เข้าสู่ระบบ“You are an interesting woman,” he says finally, as though he has been collecting sentiments about me like curiosities. “I am not for your amusement,” I say. “Amusement is a generous way of putting it.” He turns his face to me and finally, which is nothing like mercy, he kisses me. It is a small t
“You will come with me tonight,” he says suddenly, and when I look at him the certainty in his eyes is a rope. “Where are we going?” I ask. I do not like the sound of my own voice in the dark halls. “To the club,” he says, as if the clubs he owns are nothing more than rooms he has arranged for his
The dinner goes on without ceremony. I wear a dress that fits like a promise and is less comfortable than anything else I own. The woman who dresses me fusses at the strap and at the hem with an intimacy that is practiced, like a ritual done daily for decades. The room where dinner is served is a pl
“You should not have broken a tray,” he says in that voice that is silk wrapped around steel. It makes everyone quiet because it is a voice that is treated like currency in this house. The words are simple but the way he says them says a thousand more complicated things. He is not angry the way I am
I come back from the memory to find sunlight in my eyes and orange juice dried on the carpet like the outline of a wound. My hands are trembling now for reasons I cannot name. The house clock in the hall ticks the way a heart does when it is being measured. There are noises behind the walls, small h
Oh God, I hate him. He is the center of everything I cannot control in this place. He is the reason doors close and keys rattle and the nights feel like traps. He is the reason my throat tastes like metal at dusk. He is also the reason, absurdly and against my every better judgment, that sometimes
~~AURELIA~~ Something or someone, was poking me. First my legs, then my nose, then right across my cheek. And then—OUCH. No, really—OUCH. That one stung. Sleep slipped away like sand through my fingers, and the memories I’d been fighting to keep locked up came rushing back. All of it. The dead bo
~~AURELIA~~ I hadn’t even made it far from the gate when a feminine voice sliced through the night and froze me in place. “Alessia? Is that you?” My whole body stiffened. Slowly, I turned, forcing my lips into what I prayed looked like a natural smile, praying harder that the darkness cloaked the
~~ROMANO~~ I sprint to Aurelia’s door and rattle the handle—bolted. For a second I stand there, chest heaving, fingers numb from the run, trying to convince myself she’s inside. I can still smell her on the air, faint and sweet under the stink of the room. That dog had been wrong. She’d been here.
~~ROMANO~~ “We’re never going to get her to open herself up. You just killed that girl who, for some reason, wasn’t even close to her—yet you saw how it affected her.” My voice is low, sharp. I don’t even try to hide the disgust. “You worry too much.” Estela’s tone is a purr that grates at my nerv







