Chapter 2 - The Silent Suite
The ink on the parish registry was still wet when Nico Romano gripped my elbow. His hold was firm, yet noticeably devoid of the cruel pressure Daniel had used to bruise my skin minutes earlier.
“We’re leaving,” Nico said.
Behind us, Daniel stood by the mahogany altar, his shoulders slumped in relief. He had just sold the woman he spent five years with to an underworld kingpin, and all he cared about was that his ledger was clean.
“You coward,” I whispered as I passed him.
Daniel kept his eyes glued to the polished marble floor. Rebecca was nowhere to be found.
Outside, rain beat against the roof of a black Mercedes Maybach. The driver opened the door without a word. Nico guided me inside, the voluminous layers of tulle and silk taking up half the leather bench. He sat beside me, meticulously straightening the cuffs of his bespoke jacket.
“Where are you taking me?” I demanded, my voice trembling despite my best efforts. “I have rights. You can’t just buy a human being.”
“In five minutes, the state of New York considers you my legal spouse, Lucia,” Nico replied calmly, pulling a slim silver cigarette case from his pocket without opening it. “As for your rights, your previous fiancé traded them for his heartbeat.”
“I didn’t sign that registry willingly.”
“Your hand was on the pen. The priest signed. The clerk will file it within the hour.” He turned his gaze toward me. His eyes were not cruel, but they held the flat chill of deep water. “You are terrified because you think you know why you were purchased.”
Nausea churned in my stomach. “Men like you don't spend two million dollars out of charity.”
A dry, humourless smirk touched his lips. “Men like me don't sleep with kindergarten teachers who smell like cheap vanilla and lilac. If I wanted a decorative concubine, Miss Vane, I could hire twenty by dinner.”
The car crossed the bridge into Long Island, eventually turning through wrought-iron gates into an expansive stone estate framed by ancient oaks. High stone walls and armed guards flanked the perimeter. It looked less like a home and more like a fortress preparing for a siege.
When the car stopped, Nico got out first and held his hand out to me. I ignored it, gathering my heavy skirts and stepping onto the wet gravel myself.
An older woman in a charcoal cardigan stood under the covered portico. Her silver hair was pinned tightly, her face lined with exhaustion.
“Rosa,” Nico said, walking up the steps. “Has she eaten?”
“Nothing since noon yesterday, Mr. Romano,” Rosa replied softly. “She threw the broth against the wall at two o'clock.”
I halted on the threshold. “Who threw broth?”
Nico didn't answer me. He gestured toward Rosa. “Take Lucia to the third-floor west wing. Get her out of that bridal costume. Find her something practical.”
“Practical?” I echoed, my chest tightening. “Practical for what?”
“You told Daniel you were a teacher,” Nico said, pausing at the foot of the sweeping staircase. “He told me you spent six years working with traumatized and emotionally disturbed children in the South Bronx before moving to private academies.”
I blinked, thrown completely off balance. “Daniel told you that?”
“Daniel would have recited your blood type and dental records if it bought him another breath,” Nico said coldly. “I need those skills. In exchange, you get your life, absolute protection from Daniel’s creditors—who are not all as polite as I am—and a roof over your head.”
“And if I refuse?”
Nico leaned slightly closer, his presence suffocatingly large. “If you refuse, I return you to Daniel. And Daniel will be dead before midnight, leaving his remaining debts to fall legally on his co-signer. Do you know who co-signed his lease and credit lines, Lucia?”
Cold dread settled in my veins. I had. Two years ago, when Daniel started his import logistics firm, I had signed my name to back his commercial loans.
“I didn't think so,” Nico murmured. “Third floor. Change your clothes.”
Forty minutes later, I stood in a cavernous bedroom dressed in a pair of soft gray slacks and a cream cashmere sweater Rosa had provided. The silence in the house was heavy, broken only by the distant hum of the estate's generators.
A soft, scraping sound came from down the hall.
I stepped out of the room onto the plush runner. The corridor was dim, lit only by low sconces. At the far end, a door stood cracked open an inch. A faint sliver of yellow light cut across the floorboards.
I approached slowly, my instincts as an educator taking over.
Peeking through the crack, I didn't see an armed guard or a mob lieutenant.
Sitting on the floor in the center of an enormous bedroom was a little girl, no older than six. She wore an oversized navy sweater that swallowed her tiny frame. Around her were dozen upon dozen of torn sheets of drawing paper. She wasn't coloring; she was methodically snapping crayons in half with her bare hands, her small jaw clamped shut in ferocious silence.
Her wrists and neck were thin, almost frail, but her eyes, when they darted toward the door, were filled with a wild, feral terror.
Beside her on the carpet lay a heavy gold object that caught the light.
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It was a men's Rolex Submariner watch, the sapphire crystal shattered, its links smeared with dried, oxidized brown stains.
The little girl lunged forward, grabbed the stained watch, and pressed it against her chest like a teddy bear, staring straight through the crack of the door at me.
