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Chapter Seven

Leo

Haley cries herself to sleep on my shoulder.

She tried to minimize what Caroline did to her, and it is a fool’s errand. Touch like that is a fucking violation, and Caroline did it on purpose. She gave Rick permission to do what he did. There’s no doubt in my mind. It was all planned by Caroline, all ordered by Caroline. The way her body shakes when she talks about it, even in the safety of my home, is a testament to how much she hated it. How much it repulsed her. How much shame it forced into her.

I know. I fucking know.

It takes her such a long time to relax that by the time her head is heavy, by the time she’s given up all her weight to me, I’m on fire again.

I brush her hair away from her face and murmur in her ear. She doesn’t stir. She stays asleep when I put her on the pillow and tug the covers over her. I’d planned to take her to the shower with me. It’ll have to wait until morning. Probably better. That way, she won’t see what a fucking wreck I am.

Getting out of bed means gritting my teeth to stop myself from making any noise. My back is a mess of pain. All my muscles react to it. The only time it felt better was when I was fucking her, and I want more. The urge prowls under my skin. If she could handle it, I would bend her over the bed. I would fuck her all night. I would fuck her until a solution presented itself. I would fuck her until the end of time.

Instead, I go into the shower and turn it to cold. It’s a pure chill, like a fucking mountain spring, and it makes my lungs contract to stand in it. This is something to try when the pain has gone so haywire, when it’s run so rampant, so out of control. I force myself through a full shower. Shampoo. Soap. And then I add several minutes of tolerating the freeze.

The pain lessens a little. It relocates itself in my back instead of all the way down my legs and over my head. The intensity remains the same.

I’m going to have to keep Haley with me. For her safety. For my sanity. I need a fucking break. A fucking minute.

The slicing sting relents a bit more when I get into bed with her and pull her warmth against me. She breathes faster at my touch but doesn’t wake up. I drift next to her the rest of the night. No dreams come. Her skin under my hand is the only dream, and it batters my heart. Makes it ache. “I thought I’d lost you,” I whisper to her at some point before dawn.

“I’m here,” she says, her voice sleepy and warm, and after that I really do sleep.

Eva is waiting in the dining room in the morning. She’s showered and changed and looks far less panicked than she did yesterday, though she scrutinizes us both shamelessly as we sit down at the table. I have Haley’s hand in a tight grip. She didn’t say she needed this from me, but she’s coming down from the terror of being taken. She hesitated at the door to my bedroom before we came down. Swallowed hard. Put her hand in mine.

“How are you?” Eva asks Haley, who puts on a smile.

“I’m good,” she says. “I’m good now.”

Eva clearly doesn’t believe her, but she nods, glancing down at her mostly untouched plate. “I think I should go home. Now that you’re all right.”

“I think not,” I tell her. My back throbs this morning. Too dull to be excruciating, too painful to ignore. “You’re staying until I’ve gone over your security teams. You need another layer until Caroline’s under control.”

My sister makes a show of looking around the dining room, but her shoulders have let down. “I don’t see Lucian here. Why didn’t you make him stay?”

“I’m not worried about Lucian. But if you’re worrying about a lack of company, don’t. Daphne is on her way.”

If she’s not in the car now, she will be as soon as she’s up. I don’t know what kind of hours she keeps with her art, and I don’t particularly care. What I want is to have her where I can see her. Not in some studio apartment that’s more difficult to defend than my home.

I ignore the thought that Haley was taken from this place and not Daphne’s studio apartment.

“Good,” Eva says. I didn’t expect an argument from her, but I did expect protesting. My sister likes to think she’s outgrown a need to be protected. She is mistaken. The enemy is not our father anymore. It’s many more people who are enough like our father that they present a threat on the level of the Constantines.

I don’t tell her about the worry that dogs me when it comes to security, that follows me now. Especially now that Lucian and I have gone into Caroline’s house to retrieve Haley. Especially now that I’ve left evidence of my visit on her sons’ faces.

We’ve moved to the den by the time Daphne arrives. Eva has gone upstairs to rest. I tried to make Haley rest too, but she wanted the den. Now she’s under a blanket on the sofa and I’m at the window, looking out on the snow-covered courtyard. The alert that Daphne’s here comes through on my phone, and a few minutes later, Daphne follows it.

