Why do all of these families want to kill each other and their own?There’s so much violence. Max’s brother was murdered, Max retaliated in understandable revenge, and then the cycle continuing with someone out to get vengeance on Max, a vengeance that Art had decided to take part in, all over money and power. My own father, out to kill me to cover up his own sins.
Maybe Max was right,I think dully, trembling there in the middle of the bed.Maybe I should have run as far and fast as I could have from this world.
There’s nothing here for me any longer, with Max gone. But I’m well and truly trapped anyway, a rabbit in a snare.
Maybe I should have listened to Viktor.I imagine myself back in New York, having spent these last weeks alone in a safe house guarded by Viktor’s men, isolated and probably safe.If I’d done that, would Max still be alive?Without me here, under his protection and in need of it more than ever after the information about my father came to light, would he have felt the need to marry Adriana? There would still have been someone after him, someone that Art decided to work with, but without the distraction of the party and the split in loyalty after Edo withdrew his security, would Max have lost his life? Or would he have been protected, with only himself to worry about?
You’ll drive yourself mad trying to change the past.I know it’s true. I’ve tried hard not to look back in the past, to think about what I could have done differently to not end up on that cargo plane or in that warehouse. The choices I could have made. But now that it’s not only me who’s paying for it, it’s harder to tell myself that it’s all in the past.
If I had stayed, if I’d taken Viktor’s offer of the safe house instead of asking Max to take me with him, so much would have been different. Max wouldn’t have had to try so hard to protect me, Art would never have seen me, and I wouldn’t be here. But so many other things wouldn’t have happened, either.
No afternoon walking through the vineyards as Max told me about his childhood, no wine tasting and movies while we ate dinner together on the couch. I wouldn’t have felt Max’s lips dragging over my body as he pinned me to his desk or woken up with him in his bed. So many kisses and touches, so many moments, so many memories that would have all been lost if I’d stayed behind, and I can’t make myself wish them away, even if I end up worse off than before.
Would you have changed it, if it would have changed the ending for you?Part of me is glad I don’t know the answer to that, as I bury my face in the pillow and let the tears flow. I feel hollowed out with grief, wracked with it. It’s almost funny to think that Art is threatening me with my own death if I don’t submit to him, when it’s his actions that have finally brought me to a point where I’m not sure if I care any longer.
There’s so much of my life ahead of me–and I don’t think I can live it all knowing that Max is gone forever.
When I’ve cried for so long that my head aches even more and all my tears have dried up, I finally pry myself off of the bed, the duvet now streaked with tears and blood in addition to the bile I spit onto Art. I feel a hint of guilt, knowing it will be some poor household staff member who has to change the bed, but more than anything, I just feel numb.
I want all of this to be over, one way or another.
The shower is as luxurious as I would have expected. I know what Art is doing–trying to show me the alternative to continuing to fight him, a life that would match what I’ve grown used to living at Viktor’s and at the Agosti estate…only this time as his pet, his plaything.
It’s not something I would ever submit to. I feel disgusted with myself that I even ever found his overtures flattering, that I ever enjoyed his attention, even if I never would have been interested in anything beyond the casual flirting. I’d been naive, and I’d thought he was being sincere, if a bit overbearing.
I’d been so fucking wrong.
I stay in the shower for as long as I can, scrubbing my skin raw and pink, turning the water as hot as I can stand it. I feel like screaming, like pounding my fists and head against the hard grey stone tiles, but I know it won’t help. I have to hang on to whatever shreds of sanity and courage I have left if I’m going to get through this. If I’m going to fight back and keep Art from taking what he wants.
He showed clearly enough that he has a temper. If I make him angry enough, hurt him enough in the process, he might just lose it and kill me. It won’t be quick–but it’s better than letting him have me.
At this point, I’d almost rather they hand me over to my father. I don’t know anything worth torturing out of me, and a Russian bullet would be faster than being Art’s pet, or him beating me to death.
I sink onto the tiled floor of the shower under the hot spray, wrapping my arms around my knees. I don’t know how it came to this so quickly, to me contemplating the different means of my death while in a strange place. I don’t even know who this house belongs to–not Art, surely. I don’t know where I am.
“Max,” I whisper his name softly, the sound strangled in my throat as I press my forehead to my knees.I can’t stand this. I can’t.
The only man I’ve ever loved, and he’s gone.
When I finally drag myself out of the shower, toweling dry and wrapping it around me, I feel like a husk of my former self. I leave the filthy dress on the floor and my jewelry discarded on the counter, walking back out into the bedroom, and stop in surprise.
While I was in the shower, the bed has been stripped and freshly remade, and a stack of clothes are sitting at the foot of it. There’s also a dress hanging at the front of the wardrobe, long and blood-red, with thin straps and a very low v-neckline.
I wrinkle my nose, unsure of what it’s doing there. As I get closer to the bed, I see a note atop the stack of clothes, on thick cardstock and written in a heavy, slashing hand.
The clothes are for you, Sasha. Edo and I expect you to join us for dinner tonight in his formal dining room, wearing the dress provided. Unless, of course, you’d prefer to join us naked.
Art
I pick up the note, read it again, and then ball it up in my fist and hurl it across the room, gritting my teeth against the urge to scream. Everything about it infuriates me–the high-handedness of it, the way Art refers to the Casciani patriarch by his first name as if Art is of equal standing, the insinuation that I might join them in the nude, the insistence that I wear what he’s given me.
Even Max had referred to Edo as Don Casciani when he’d told me about the gala, and then as Edo Casciani later, but never just by his first name. It’s just another example of how fucking arrogant Art is. With his mask of charm and flattery off, I can see more and more with every interaction why Max felt the way he did.
I don’t want to wear the fucking dress, and I’m definitely not joining them naked. I snatch the clothes off of the bed instead, slipping into the underwear, jeans, and sleeveless chiffon blouse. The bra is too big for me, and after a moment’s hesitation, I go without instead. There’s a ruffle on the blouse over my breasts, giving me some modesty, at least.
I crawl onto the freshly made bed, curling into a ball again, my wet hair sticking to my cheeks. Exhausted, I fall back to sleep again.
—