My pupils dilate.
A key.
My heart pounds in my chest as I inspect it and rush to the door, but no matter how hard I pry it in, it won’t stick. This isn’t the lock it’s for. I turn around and face the other way, looking for a way out.
And then it hits me.
The window.
I swiftly make my way to it and shove the key into the lock. It clicks. Turns. Unlocks.
My heart skips a beat, and I hold my breath as I pull open the window.
A cold gust of wind hits me right in the face, making me tear up.
I peer down over the windowsill. It’s too high to jump, but I might be able to stand on a small ledge alongside the window and use it to slip over to the balcony on the lower left side that’s close enough to the ground so that my legs don’t break during a fall.
But is the escape worth the risk?
I swallow and push the window farther open so I can step onto the windowsill.
It’s dangerous … but so is staying here.
So I take a step and push over the ledge.
“Stop right there!”
My mother’s voice echoes through the room, and I almost fall just from her scream.
As I turn my head and peer at the door, I clutch the window with everything I have while trying not to die. Molly stands in the doorway while two guards storm straight at me.
I look back at the grass below, wondering if I should just make the jump.
If I am ready to risk losing the use of my feet forever just for the sake of fleeing.
Fear stops me from moving, my whole body shaking vigorously against the wooden frame.
Suddenly, two hands grasp at my arms, tugging me back inside, slamming me onto the floor so hard that the air is knocked out of my lungs.
“Easy!” my mother yells.
The two men towering over me with beastly stares and their nostrils flaring back away just a little.
I stare out the window at the blue sky beyond, realizing the time to escape has passed.
Fuck.
My mother’s eyes meet mine in a blaze of fury.
“How dare you?” she seethes. “After the warm welcome I’ve given you? The food, the bath, a comfy bed to sleep in?” Her face contorts. “Get up.”
I’ve never heard her this snappy before.
The two guards glaring at me remind me that I don’t have a choice in the matter. But as I get up on two feet, she slams the door to the window shut and plucks out the key like it means nothing.
“Where did you get this?” She holds it up to my face. “Tell me!”
Her sudden outburst makes me blink rapidly. “I don’t know. I found it.”
“Lies!” she spits.
I’m taken aback by her rage.
She never acted this way toward me when I was still a little girl.
What happened to her?
“You locked me in here,” I say, making a face. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”
“Well, I didn’t ask for a disobedient daughter,” she snarls back.
She clutches the key firmly, staring at me like I’m a disappointment.
“I thought you wanted to be back with me. With us,” she says.
“Molly, I—”
“Molly?” she interjects, snorting. “Don’t speak to me like that. Like I haven’t raised you myself like an actual mother!”
“You didn’t!” I yell back, unable to keep my feelings at bay. “I’ve been an orphan for so long. I am not the girl you once had under your roof. And I refuse to let you do this to me.”
She stares at me for a few seconds, then nods at her guards, and they quickly walk off and close the door behind them.
“No … you’re a woman now … a woman who has managed to enthrall a very special man.” She reaches for me with her index finger, caressing my cheek, and the sudden shift in personality chokes me up for a moment. “Tell me, what is it that you see in him?”
My cheeks flush. “I don’t see any—”
“Of course you do, honey,” she barks. “Why else would he be so infatuated with you?”
“I was his prisoner,” I say. “Nothing more.”
“Yet he’s been searching for you nonstop ever since you escaped his claws.”
My eyes widen. “How would you know?”
She cackles. “You really are naïve, aren’t you? You think Marcello is the only one with eyes and ears all over the city?” She raises a brow. “Or did you think one of my guards just happened to stumble onto you, hmm?”
It’s getting too hot under my feet, and I don’t like where this conversation is going. “What do you want from me?”
“Tell me about Marcello,” she says, grabbing a strand of my hair to curl around her finger. “Why is he so interested in you?”
“I don’t know … I …”
“Think hard,” she murmurs. “Because I don’t want you to regret what you tell me.”
I gulp and think back to everything Marcello told me, and something about the restaurant and his dying fiancée springs to mind. “I think he said I reminded him of Alannah.”
“Alannah?” Her pupils dilate, and her nostrils flare, but she instantly regains her composure and clears her throat. “Interesting. No wonder he took you in.”
I don’t like where this is going. She’s fishing for information, but it doesn’t feel right. Even if I once considered her my mother, I don’t think I can trust her. Maybe I never could. The more she asks me about Marcello, the less I’m willing to talk. I don’t want to betray him. Even though I know he’s a bad guy too, he somehow feels less dangerous than my mother right now.
I straighten my back. “I don’t understand why any of this matters to you. You have me back. That’s what you wanted, right?”
Her eyes narrow, and a tepid but dangerous smile spreads on her lips. “Come … There’s something I want you to see.”
She walks toward the door and says, “Unlock it.”
The guards open the door and let her out, and she glances at me over her shoulder with a deadly gaze. I don’t think I should defy her. Not now.
So I swallow my fears and follow suit.
She takes me downstairs and underneath, where there’s a hidden door that leads into a grimy-looking basement. The walls are covered in webs, dust litters the floor, and the lower we go, the harder it becomes to breathe. Doesn’t feel like they air this place out very often.
However, the moment I get downstairs, I stop breathing entirely.
There’s a man strapped to a chair, blindfolded with his arms locked in place behind him. Another guy holds a gun to his head.
“What’s going on?” I mutter as I clutch the wall with one hand to steady myself.
“Please … help me,” the man in the chair begs, his voice fluctuating in tone as the gun is pressed firmly against his temple.
“What are you doing?” I ask. “Release him.”
My mother glances at me over her shoulder and proceeds to laugh. “Release him? No, honey. He’s here for a reason.”
I stare at the guy’s twisted ankle, the bloodied mess at his feet, and the finger lying on the floor. Bile rises up my throat.
I don’t know who he is, but no one deserves that kind of pain.