell me so I’m ready. It’s only fair. Tell me. What is it that’s going to get you off, Stefan?”
His hands tighten on my wrists. I feel the warmth of blood from his cut hand on one. A second later, he shoves me backward onto the bed so hard, that I bounce twice.
He leans down, pressing his knee between mine, forcing my legs apart and sliding his knee high until it collides with my sex.
I gasp with the impact. There’s nothing sexual about this. This is something else.
This is violence.
This is dominance.
This is power.
He looms over me, closes his bloodied hand around my throat and presses his knee against me. “You want to make me your enemy?” he asks, and his voice, it’s hoarse and harsh and low, like there’s so much rage inside that he’s struggling to control. Like he’s too close to losing the battle.