Black List

Chapter 4 - IN RED, AS PROMISED

A shadow haunts me. I try to escape but I can’t. He anticipates every move I make. He gets closer and closer, with intense red eyes that steal souls. She devoured me with her eyes.

Intense screams echoed from my mouth.

When I realized it, I was in my bed, sweating cold, heart pounding a thousand miles an hour.

“It was just a dream,” I sighed.

Little did I know that everything was just beginning. The hell that awaited me.

I looked at the clock and saw it was 7 a.m.

I fell asleep at 4 a.m. and I don’t even know where I got the strength to get to my room.

I got up and went to the bathroom still sleepy, waves of thoughts echoing in my mind. The doorbell rang and woke me up.

I found it strange because I hadn’t ordered anything, nor did I have close friends, except Chiara and my mother.

I walked to the door. I peeked through the peephole and saw no one.

I opened the door and on the floor I saw a small red package.

I opened it with the tip of my foot, suspicious.

Inside, nestled in red satin, was the ruby.

It wasn’t just any stone. It was a 40-ct heart, the color of fresh blood: “pigeon blood,” the color jewelers kill and die for.

The hallway light hit it and the stone spat red reflections onto the white walls, as if the place were bleeding.

A folded note underneath. His handwriting, cold as ice:

“Wear it. You didn’t choose the color. I did. - V”

My stomach churned. He didn’t send the ruby to beautify me. He sent it to remind me: everything about me now bears his mark. Even the shine on my neck.

I held the stone in my hand. It was cold, heavy, as if it carried the weight of nine lives on the list.

The dress hanging in the closet seemed to be laughing at me.

He didn’t want me to be beautiful. He wanted me to be marked.

From far away, easy to find. From far away, impossible to escape.

Angrily, I crumpled the paper: “You want blood? It’s yours, demon. Then it’s blood you’ll have,” I murmured.

I went to shower and get ready.

Heavy makeup, flashy perfume, and that dress that felt more like a prison than fabric.

I picked up the ruby again. The stone was still cold even after hours in the box, as if it refused to warm against my skin.

My hand trembled as I brought the clasp to the nape of my neck.

The weight fell on my chest and was immediate: 40 carats of history, blood, and sentence. The pigeon blood heart nestled against my sternum as if it had been carved to rest there. Daylight hit it and the red exploded against my pale skin — alive, ravenous, real.

In the mirror, I didn’t recognize the woman staring back at me.

The scarlet dress molded my body like a second skin. The ruby in the center looked like an open wound, pulsing. I wasn’t beautiful. I was marked.

Valen didn’t send me a necklace. He sent me a target.

“In red, as promised,” I murmured, repeating the words from the note. My voice came out strange, distant, as if it weren’t mine.

I touched the stone with my fingertips. For a second, I swore it was warm. That it pulsed along with my heart. As if it remembered the blood that had already run through it.

I went downstairs and came face to face with a bunch of tough guys. They looked like mountains, they were so tall.

“They must be his, for sure,” I murmured. Men in black, tall. Undoubtedly first-rate security.

I tried not to draw attention, but I was already marked like a bloodstain in the middle of the Arctic.

One of the guards stopped me. “Please come with us,” he said.

With nowhere to go, I got in the car. “We have the package, sir.”

“Package?” Wait… I was the package.

My heart was beating faster and faster.

We arrived at the tower. One of the guards got out of the car.

“Follow me.”

“As if I had a choice,” I said.

The guard seemed like a robot. He didn’t say anything except to relay reports to the “boss.”

I realized there were guards on all sides. They didn’t seem human. They didn’t blink.

The building was stunning, but the looks directed at me brought me back to reality. Devouring looks, wrapped around me, in red. I didn’t know yet that this was the mark their boss had put on me.

The elevator to the 60th floor was all glass. Valen Crowe’s people.

With each floor we ascended, the entire city seemed to be swallowed below. I felt like an ant in the face of it.

We reached the 60th floor. His empire.

“He’s waiting for you,” the guard said and disappeared.

The door opened on its own, and there he was.

The chair turned away from the window.

