chapter 4
996 Words
"Carmela."
His voice, behind me.
Cold. Absolute.
I turned slowly.
He stood at the edge of the garden like a vision from a nightmare. Dressed in black. Not a single wrinkle on his jacket. Not a hair out of place.
As though he expected it.
His eyes were comparatively darker than night.
"Taking a stroll, are you? Enjoying it?" he asked.
I threw myself against a tree, the bark coarse against my back through the silk.
He made no move to follow. Didn't rush. Just stood there with his hands in his pockets, discussing the evening as if we were at a dinner party.
"I must say, I'm impressed," he added. "You made it further than most."
*Most.*
The word hit me like ice water.
"Most?"
He smiled faintly.
"Did you think you were the first, Carmela? The first person to try to run from what they couldn't escape? I must say, as a lady, you were better than the men I have taken as guests."
He began walking toward me then. Slow steps. Measured. Each footfall deliberate against the gravel path.
"The last one made it to the road before the dogs found him."
My stomach dropped.
"Dogs?"
"Beautiful creatures. Bred to hunt,” His words were of that peculiar admiration with which we speak of a favourite race-horse. “They do not kill.” He said, "Just hold their prey till I arrive."
I pushed my back further towards the tree as I felt the tree bark caught onto my dress.
Slowly, deliberately, like a predatory animal that knew its victim had used up all its moving space, he strode dares me.
“Carmela, you were warned.”
I stood still in frozen movement like the least breath. It was very dense air.
I wanted to take a breath of air, I answered.
"You deceived my guard!" said he, calmly and coldly. “Attempted to flee. And in your wedding dress."
He came only two steps closer--close enough to reach me but not too near.
“Did you think I would not know?” he questioned unconsciously. That was worse in some way than to have yelled.
“How did you?”
"Motion sensors. Cameras. You have heat signatures, he said and leaned his head like he was looking at me. The house belonged to the generations of my family. We have the security figured out."
The faint thread of hope died out in me.
“Every time you opened a door, it alerted my phone. All the steps were monitored. I saw you open the windows. Notice you test the closed doors.”
My heart sank. He had witnessed all this.
“You made me think I could get away," I whispered.
“Simple as that,” said he, "hope makes the game more interesting."
I choked, and my mouth was full of metal as well as fear. "What now? Put me in a tower?”
He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
"No. I do not give second chances."
His eyes turned away, over me, to the shadows among the dark trees.
"Luca."
I looked and there was the guard from my room emerging from the shadows, his face a painful mixture of dread and remorse. There were three other men behind him--tougher, more experienced, with eyes that had now looked at a great deal of blood.
"Sir," Luca stuttered, “she fooled me. I thought—"
“You thought,” he said quietly. "That, right there, that was the first mistake."
Quick as a flash he drew his gun. It was bright in the moonlight.
“I had my instructions. No one abandons his position. There are no exceptions."
Luca turned white. “Please, Mr. Verrari. I have a family. A daughter"
“Had,” he corrected.
The shot broke through the darkness. Warm, wet something touched my face and dress and sank into the lace.
My hands.
My dress.
Everything.
I yelled and the cry echoed in the forest.
My white lace dress was smeared with blood, like out of a nightmare.
Lucas fell to his knees against a tree with nothing but a dazed look in his eyes, his blood pooling around him, chap-hopping into the soil.
Dante didn’t flinch. He put his gun back under his jacket that was silk smooth like he had done it a thousand times over.
He stared at me, expecting me to get it. To keep quiet. To be a complete obeyer.
He pointed with his finger at the body of Luca and said softly, “There. That is what you get when you are disloyal.”
My legs were shaking so badly I could hardly stand and I took a step back.
But he followed, step, step, as though dancing in the moonlight.
The rest of the guards did not move, they observed, gaining experience on how to survive.
“You wanna play games, Carmela?” His voice was hard as when a knife scrapes through silk.
He put out his hand, with deliberate calm, and swiped a finger through the blood on my dress. He held it up and gazed at it in the moonlight, the red glistening like some precious thing.
“Play carefully,” he said.
His voice was like a curse. I knew that it was no longer about escaping. It was survival.
And laws had changed forever.
"Now," he continued, his voice dropping to a whisper that somehow carried more menace than a shout, "shall we return to the house? I believe we have a wedding to finish."
He extended his arm toward me, a perfect gentleman's gesture made obscene by the blood still glistening on his fingers.
"After you, my dear."
I looked at his offered arm, at the corpse behind me, at the silent guards who watched with the patience of vultures. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.
The game was over.
And I had lost before it even began.
- Writer
