18

Portia.
I’m sitting in the kitchen flipping through an old Italian cookbook, my hand absently petting Cerberus when I hear the sound of the chopper. I look at the clock. It’s a little after nine at night.
Lenore, who has been sitting across from me making a shopping list, gets up and puts the espresso pot on the stove.
“He’ll want coffee,” she says to me.
Alec glances out the window. He’s been my shadow today and if it wasn’t for Lenore telling him I could walk out to the greenhouse to collect fresh vegetables, I’m pretty sure I’d have been locked up inside all day.
At least I got to see Nathan. He told me that Alec had brought down the entirety of the cake last night.
I wonder if I should go up to my room. Well, his room. Will he really make me kneel to apologize to him? And if so, would he make me do it in front of Lenore? I feel my face burn just thinking about it.
But he does deserve an apology. I do know that. What I said, what I accused him of, it wasn’t right especially knowing what I know. What my brothers allowed to happen to his mother.
“I’ll go upstairs,” I tell Lenore, just getting to my feet when the kitchen door opens, and Callahan walks inside. I’m surprised because I guess I expected him to use the front door. This seems so domestic.
I take a moment to look him over. I can’t help it. His hair is ruffled from wind, the tip of his nose red with cold, and the scent of whiskey lingers on the wind that blows in with him.
His eyes land on me and stay there even as Cerberus rushes to him.
“Where is your jacket?” Lenore asks him, going to close the door. The temperature was nice during the day in the sun, but it’s cooled off a lot since.
Callahan shifts his gaze to the cookbook on the table. Even though I’m standing, I’m still holding a page open. It’s the one with the recipe for the creme Caramel Lenore made. I had a taste, and it was amazing.
He finally turns to Lenore, giving me space to breathe again.
“It’s fine. I’m fine.”
I decide that’s a good moment to slip away and take a step to the door.
“Portia.” The way he says my name is nothing short of a command.
I stop but I don’t turn back.
“Sit.”
Lenore clears her throat and I hear her rustling around behind me.
“I said sit,” Callahan repeats when I don’t move. “Get her a plate.”
I turn around, not sure who he was instructing, but see Lenore set the Creme Caramel at the center of the table before producing two espresso cups, two dishes, and finally the pot.
“I’ll take it from here,” Callahan says, and Lenore nods, untying her apron.
“Alec, you’re dismissed too.”
They exit the kitchen together, leaving us alone in the dimly lit room. Callahan takes a few moments to pet Cerberus, giving him all his attention. It’s strange to watch him when he does it. How warm and relaxed his expression becomes.
Once he’s finished, he tells Cerberus to go to his bed in the opposite corner of the kitchen. He then returns all his attention to me, eyes sharp as daggers on me.
I clear my throat and avert my gaze slightly, very aware of how hard my heart is beating.
“Dress fit okay?”
I nod, bite my lip.
“You have anything to say?”
I scratch my head. Ugh, get it over with already. Maybe he’ll forget the part about kneeling. ” I shouldn’t have said what I said.”
“Which was?”
“I shouldn’t have accused you of… taking advantage of me.”
“Of taking something you don’t give,” I say the words slowly. They’ve repeated in my mind all day. “I’m sorry.”
“Here. Say them here.” He points to the floor beside him.
I draw a deep breath in, then out and in again. I’m not going to be able to do it. I just can’t. Maybe it’s that I know it’s not Nathan he’ll punish but me, but I can’t.
“Are you serious?” I ask him.
“As a gunshot to the head.”
“That’s in poor taste, don’t you think?”
“I told you what I’d expect of you. You’ve had the whole day to come to terms with the fact.”
“You want me to kneel. You want to see me degrade myself.”
“Degrade is a big word but yes, I want you to kneel. I want to know that you understand your mistake. Your insult.”
I’m on the verge of tears, I feel it, and I can’t tell if they’re angry tears or sad tears or I’m fucked and I’m going to have to kneel to this man tears, but they’re just a few blinks away.
I push the chair back loudly and stand gripping the edge of the table for strength.
“I’ve told you I’m sorry and I mean it. I shouldn’t have said it. But I won’t kneel, Callahan. I’ll take whatever punishment you want to dish out, but I won’t kneel. I swore it to myself with Fernando. With my brothers. And I won’t kneel for you. Not of my own free will.”
My heart is beating so fast I swear it’s going to leap out of my chest. When he pushes his chair back and stands, instinct tells me to make a run for it even while reason tells me what a mistake that will be.
I whirl to run but he’s on me before I’ve even reached the door.
He’s fast. So fast. And so much stronger than me. He spins me around, big hand in the middle of my chest pushing me against the wall.
I shove him, but he takes my wrists and drags them behind my back. With one hand he grips my wrists and winding the other one into my hair, he makes a fist of it, forcing my head back painfully.
“You won’t kneel of your own free will? But that’s what I want, Little Kitten,” he says, words furious and menacing and spoken with precision. With control. He leans in close trapping me.
Danger. This man is dangerous.
“You’re hurting me. Really hurting me.”
“You think this hurts? How about this?” He squeezes the fist in my hair.
I cry out.
“Let me tell you about hurt. Let me tell you what happens to a woman who is made to watch her family forced to their knees before her eyes.”
As he says it, he forces me down, crouching with me as my knees hit cold, uneven tile.
“Please.”
“Hurt is when her husband is humiliated before her eyes. When her first-born is bound, immobile, and executed with a bullet to the back of his head. Hurt is when his blood splatters across her face and the terrified screams of her children begin. Hurt is when we are made to watch my mother.”
His voice breaks and he has to look away, to swallow hard. When he returns his attention to me, the fist in my hair tugs even harder.
“Hurt is when your mother is stripped and what she doesn’t give is taken from her before your eyes by your fucking fiance,” he jams his finger into the middle of my chest but at least he releases my wrists.
“While your brothers stood by with guns at the backs of two children’s heads to force them to watch when they turned away. To force them to bear witness to the unspeakable assault on their mother. That’s fucking degradation, Portia. That’s true degradation. So, don’t you dare use that word. You have no right to it. You have no idea what it means to be degraded.”
I’m sobbing now, not for myself, not because he’s hurting me but for her and for him and for all of them. For my parents and for Nathan, too. I’m crying because I don’t still know what crime I committed to have been born into this world of chaos. This world I wanted no part of.
I’m crying because I know that’s all I’ll ever do for life. I can never be free. Never.
Not even if I wish on the brightest wishing star.