She comes in like a wave moving quickly over sand. A beeline to where I’m standing, and I bend to angle her arms around my neck. It’s never been more imperative that everything stays the fuck away from my back. Even with Haley in sight, I’m a human tripwire.

“Oh my god, Leo, you can’t just summon me here,” Daphne says as she releases me. “I’m fine. You could have texted me to ask if I was fine.”

I steer her to the couch by her shoulders. Daphne sits, and watches me as I take the opposite seat. Haley closes her book and sits up. “Hey, Daphne.”

Daphne searches Haley’s face, her artist’s eyes taking everything in. “Something happened.”

“Caroline sent one of her people here.”

My sister’s mouth drops open. “Did they come inside?”

“No. They didn’t have to. Caroline’s people put together a plan to cause a diversion and distract my security while Haley went out to meet her brother.” It’s a true effort to speak about this without snarling. Without standing up, finding the nearest guard, and beating the fuck out of him. “They took her when she stepped outside the gates.”

Daphne pales. Her head swivels to Haley. “Took you where?”

“Caroline’s house.”

Her brow furrows, and Daphne twists her fingers together in her lap. “I don’t understand.” This is why I brought her here. Now. This morning. Because she doesn’t understand. I’ve worked so fucking hard to let her have her innocence that it’s made her an easy target. “Caroline’s your family. She sent someone to kidnap you?”

“Yes.”

It sinks in for her then, what kind of family the Constantines are. Daphne’s expression turns utterly serious. “Did they hurt you?”

“No,” Haley says.

“Don’t lie,” I tell her. Her blue eyes meet mine with a silent plea.

“I’m not lying.”

“Don’t. Lie.”

The tension draws tight between us. I want to kneel down at her place on the sofa but I don’t trust myself not to drag her upstairs by her hair and push her over the bed. I need it.

Haley takes a deep breath, then looks back at Daphne. “It’s complicated,” she says, and understanding passes over Daphne’s face like she’s heard Haley say this before. She probably has. They’ve had more than one conversation without me. “Nobody hit me. But it was still—” She shakes her head.

“I’m sorry.” Daphne reaches for her hand. Squeezes it. Her eyes shine with unshed tears. “I’m sorry, Haley. I don’t—I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” This, from Haley, on a breath. Practically soundless.

“It’s not,” I say. “That’s why you’re here.” Daphne’s eyes snap to mine. “It’s not safe for you. For any of us.”

“I’m perfectly safe.” Spots of color bloom high on Daphne’s cheeks. “Nobody’s messing with me. Nobody even really knows I’m a Morelli, because I’m not—” She’s about to say not like you. “I’m not open about it. Nobody’s even been in my apartment at all, except—”

Except.

All my cells are on alert. Every muscle. It’s the way I used to feel when I saw my father’s car pull into the driveway at the end of the day. “Except?” I demand.

Daphne sighs. “Except for one person.”

“Except for one man.”

The deepening red of her face tells me all I need to know.

“Nothing happened,” Daphne insists, letting go of Haley’s hand.

“Bullshit. Explain.”

Daphne bites her lip and lifts a hand to pull her hair back over her shoulder. A sidelong glance at Haley. “I wasn’t even there. He just left something for me. A gift.”

The words tick down like the timer on a bomb, and unadulterated rage bursts heavy onto my skin. It feels made of glass, made of molten glass, and every breath I take becomes an excruciating exercise in control.

I have never let Daphne see me at my worst. Never. I’ve carried her in my arms to get her away from the sight, to keep her away from the knowledge. She can’t know how close this animal is to the surface. How, if Haley wasn’t here, I would get up from my seat and go hunting.

Haley is not Daphne. She and my sister might have had a similar innocence to begin with, but for one key difference—I happened to Haley. So Haley knows what she’s looking at now. She feels it. Daphne is wide-eyed and red-faced. She doesn’t know what I am.

“You have,” I begin, and it takes everything I have to keep my voice even. “A fucking stalker.”

Daphne’s hand goes to her collar. “No! No. He just—he likes my paintings. He buys a lot of them. You know. Like a collector.”

