The gifts—one of them was an angel necklace because that was how he liked to call me for God’s sake —were to gain my attention, to make me know he was there, to make me think about him and never forget. Last night was to make me know what he desired.
To mindfuck me so I’d desire him, too.
To make me explore that side I didn’t dare tread until he opened its door for me. To do it while I thought of him. My dark, forbidden fantasy.
And it worked. He knew I’d never been touched by anyone but my father. He knew I was desperate to replace the horrible memories with better ones that involved another man.
Him.
He made sure of it. He fucked my mind so when the time came, when we met again like he’d promised, when he decided to claim me, I’d be ready for him. Wanting him.
I fell into his trap like a moth to a flame. I did everything he wanted me to do. Consciously, and now unconsciously, my body would always associate him with desire. I’d always want and crave him even if he was the last person I should ever think of in that way.
Little had I known four years ago I wasn’t really saved. Life had only replaced one monster by another.
Chapter 11
Tino
I should punish her.
She was being a brat, destroying my gifts, comparing me to that fucker…
I didn’t install any bugs or cameras in her room, and I didn’t listen to a word she was saying when she threw that tantrum, but it wasn’t hard to guess. Why else would she be so upset? It couldn’t be the dress. It was just another one of the presents she was well aware I was the one bringing, one she annoyingly ruined.
Didn’t she know how much I loved her in it?
I did have access to a live feed of her room now. After she bought a nanny cam to keep me away, she left me no choice. I had to make one of my soldiers hack into her feed, broadcast whatever the fuck I wanted her to see when I was in the condo.
“Nothing is going to keep me away from you, Angel.” I almost snapped my brush in half as I told the unfinished painting. The face that had been haunting me awake and asleep.
I hadn’t touched a brush and a palette in years, not since my wife died. The moment Angel and I had together was worthy of my time, though, worthy of being captured and framed eternally.
Anger wouldn’t leave me be, though. How could she think I’d hurt her the way her father did? “Haven’t I told you I’m nothing like him? What else can I do to prove to you no one will ever treat you better than I will, no one will ever protect or care for you or your needs and desires like me?”
She deserved a nice, heavy spanking for what she did. However, I must admit it wasn’t entirely her fault. Part of it was mine. I shouldn’t have talked to her the other night. I shouldn’t have talked to her at all until the time was right for me to take her. She was nowhere near ready.
Still, she should have believed me.
For that, she deserved the spanking and more. But I wouldn’t punish her for it. Not yet.
I’d always been with her, even when she didn’t know. Everything I’d done was so that she could have the best, yet somehow that night, I left her in ruins.
I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
“The next time you see me, Angel, there’s no slowing down or turning back.” I stroked the colors of her beautiful hair. “You’ll be melting in my arms. You’ll finally know it’s the only place where you belong. I’ll make sure of it.”
Chapter 12
Lina
My seventeenth Birthoween—like Nicky liked to call it—couldn’t come any slower.
When we used to live at Bellomo, I never waited or cared for my birthday. Being born, to a father like mine, wasn’t something to celebrate or be happy about. Besides, everybody was busy with Halloween costumes and silly pranks. It was one of the few days they got to leave campus. Nobody cared that it was my birthday, too.
Except for two people. Nicky…and him.
My sister would always bring my favorite cupcakes, chocolate with rainbow frosting, and we’d devour them along with whatever candy our friends would donate to our party for two at the dorm. She’d give me her present. Then we’d go for a walk and watch people have their fun. We never joined, though. Wearing scary costumes, watching horror movies, telling scary stories weren’t our thing. We’d had enough horror to last a lifetime, and I knew Nicky wanted to make that day all about me. A celebration of the living, not the dead.
Then I’d go home and find his gift on the bed.
This year was different. Nicky took me out to an expensive restaurant where her new friends at college once had invited her. The place was far more elite than we’d ever be. One look at the menu, and my heart shrank. A meal here cost more than what we both spent on food for a whole month.
When I looked at her, moon-eyed, she just giggled and told me to order whatever I wanted. This birthday was special because we were finally free to do whatever we wanted. We were no longer locked in a boarding school with a curfew.
I did as she asked without arguing so I wouldn’t disappoint her, but I didn’t want any of that. It seemed like I didn’t appreciate my freedom as much as she did. I’d happily go back to Bellomo. At least, he remembered me there.
It was pathetic by all means. After the awards ceremony, I was mad and scared. I’d spent weeks looking over my shoulder, having a mini heart attack every time I opened the closet or the locker or the bathroom. I checked my nanny cam feed around the clock. I looked under the bed every night like a child before I managed to sleep. I was living in a constant state of fear.
Then months passed, and the fear changed into something more awful when I realized nobody was watching me anymore. There was no sign of him anywhere. He was gone. And I was no longer afraid. I should have been happy, at peace, able to return to my fear free life, but I was angry and miserable that he left.
Because I fucking missed him.
Pathetic and stupid and crazy and awful, but I couldn’t help it. I missed my murderous stalker who wanted me as his fucktoy.
“Why aren’t you eating, Lina?” Nicky asked with a mouthful of steak.
I stared at my plate of salmon pasta that I barely touched. I didn’t have much of an appetite. I just wanted my cupcake, and the reminder that he didn’t forget me.
How could he abandon me just like that? How could he forget all about me all of a sudden when he did everything to carve himself in my memory forever?
Part of me—all of me—had been waiting for today because maybe, just maybe, when I’d go back home, I’d find his gift on the bed. I’d know that he didn’t abandon me. I’d know he still cared and remembered.
“I’m sorry, Nicky. I’m just not that hungry.”
“It’s okay. Save room for dessert. That you’re eating. You can’t say no to cupcakes.”
I managed to smile. “Now you’re talking.”
She gestured for the waiter, and he brought the chocolate with rainbow frosting cupcake, a candle in the middle. He lit it and wished me a happy birthday before he left.
Nicky sang for me and asked me to make a wish. I blinked for a second. I didn’t make wishes. I wasn’t a girl that her wishes came true. Not even when that wish was as twisted and crazy as wanting a psycho stalker to break into her home.