My shoulder hits the doorframe with a thud and I get a glimpse of him on the floor, eyes wide, a pool of blood spreading around him.
“Leo—”
A door opens close by and I jolt upright in the bed. “Oh,” Caroline says. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
No. She meant to kidnap me, and then keep me here so we could “reconnect.”
She doesn’t leave again. Caroline never raises her voice but she is incessant.
The topic always comes back to Leo. It’s so wrong to lie to someone, don’t you think? The way Leo lied to you. It’s so unfortunate what happened to you, Haley. What he did to you. Criminal, really.
I’m not sure when, exactly, it changes. But it does. Caroline stops saying things like you must have missed your family so much and starts saying things like you were so scared.
You were so afraid.
You were so terrified.
She says it while I eat a turkey sandwich for lunch. She says it while she watches me put on the makeup she’s chosen in the mirror. She says it while I look mindlessly at a rack of clothes she’s picked out and point at one.
You were so scared, Haley. He was so cruel to you. You had no choice but to give in to his demands.
Caroline repeats these things so many times they start to sound…
Reasonable.
It’s close to the truth.
I was afraid of Leo. In the beginning I was so scared. Who wouldn’t have been? Everything I’d heard about him painted him as vicious. Ruthless. Bloodthirsty.
The rumors were close to the truth. He can be vicious. He can be ruthless. But he is almost never bloodthirsty. He does what he has to do in order to stay alive and keep the people he loves alive. The Leo I met, the real Leo, thought guns were for cowards. He thought violence should be reckoned with. If you’re going to kill someone, do it with your eyes open. He said that to me after he killed three men who tried to rape me in an alley.
There is real rage in him. Real pain. Real violence. But he struggles with it. He works so hard to keep it in check.
He does.
No matter how many times Caroline says he was an awful, violent person to you.
Which is close to the truth. Or only part of the truth. The other part is how much I wanted him. How much I want him now. Leo Morelli has never once touched me like I was fragile or breakable. He has always touched me like I belonged to him. Like he wants me more than anything in the world.
He does.
No matter how many times Caroline says he hurt you for the fun of it. That’s what he’s like. That’s what he does. He’s heartless.
It’s not true. All my concentration goes to answering her silently. You’re lying. You’re lying. You’re lying. I concentrate so hard that I go along with putting on the deep blue dress I chose without thinking. I sit at the bathroom counter and let Caroline curl my hair. I let her put a necklace around my neck and I slip my feet into the shoes she gives me and I only come to my senses when she leads me to the door.
“Where are we going?”
Caroline smiles. It’s close to the truth. It looks real enough on her face, but I doubt she’s happy because she thinks I’ll enjoy this. “I set up a date for you. It’s time to ease back into the world, don’t you think?”
I don’t. But I also don’t have any choice. So I follow her down the hall. Caroline’s house has a guest wing with everything you could possibly need, including, I guess, a dining room with a round table set with candles on one end of the room. There’s a sofa on the other with a matching end table. It’s dark outside. I can’t see a thing past the reflection in the pane.
“Hello, Caroline. Hello, Haley.”
Rick Joseph Jr., the man who wants nothing more than to be a Constantine, stands in the doorway in a turtleneck and slacks with a giant bouquet of red roses in his hands.
“Come in, come in.” Caroline sweeps over to him and kisses him on both cheeks, then tugs him into the room. “These are beautiful. Look, Haley.”
“Beautiful,” I echo as she brings them to the table and puts them into a vase. She had an empty vase here. Waiting for the roses. “Hi, Rick.”
My temples throb with how awkward and strange this is. What is Caroline thinking? A date with Rick?
Rick comes over to me and bends to kiss my cheek. It’s all I can do not to jerk backward. He’s not a bad guy, but I don’t want him, and I don’t think he particularly wants me. It’s obvious now more than ever. He’ll do anything to get in with Caroline. Once upon a time, he even tried to get in with me. He gave me a ride to my car when I needed to go talk to Leo.
Maybe I could talk to him.
“How are you? Are you headed back to school after the holidays?” Rick directs the question at me, but his eyes slide to Caroline.
“Oh, Haley’s taking a little break from school,” Caroline answers while she ushers us to the table. I feel like a marionette on her strings. “It was all a bit much for her. She’s here for a little rest. A little vacation.” She laughs, and Rick laughs too. I manage the beginning of a smile.
Caroline pats my arm, and I take it for the prompt it is. “How is—” Oh, god, all I want is to get out of here. “How’s your business?”
Rick’s eyes light up. “Oh, it’s great. It’s great, Haley. We’re having the best quarter ever. I know you love books more than anything else, but if you wanted, I could bring you to the office and show you around.”
He’s so eager that it’s almost sweet. A former version of me might have gone to his office to see—what? Computers? Spreadsheets?
“I’m so sorry,” Caroline says from behind me. “I have to take this call.” I didn’t hear a phone, but Rick’s eyes go above my head and he nods, the movement so subtle I could’ve imagined it. Maybe I do imagine it. She comes around beside my chair, takes my face in her hands, and kisses my forehead. “Have a good time, you two.”
At that moment, one of the Constantine staff members comes in with our plates on a tray. More soup. I think of Leo, his face a picture of pain. It’s my fucking favorite soup.
This is not his favorite soup.
Caroline slips out. The man in his uniform leaves us with the soup. And Rick looks across the table at me, his expression pleased but cautious.
I pick up the spoon. Put it back down again. I’m too impatient. But I need to get out. “Rick.” The doorway’s empty. I have to tell him now, and quietly. “You have to help me. I’m being held against my will.”
Chapter Three
Haley
Rick’s eyebrows go up. His mouth drops open. He blinks in a triple flutter of his eyelashes, almost comically stunned, and oh, thank God. He believes me.
He finishes putting his napkin in his lap and glances down. Away from me. “Oh, Haley,” he says. I’m ready to stand up and walk out of here with him. Run out of here, if he’ll take me where I need to go. But then he looks back up at me with his green eyes, the eyes he can never change to Constantine blue, and they’re filled with pity.
Not shock. Not determination.
Pity.
Rick takes a deep breath. “Caroline told me you were disturbed.”
“What?” I don’t know why it comes as a surprise, but it does.