Ghost (Boston Underworld #3) - A. Zavarelli Page 0,36

between us is gone. His face is calm, vacant of emotion as he studies me.

“Have you learned your lesson?” he asks.

“Have you learned yours?” I reply.

He moves to stand up and leave me again, and I stop him.

“I can’t make any promises,” I tell him. “But I won’t do that particular thing again.”

He returns to sit beside me. The soft gray of his sweater stretches across his muscular frame, and my fingers itch to touch it. To touch all of him. To have him make me forget.

His fingers find my face, hard and unyielding as his eyes bore into mine.

“You won’t try anything again,” he tells me.

It isn’t a question, or a threat. Simply a command. As though he believes I will obey. I have no question about his authority. His power over me is absolute. But it still feels like maybe I have some power too. Like I remind him of his darkest wound. As if I am the very salt that burns it and brings all of that concealed pain to the surface.

He takes my silence for approval, and undoes my binds, rubbing my wrists and ankles when he finishes. His eyes are on my body. Moving over the pale expanse of my legs and the skin hidden beneath the shorts and cami.

These pajama sets are the only thing I’ve worn since my arrival. He’s seen me in them every day. He’s seen everything beneath them too. But right now, he looks like he wants to see it again. I want him to. I want to forget. I want to be reckless and feel the small thrill and warring hatred for myself that I feel when he touches me. When anyone touches me.

But he does not allow himself to give in this time.

“We are having dinner guests this evening,” he tells me as he rises. “They will not like you, but they will respect you.”

No sugar coating. Maybe that’s what I like about Alexei.

“You will need to play the part,” he adds.

I splay my legs apart a little wider, drawing his attention there as I speak. “The doting wife? Or the reformed whore?”

His eyes flash to mine, his lust barely concealed by his equal annoyance.

“Clean yourself up,” he orders.

“Do you have a fire?” I reply. “Because I’ll need one for that.”

I don’t know why I’m baiting him. But his indifference towards me today is annoying me. And all of the emotions I don’t want to feel are bubbling to the surface.

“A shower will do,” is his terse reply before he leaves the room.

I don’t know where Magda is at. She must be busy preparing dinner. Because usually, she is always near when I have a shower.

Today, she is nowhere to be found. And since Alexei stomped back to his lair, I am left to my own devices.

My eyes move over the bathtub with a dark sense of longing and despair. My fingers trail over the white porcelain, and like clockwork, I hear my mother’s voice in my head.

I kneel and put the stopper in. The same way she must have done that day. I wouldn’t know. Because I was last. But I should have known. Because she was happy that morning. And she was never happy.

I hum the song to myself as the water fills the basin, ripples distorting my reflection on the surface. The water is lukewarm when my fingers weave through it, just like it was that day.

My clothes come off in a heap beside me, and I grip the edges of the tub as I lower myself inside. Flashes of my mother’s face emerge from the darkest places of my mind. She was smiling and singing. And I was still dressed.

There was nothing on her face when I saw them lying on the bathroom floor. The horror washed over me when I realized what she’d done, and I wanted to die too. I didn’t even put up a fight.

I was in a daze when she pushed me under the water. I grasped at the distorted sound of her voice beneath the water. But then it was in my nose. My lungs. Choking me. I thrashed, and she held me under.

Like I’m doing now. My eyes are closed, and I’m floating. Perfectly still.

Silence.

I can’t hear her voice anymore. I can’t see the angel’s faces. The memories have stolen them from me. Distorted them.

I only remember their innocence.

And that it was my job to protect them.

I failed.

And that’s why I’m still here. Being punished. My little brother