Rosalind
The word run keeps reverberating in my head as I grip the wheel like it’s my only lifeline. If I just keep driving, maybe I can get away. It’s a beautiful thought, freeing. Just drive and not look back.
I glance at the gas tank. It’s about a fifth full, but I could just keep going until even the fumes run out, toss the damn bracelet and drive. If there’s one skill I have, it’s the ability to adapt and go. I’m good at hiding, too. Keeping my head down. Playing games. I know how to survive. Everything in my life led me to making it through Nikolai’s imprisonment. It got me through my father’s. I know how to bide time, to wait until an opportunity presents itself. After all, I watched Mom do it my entire life.
Maybe I didn’t know I was picking that stuff up when we left in the middle of the night, or when she’d subtly change when she caught sight of a stranger, how she’d wait and take me shopping and just drive.
She never used cards. I swallow, pain lancing me. Even my not-uncle did the same. Cash over cards.
There’s cash in the apartment, hidden, if I can make it there, or use the phone Nikolai gave me. I could call the cops, but they’ll be on his payroll, or worse, on my fathers. I know not all of them, but there’s an innate thing from mom that’s built in where we never trust authorities. She didn’t say that, but when a boyfriend stole from her, she never reported it. She packed us up in the middle of the night and left.
So…what about Genius? After the warning from Nikolai, I can’t make her go to my place, not if it’s been watched. I don’t want her in danger. Oh, hell. I don’t even have a driver’s license. I can drive, but I never got one.
Now I know why. I- Breathe.
The thoughts keep tumbling in my head. Okay, so I just keep going, keep driving until something happens. Nikolai gave me a car and- Shit. He gave me a car. How the hell do I know if it’s got a tracker? If someone’s following?
I glance in the mirror, catching a glimpse of a black SUV, the kind all the mafia and soccer moms use. There’s also a sleek black car about two behind me.
My breath hurts my lungs and my stomach contracts. Nikolai can rock my world and melt me and turn me on so much that I crave him. I don’t even know what it is. It can’t be love. Love doesn’t have spikes and knives and make you bleed. Lust? Some kind of fucked up thing in me?
Am I made wrong? Is the fact that Derek Finnegan is my father something that’s made me twisted and poison and not a normal person? Is that tainted blood the reason I need and want and crave Nikolai? The reason I wish he wanted me as his. An equal, not property. Equal like…love.
He’d never want me the way I’d want him. I know that. For all that he can make me melt and sigh and orgasm, he can threaten. He’s a man of his word, just like he said.
Maybe…I grip the wheel tight and blink back the burning blur of tears in my eyes that I won’t let fall as a lump sticks hard in my throat. Maybe I’m just so tainted and wrong that not even Nikolai could care for me.
That’s not even the problem. My problem is what do I do now. If I run now, my father knows I’m alive, so that’s two monsters after me.
I just don’t know if Nikolai is the better monster or the worst. Better in the way that I have a chance to live and taste freedom after all this, but maybe he’s the absolute worst for my soul? Let a beautiful, hard, dangerous and devastating monster like Nikolai in, and I think he might destroy my soul.
“Stop it, Rosalind. Stop.”
It’s great advice. I wish I could take it, just like I wish I could drive on, but I can’t. Nikolai will come for me. My father, too, and…I want my father dead and gone. I want him to suffer.
Maybe I’m a monster, too.
I pull up near that hated place I was taken. The only reason I know it’s the right place is the gate and the high stone wall. Well, it’s also the address on the piece of paper Nikolai gave me.
The black SUV passes, but I don’t see the other car. For a while, I sit there, unmoving.
I bite down on my lip and give in to the trembling, and the tiny, unwanted thrill from that good pain of my bite because I can feel where Nikolai bruised me in those brutal, violent kisses I demanded.
What I need to do is stick to the plan and then run, or take my freedom if Nikolai sticks to his word.
Picking up the phone, I stare at the black mirrored screen. I…I don’t think I can do this, call my father.
“He hurt your mom. He hurt you, tried to marry you to a horrible man… shit, maybe you are married to that vile man, Vitale…” It’s the least of my worries, that thought. “Derek Finnegan killed Nikolai’s parents, Rush’s. He did something very bad to Sylvie, and he hurt me when I was little.” Just like Nikolai said. Suddenly, a memory flares to life.
I’m…I don’t know how old. Very young because everyone is huge. They’re giants and it’s all in bits and pieces, like blurred edged snapshots. It’s close to the others I’ve had recently. Maybe it’s the same, I don’t know, but it’s so visceral.
Mommy screaming. Mommy going down. Men shouting. Me attacking my horrible Daddy. And him. Hitting. Hurting. It hurts so bad. Blood. Nasty, horrible words. He tells me he’s going to kill me. I try to hit again, and something snaps and pain is everywhere and I go down as a voice rises up. Someone steps forward.
He fights Daddy. Goes down and I…I don’t remember anything more.
All I know is Derek Finnegan, the man who fathered me, tried to beat his little daughter to death. Did Nikolai lie and someone stepped in? Maybe I’m hoping that happened. I close my eyes. If someone did, Derek beat them, too. My fucking, evil father. He’s the true monster.
That’s why I’m not running. Not until he’s gone. Not until he can’t hurt another little girl. Not until he can’t touch me ever again.
I’m shaking hard. Maybe I can fight him now, take his gun and kill him. Maybe when he gets here, I can rev the engine and run him down. It’s not Nikolai’s plan and he’ll punish me-not in the good way I love-but if my father is gone, then surely…
Surely, it’s worth it, but my father isn’t going to walk. He’ll be driven.
He’s big. Mean. Getting his gun is a pipe dream.
Watching him bleed out, though… it would be sweet, perfect revenge for mom, for me, maybe even for Nikolai and Rush and their losses. Surely, there’s something I can use. The element of surprise might work.
I’m not stupid. I lack strength to do that. The only thing that seems to look like it could work is the original one. So, Nikolai’s plan it is.
With a breath, I make the call. “D-Daddy, it’s me. Thorne.”