I still wonder how much she’d overheard. Wonder what she’d thought. She’d looked terrified but had acted so brave.
Her gaze drops to my right hand. She remembers that too. Does she think it might have healed in these years? Melted skin doesn’t grow back.
When she looks back up at me, her expression is confused, then angry. “You were there the night my father died.”
“The night he hanged himself,” I clarify.
“No.” She shakes her head. “Never. He’d never have done that.”
“Cristina.” It’s her uncle.
“I’m sure it’s hard for you to accept, but the autopsy proved it,” I add.
Her hands fist and her eyes narrow. “Who else was in that room?” she demands.
“Cristina,” her uncle’s reproach is sharper, and she turns to him.
“What’s going on?” Cristina asks her uncle. “Why was Simona crying?”
He doesn’t answer her.
“Adam?” I say.
He looks at me.
“Would you like to explain? I am getting the impression you’ve kept her in the dark. It’s not what we agreed, is it? Tomorrow is her eighteenth birthday. I thought she’d be expecting me.”
“You fucking bastard.” He makes a move to stand but Tobias doesn’t let him.
I stand, turning to Cristina because she’s the only one who matters. When I approach her, she takes a single step backward but stops. I wonder what it takes for her to do that. To stop.
Anxiety creeps into her pretty violet eyes, and her forehead wrinkles. She’s afraid of me.
Tall as she is, the top of her head doesn’t quite clear my chin, and when I step even closer, she has to tilt her head backward to look up at me.
I reach out to touch her, to feel that scar, and I see in her eyes what it takes for her to not pull away. To not show fear. When I touch my knuckles to her chin, there’s a momentary jolt. Like a spark of electricity that doesn’t quite hurt but shocks. I know she feels it too. I see it when she winces.
Ignoring the strange phenomenon, I tilt her face up toward mine. There are multiple shades of violet and blue in her eyes, I realize, and her thick, dark lashes create a dramatic effect even with the minimal makeup she’s wearing.
I lower my gaze to her mouth. Through the slight parting of her lips, I see white teeth in a perfect row. She’s been well cared for. I’m glad to see my money wasn’t squandered.
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.6CristinaDamian 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.