Chapter 4

~~~~Anne's POV~~~~

The street is empty as I walk fast, keeping to the shadows, my arm still throbbing beneath the bandage.

The Velvet Room is just six blocks away. Six blocks of dark alleys and closed shops with too much silence.

I should have called a cab.

Then footsteps approach behind me. Fast and closing in.

I don't turn, just walk faster.

"Ms. Perry."

Not a question. A statement.

I run.

A hand grabs my hair. Yanks me backward. I hit the pavement hard and my injured arm screams. I bite down on my lip to keep from crying out.

"Don't scream," a voice says coldly. "Or I'll break your other arm."

Two of them. Dark clothes. No faces.

I kick, and my foot connects with something soft. I hear a grunt, Then a fist slams into my ribs and air leaves my lungs.

"Please—"

A cloth presses over my mouth and nose. Chemical sweet and burning.

Then darkness.

---

I wake to the slash of cold water on my face.

I gasp, choke, fight. But my wrists are tied behind my back with my ankles bound to a chair.

It's a basement. I think.

Concrete walls and a single bulb swinging overhead.

I pull at the ropes, but they don't budge.

"You're awake." A woman's voice, Which sounds familiar.

She steps into the light. Lucinda.

She looks elegant and polished Like she is attending a party, and not standing in a basement with a woman she wants dead.

"Did you really think you could come back without me knowing?" She smiles. "Lia Perry. Clever. But not clever enough."

I say nothing. My ribs are still aching and not to add, my arm burns.

"No hello?" She crouches in front of me. "I raised you better than that, little maid."

She killed my mother, burned my house and destroyed my life. Now she expects me to say hello?

"Where is the diary?" Lucinda asks.

I freeze. How does she know about the diary?

"I don't know what you're talking about."

She slaps me. Hard. My head snaps to the side. My cheek burns.

"Don't lie to me, Anne. Maria left you something. A book. Where is it?"

"I told you. I don't know."

She nods to one of the men who comes forward, he grabs my injured arm and squeezes. I scream. The pain is white-hot, blinding.

"Where is the diary?"

"Please—" Tears stream down my face. "I don't have it. It's not with me."

Lucinda studies my face. Believes me. For now.

"You're going to leave Italy," she says softly. "Tonight. You're going to sign a paper confessing to the theft. And you're going to disappear forever."

"No."

She backhands me across the face and my lip splits. Blood drips down my chin.

"That wasn't a question."

I spit blood on her shoe. "I said no."

Lucinda's eyes go cold. She grabs my chin, forces me to look at her.

"You think you're brave? You're nothing. A maid who spread her legs for a Don. You think anyone will miss you?"

Austin will miss me. Austin needs me.

"You'll sign," she whispers. "Or I'll make sure your life becomes a living hell."

"You already succeeded in that."

She smiles. "Trust me, I can make it a lot more worse."

She's right. If she begins to dig into my life and discovers about Austin.... She's an evil snake with power.

I stare at her. My hands shake. My chest heaves.

If I die here, Austin has no one. Sarah will raise him. But he'll never know his mother.

I can't leave him alone in this world.

"Give me the pen," I whisper.

Lucinda smiles. "Good girl."

I sign. My handwriting is shaky, almost illegible, But it doesn't matter. She has what she wants.

Lucinda examines the paper. "Take her to the edge of the city and dump her there. If she comes back, next time I won't be so generous."

They untie me and drag me up the stairs, Outside, then into a van. The door slams.

I sit in the dark, bleeding, broken, tasting blood.

I signed. I lied. I let her win.

But I'm alive. For Austin.

---

The van stops and the door opens. They shove me out, onto a cold pavement.

"Don't come back."

Then the van speeds away.

I lie there, staring at the sky. No stars. Just darkness.

I push myself up. My arm bleeds through the bandage. My ribs scream. My lip is split.

But I start walking anyways.

I need to survive, and that's all that matters.