“He wants to collect your body in his fucking basement, Daphne. He doesn’t want your paintings. Men don’t want your art. They’re all sick fucks who want to use you for their own purposes. They’ll discard you when they’re finished, if they haven’t murdered you first.”

She lifts her chin, jaw tightening. “Oh? Like you’re going to do to Haley?”

My entire soul recoils, hissing, feral, disgusted. “No,” I snap at her, and Daphne flinches. I barely manage to get a handle on my tone even through the pang of regret. “Not like me with Haley.”

Haley lets out a breath, and I can tell how badly she wants to come over to me, but she’s torn. She’s sweet, and she’s a good friend, and she’s torn, because to come over here would mean leaving Daphne by herself. And she won’t do it.

“He’s not dangerous,” Daphne says.

“That’s. Fucking. It.” I go to the door and open it. Gerard’s waiting outside. “Send a team to Daphne’s apartment. Clear it out.”

He nods and goes, and when I turn back, Daphne is staring at me. “What did you tell him to do?”

“I’m sending a team to get your things. You’re moving in with me.”

“Leo, no!” She stands up too and squares off with me, but it’s useless. She’s petite, like Haley. She’s no match for the things I know, for the things I’ve lived. “I’m fine in my apartment. You have security there, too.”

“I’m firing all of them. It will take some time to find replacements.”

“Why? Why? I like them.”

“Because they let a stalker into your apartment to leave a gift. What’s next? Are they going to let him in to watch you sleep? Shower?”

“How is it better if you’re the one watching me sleep?”

“I’m not going to watch you sleep. I don’t care if you sleep. Stay up all night, if you want.”

“I want to stay in my apartment.” Her eyes flash. “I belong in my apartment. I’m fine in my apartment.”

“Will you be fine when you wake up to him standing over your bed one night?”

“Leo—”

“Will you be fine if you wake up gagged and bound? Tell me.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

I step closer, look down at her, make her look up at me. It’s an asshole move, and I know it. “And will you be fine if I have to come identify your body after he’s murdered you? I’m the one who would get that call, by the way. Would that be all right, Daphne?”

Tears have gathered at the corners of Daphne’s eyes. She doesn’t let them fall. “He’s not going to kill me.” Her hands ball into fists at her sides. “He’s not like that.”

“Tell me his name, and I’ll tell you if he’s like that.”

Daphne looks away. “I’m not telling you his name.”

“Do you even know what it is?”

“Yes. I’m just not telling you. You’d go after him.”

“He probably deserves it.”

A ringing silence. Haley smooths her blanket over her legs, her eyes on mine. Does she wish I was softer, in this moment? I fucking hope not. I can’t be softer. Not with this rage eating through skin and bone.

“You are ridiculous,” Daphne says, but I can feel her giving in.

I can also feel her resentment towards me, but that’s all right. It doesn’t matter if she hates me. As long as she’s safe. I’ve always protected my sisters, from the time we were little, when our father hit us, but it feels sharper now, more acute that I almost lost Haley. “Good.”

“How long am I supposed to stay here?”

“Until he forgets about you.” I try to sound soothing. Even though I’d like to keep her here forever, locked up in some tower like a fairy tale princess.

“Like you’re going to forget about Haley when she’s gone?”

My dear sister says the question sweetly, because she knows, she knows I’ll never forget about Haley. I will never get over her. “It’s different,” I say, which is a lie. It’s not different.

She rolls her eyes. “It’s different because you love her.”

The word love makes my skin turn hot and then cold and clammy. I’m careful not to look at Haley. I don’t want to see her reaction—either her hope or disappointment. “This isn’t about me,” I say, my teeth gritted.

“Isn’t it?” she asks, her tone gentle, her expression knowing.

I’m reminded that even though she’s innocent, she’s a woman now. A woman who sees through my bluster. Who knows I’m exactly as bad as the man I’m guarding her from. I didn’t get my reputation for nothing. The beast is too close to the surface. “This is about you being in over your head. I always knew you were naive, but I never thought you were a fool.”

She gasps. Hurt simmers in her dark eyes. Anger, too.

“You want to end up on a true crime podcast? Not on my watch. I’m sorry if I ever gave you the impression you had a choice in the matter. You’re staying here. End of story.”