I trace my thumb along the line that marks her lower lip to her chin. The scar curves over her neck and disappears beneath the collar of her shirt. The groove was deeper and angrier when she was younger. She’s grown into the scar.
She remains perfectly still, watching me. I don’t think she’s breathing, but the pulse at her neck tells me her heart is going a thousand beats a minute.
I think back to the night of the accident. Think about her in the car.
She lost, too.
An unexpected and foreign emotion tugs at something inside my chest. It’s momentary. I’ve felt this before, this weakness, and I don’t like it. But it only takes one thought to banish this particular emotion.
Yes, she lost.
But we lost more.
When I release her, she steps backward, her trembling intake of breath audible.
Her eyes search mine and what she sees makes them grow just a little wider.
I think back to what she asked me that night at her house. The night I took her back to her room after getting her a glass of water.
She’d been afraid of the dark. Of the storm. When I told her monsters don’t hide in the dark, she’d asked me a question I wouldn’t have thought a child could think up. But then again, they say kids instinctively know.
She’d asked me if I was a monster.
She’ll soon learn I’m more than that. I’m her worst nightmare about to come true.
6
Cristina
Damian Di Santo.
I still remember his name.
I try to mask my expression. I won’t let him see what him being this close is doing to me.
When he touched me a moment ago, I couldn’t breathe. And even though there are three other men in the room with us, he’s the only one I see.
The way he traced that scar, I know he knows what it’s from. When it happened. How.
Does he know what I lost that night? What I’ve lost since?
My chest aches at the thought. It’s familiar, that tenderness. And it never heals. Never gets easier no matter how many years pass. I still miss Scott and my parents so much. Still think of them whenever anything good or bad happens. Still catch myself thinking I can’t wait to get home and tell them.
I shake my head to dislodge the thought.
“It’s almost your birthday,” Damian says, stepping to the side and gesturing to the coffin-like box on the table. It’s the biggest one yet. I know without having to look inside that it holds eight roses.
The final delivery.
When I turn back to him, he’s watching me with cold eyes. Icy like steel. And they seem to penetrate right through any defenses.
This man knows me, knows my past, even as he’s a stranger to me.
“I brought your gift early.”
“Why?”
“I was in the neighborhood,” he says lightly. He’s laughing at me.
“I don’t want it.” My throat is so dry I have to pause to swallow before continuing. “I don’t want anything from you.”
He simply studies me, expression unchanging, and I wish I could read past the barrier of his eyes. Wish I knew what he was thinking.
“Why don’t you take your gift and your goons and get out,” I say, sounding braver than I feel.
A smile stretches across his face. “That’s not very gracious, is it? Considering all I’ve done for you.”
“What have you done for me?”
Without changing position, he slides his gaze to my uncle and raises an eyebrow. One corner of his mouth rises into a small grin, telling me how much he’s enjoying this. He checks his watch and bends to pick up the box.
“You can ask your uncle after I’m gone. You have a few hours yet. I assume you’ll want to spend them with your family.”
“What does that mean?”
“Open your gift and I’ll be on my way.” He holds the box out to me.
“I don’t accept your gift. I’m not interested in opening it. I want you to leave.”
“Did I give you the impression this was a choice?”
“I already know what’s inside, and I don’t want it. I never wanted any of them.” I shove at the box, hoping he’ll step away because I need space. I don’t want to be the one to back up. But he captures my wrist instead and I look down at his hand, big and powerful and damaged.
He’d held my hand in his that first night, too, but he’d been gentle then. He hadn’t wanted to hurt me or scare me.
Now, it’s different.
When I shift my gaze up again, I find him studying me.
“This one is special, Cristina. This is the most important one.” He squeezes my wrist. “Don’t make me ask again.”
I tug myself free, knowing I only manage because he allows it. I look beyond him to the men standing over my uncle, then look at my uncle. I’ve never seen him like this. We’ve never been close, but he’s always been a man I could lean on. I did a lot of leaning in the years following my family’s deaths. Now, though, as much as he’s seething, as much as he so obviously hates this man, he also appears smaller, weaker.
“You don’t need his permission,” Damian says.
I turn my gaze to his.
“Only mine,” he adds. “Open the box, Cristina.”
Damian. I remember thinking how much it sounded like demon that first night eight years ago.
I never told anyone that he was there that night. Never told anyone about the others in the study. But I knew all along that I’d see him again. This monster.
I’ve known I’d have a chance to look into his eyes. To know the evil that lies beneath the cool, handsome exterior.
The only ugliness is his hand.
And what’s on the inside.
Taking the box, I move to sit down because my legs are beginning to tremble beneath me.
Damian watches as I set the box on my lap and undo the ribbon.
I pull the lid off and set it aside. The familiar smell makes my stomach turn. It grows stronger when I unwrap the tissue paper that blankets the dead roses. I take care not to prick my finger on a thorn because they always have thorns.
I peel the last layer away to see the lifeless flowers nestled in black paper. This time, there isn’t a card with the number scrawled on it. In its place is a yellowed scroll of paper tucked between the flowers.
I look up at him, and his expression has gone deadly serious.
He meets my eyes, gesturing for me to go on.
I reach for the sheet, my hand trembling. I have to look. I don’t have a choice.
The paper is old, and when I unroll it, it wants to curl back up.
I hold it open. My eyes fall instantly to my father’s scrawled, drunk signature. He was drunk a lot after the accident. I think he may have been drunk during it. He and my mom had been fighting so much by the end.
I look up at him, confused.
“Read it,” he commands, voice tight, eyes locked on that sheet of paper.
It’s a contract of sorts. One that would hold up in no court of law. One that buys…No, this makes no sense.
I keep reading. The script it’s written in is that of someone from another generation. But what it says, it can’t be.
There’s an exchange. My father’s life for my childhood.
But that’s not all. There’s a promise that on my eighteenth birthday, the day I am no longer considered a child, I become fair game.