Курок Дуглас Пенелопа

But I’m all alone.

I step timidly down the path, coming to an open plot of green with a big fountain in the middle. The space is about twice the size of my bedroom, surrounded by tall cypresses with three other pathways leading off from the big, open area. Is this the center of the maze?

The fountain is massive with a gray stone bowl at the bottom and a smaller one on top. Water shoots from the spouts, filling the upper bowl and pouring down like thick waterfalls into the lower one. It creates the prettiest sound. Like roaring rapids. So peaceful.

But not looking where I’m going, I crash into someone and stumble backward. A woman’s arms rise with her palms up and away from me as if I’m dirty and she doesn’t want to touch me.

I see Madame’s surprised eyes soften with her smile, her body graceful and fluid like this is a theater, and she’s always on stage.

“Hello, sweetheart.” Her voice is drenched in sweetness. “Are you having fun?”

I step back and drop my eyes, nodding.

“Have you seen my son?” she asks. “He loves parties, and I don’t want him to miss this.”

He loves parties? I dig in my eyebrows, confused. His father doesn’t seem to agree.

I’m about to tell her ‘no’, but then something to my right catches my attention, and I look over, thinning my eyes at the dark form.

The dark form inside the fountain.

It sits behind the water in the bottom bowl, almost entirely hidden.

Damon. Their son who was just getting yelled at upstairs.

I pause for a moment, the lie coming out before I can stop it. “No.” I shake my head. “No, I haven’t seen him, Madame. I’m sorry.”

I don’t know why I don’t tell her he’s right there, but after the way his dad just shouted at him, I guess he looks like he wants to be left alone.

I avoid Madame’s eyes like she’ll be able to tell I’m lying, and instead, stare straight ahead. Her black dress flows to mid-calf, glittering with little jewels and pearls as the top hugs her slender body and the bottom sways as she moves. Her long, black hair drapes down her back, as straight and shimmering as a cool stream of water.

I never hear my mom say anything nice about her, but while people are afraid of her, they are definitely nice to her face. She doesn’t look much older than my babysitter, but she has a kid older than me.

Without saying anything, she glides around me and walks toward the entrance, while I stay still for a moment, wondering if I should follow and just leave, too.

But I don’t.

I know he probably doesn’t want to see anyone, but I kind of feel bad that he’s alone.

Slowly, I inch toward the fountain.

Peering through the streams of the water pouring down, I try to make him out as he quietly hides. Arms clad in a black suit coat, resting on his knees, and dark hair hanging over his eyes and sticking to his porcelain cheekbones.

Why is he in the fountain?

“Damon?” I say in a timid voice. “Are you okay?”

He says nothing, and through the falling water, I can tell he doesn’t move. It’s like he doesn’t hear me.

Clearing my throat, I harden my voice. “Why are you sitting in there?” And then I add, “Can I come in, too?”

I didn’t mean to say it, but I got excited. It looks fun, and something inside me just wants him to feel better.

He shifts his head, his gaze flashing to the side, but then he turns back.

I squint into the thin slices of air between the spills to see his head bowed and wet hair hanging in his face. I spot a flash of red, noticing blood on his hand. Is he bleeding?

Maybe he wants a Band-Aid. I always want my mom and a Band-Aid when I’m hurt.

“I see you at Cathedral sometimes. You never take the bread, do you?” I ask him. “When the whole row goes to receive communion, you stay sitting there. All by yourself.”

He doesn’t move behind the water. Just like in church. He just sits there when everyone else goes up the aisle, even though he’s of age. I remember him being part of my sister’s first communion class.

I fidget. “I have my first communion soon,” I tell him. “I’m supposed to have it, I mean. You have to go to confession first, and I don’t like that part.”

Maybe that’s why he stays seated during that part of Mass. You’re not supposed to take the bread or wine unless you’ve confessed, and if he hates that part as much as I do, maybe he just sits out altogether.

I search for his eyes through the water. The spray from the falls hits my skin and costume, and the hair on my arms stands up. I want to go in there, too. I want to see.

He doesn’t feel friendly, though. I’m not sure what he’ll do if I climb in.

“Do you want me to go?” I lean my head to the side, trying to catch his eyes. “I’ll go if you want. I just don’t like it out here very much. My stupid sister ruins everything.”

She took off with my friends, running away from me, and my mom is…busy. Seeing what it’s like inside a fountain for the first time seems like fun.

But he doesn’t look like he wants me here. Or anyone, for that matter.

“I’ll go,” I finally say and back away, leaving him alone.

But as I turn, the sound of the water suddenly changes, and I look over, seeing that it’s hitting his hand now.

He reaches out slowly through the water for me, inviting me in.

I hesitate a moment, trying to see if I can make out his face, but still, it’s covered by his drenched hair.

Glancing around me, I don’t see anyone, and my mom will probably be mad that I’ll get wet, but… I want to.

I can’t hold back the smile as I reach out and clutch his chilled fingers, lifting my leg and stepping into the fountain.

 

 

So long ago.

That was so long ago, but that day was burned into my mind, because it was the last day I saw my mother’s face. It was the last day I saw my bedroom and whatever new dcor she would fix it up with. The last time I could run anywhere I wanted, knowing by the clear picture in front of me that the path ahead was without danger, and it was the last time people weren’t nervous around me, or that my parents loved me more than they were burdened by me.

It was the last time I was included without question or could enjoy a movie, a dance, or a play the way it was meant to be enjoyed.

It was the last day I was me as I knew it and the first day of a new reality that could never be undone. I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t rewind and not go into that maze. I couldn’t undo stepping into that fountain.

Because God, I wished I never did. Some mistakes you never heal from.