I walked slowly until I approached the desk.

The door behind me closed.

He turned to me slowly. He paused, looking me up and down as if he were a machine scanning me.

“You came. I knew you would. The red makes you look even more like the list.”

“If I’m really here, it’s for my mother. Not for you.”

“The best lies always start with the truth, Valentina.”

He looked at my wrist, marked by him.

“I don’t kiss where I hurt. I bite so I never forget.”

“So that’s why you have my mother? That’s why I’ve kept getting hurt? All of this just because I spilled whiskey on you?”

“I want to see my mother. Where is she? What did you do to her? Tell me now what you did to her!”

My voice came out hoarse, full of hatred and desperation, but not like someone begging for their life.

He smiled out of the corner of his mouth, standing up from the chair. His presence was too imposing. Cold. Calculating.

It made me step back a bit, almost losing my balance.

“Your mother is fine. That’s all you need to know. And I paid her medical expenses as promised.”

“You keep your end of the deal. If you survive until… of course.”

He got closer and closer to me. I took a pin from my hair and pointed it at him.

“Stay away from me,” I said nervously.

He didn’t back away and pinned me against the bookshelf with his arms. With his size, there was no way to escape.

Without meaning to, I dropped the pin on the floor.

He smiled mockingly. “What did you intend to do with it, Valentina?”

I wanted to say something, but my damned voice betrayed me at the last minute.

He moved an inch from my face, went to my ear, and whispered with cold breath:

“Your life is mine now. Mine alone.”

My traitorous body shivered all over, and my ears turned red.

He moved down to my red lips, forehead to forehead, nose to nose, lips on lips.

My lips trembled, my body wouldn’t obey, and he seemed insane.

When I found the strength and my voice was almost coming out of my mouth, he bit my lower lip like a madman and licked the blood off my lips.

I slapped him, but then regretted it immediately. In the same instant I wanted to sink into the ground because I’d done something that irritated him, and I feared for my mother and Chiara. No one had ever laid a hand on him and I…

I looked at him, distraught. He smiled out of the corner of his mouth. I knew that smile meant nothing good.

He kissed me again, but this time I gave in, afraid of what he would do.

I felt his lips against mine, cold, soft, sweet, and the more he kissed me, the hotter they got. Before I realized it, I was already into it.

I felt his hand sliding up the slit in my dress, moving higher and higher, slowly up my thigh, and tears left me and fell on his hand.

He let me go and handed me his handkerchief.

“Your tears mean nothing to me. Wipe that off now… I don’t want you dirtying my floor.”

Today I came with the goal of undoing this, but it seems I’m not strong enough.

His voice cut through the room: “Sit down, Valentina.”

“That’s not my name,” my voice came out low, and I hated myself for it.

“What do you intend to do with me after you get everything you want?”

“I don’t conquer. I take. No matter the method.”

“You’re a monster, you know that? Even the homeless are more dignified than you.”

“Well… do you want more deaths, Valentina? I can wipe out all the homeless if you wish.”

“Why did you call me here… to humiliate me even more?”

“I just wanted to spend more time with you… love.”

His voice came out as mockery.

A guard entered, breaking the mood. “Boss, the little girl.”

He nodded.

A little girl ran up to Valen.

It was Chiara, my little sister. She didn’t even look at me when she came in.

Valen picked her up. Meanwhile, my mind filled with confused thoughts.

“Go give Valentina a hug too,” he said.

Chiara: “Hi, sis.”

Her voice was so sweet and innocent. I hugged her until I groaned in pain.

“What happened to your mouth, Lina?” Chiara asked me.

“Nothing, it’s nothing, little sis. Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

Chiara: “I’m fine. Uncle took care of me.”

She ran and hugged Valen again. I was incredulous.

Valen: “Go with the security uncle now.”

Chiara: “Okay. Will you play with me tomorrow?”

Valen: “Of course, little one. Now go.”

I watched her small silhouette disappear from my sight.

I felt a stab of despair leave me, but I held firm.

“Prove you’re worth keeping alive. Find your mother’s letter in my safe. You have until midnight. Fail, and Chiara gets a visit.”