And as my mother and I stood next to my older sister, now thirteen years later on her wedding day, smelling her perfume and hearing the priest mumble through this blessed sacrament of marriage, I fought not to recoil or remember how, for one brief, beautiful moment, that fountain all those years ago was indeed a heavenly hiding place. And how I wished I was there now, if only to be away from here.

The rings, the kiss, the blessing…

And it was done. She was married.

My stomach dropped, and my eyes stung as they closed. No.

I stood there, hearing whispers and shuffles, and waited for my mother’s hand to guide me down the stairs and out of the empty cathedral.

I needed air. I needed to run.

But my mother’s and sister’s voices moved away from me.

And the same chilled fingers I reached for in that fountain all those years ago now brushed mine.

“Now…” my sister’s new husband whispered in my ear. “Now, you belong to me.”

 

 

 

Winter

 

Present

 

I froze, fisting my hand and feeling him sitting across from me in the limo after the service. Damon Torrance. The boy in the fountain.

The kid in the disheveled suit with hair in his eyes and a bloody hand who would barely speak or look at me.

But now he was a man, and he had definitely learned to talk. Tall and sure, there was a threat in his dark words in the church, but I could still smell that fountain on him. He smelled like cold things do. Like sharp water.

“Your father guaranteed us a lofty settlement as long as I stay married to you for a year,” my sister said as she and Damon sat side by side, across from my mother and me in the car. “I intend to see it through. No matter what you pull.”

She was speaking to him, but his voice was calm and resolute when he finally addressed her. “We won’t be divorcing, Arion. Not ever.”

His voice sounded turned away, like he was gazing out the window or anywhere but at her.

No divorce? My heart pumped harder. Of course he would divorce her. Someday, right? I couldn’t even believe it had gone this far. This was all just revenge on my family, after all. Why would he want to carry it out for a lifetime?

It was his plan to ruin us. Finding proof of my father’s embezzlement and tax fraud and causing his flight from the country, the feds seizing nearly everything we owned, our bank accounts drained, and now…the perpetrator of all the havoc swooping in to take advantage of three destitute women who needed support. Someone to save their home and put them back into the luxurious lifestyle and community standing they were accustomed to.

But no, I understood. As much as I wanted to pretend I didn’t know the end game, I did. Deep down, I did.

His plan wasn’t to ruin us. It was to torture.

For however long it entertained him to do so.

“You want to stay married to me?” my sister asked.

“I don’t want to be married to anyone else,” Damon clarified, his voice monotone and uninterested. “You’re as good as anyone, I suppose. You’re beautiful and young. You’re Thunder Bay. You’re educated and presentable. You’re healthy, so children shouldn’t be a problem…”

“You want kids?”

My sister’s question sounded almost hopeful, and I closed my eyes behind my sunglasses, cringing. “Oh, God,” I breathed out, unable to hold in the curse filled with nausea and disgust.

Silence stretched the space of the car, and I was sure everyone had heard what I’d said, and while I couldn’t see him, I knew his eyes were on me.

How could she still want him? And they were going to bring kids into this madness? What he did when we were children wasn’t enough to convince her how bad he was, and neither was what he did to me in high school. She knew he couldn’t stand her, but still, she wanted him anyway. She always wanted him.

Arion didn’t care that she had to marry him because of the predicament he created in the first place. We lost everything, because of him, but no fear… Here he was, giving all of it back by marrying the eldest daughter and tucking us back in under the umbrella of his protection and his family’s bank account. He made himself the cure, which wouldn’t have been necessary if he hadn’t also created the disease.

I hated him. My sister’s new husband was the only man I thought I might kill someday.

“If you have extramarital affairs,” Arion warned, “be discreet. And don’t expect me to be faithful then, either.”

“Ari…” My mother hinted my sister to be quiet.

But she kept going. “Do you understand?” she pressed her husband.

I stayed turned toward the window to hide my face—or at least half of it—or maybe I wanted to appear as if I weren’t following the conversation, but the car was too small a space to escape his presence. I couldn’t not hear every word.

Wasn’t this something they should’ve discussed before getting married? Or wasn’t this a deal-breaker for my sister?

“Let’s get some things straight,” he said calmly, “because I think you’ve forgotten exactly what your situation is, Arion.” He paused and then continued. “You get my name. You get an allowance. You get to preserve your social standing in this community, including your lunches and your shopping and your fucking charities.” His hard voice dug her grave deeper with every word. “Your mother and sister don’t wind up on the streets, and that is where my obligation to you ends. Don’t speak unless spoken to, and don’t ask me questions. It aggravates me.”

My chest rose and fell in shallow breaths as my stomach tightly knotted.

He continued, “I will fuck women who aren’t you, but you can’t fuck men who aren’t me, because no one else can father my kids. Duh,” he added snidely. “I will come and go as I please, and I expect you to be dressed and ready on the rare occasion we need to play the couple in public. You may not be the happiest wife, Arion, but I’m told this is why God invented Saks and Xanax.”

No one said anything, and I tightened my fist around my skirt, suffocating with their lack of guts to fight back. But as much as I hated his honesty, I appreciated it. There would be no illusions or false hopes in their marriage. Damon never lied.

Except when he did.

“And if you want to live through this,” he warned, “I would adjust as quickly as possible, since the only way you’re getting out of this marriage is in the event of your death.”

“Or yours,” I mumbled.

Everyone was silent for a moment, and the hair on my arms rose, but I still smiled inside. I imagined he was probably glaring at me with those same black eyes I remembered; not quite hidden under that same smooth, thick hair I was pretty sure no one else but me had ever touched, but I didn’t care. This was going to be bad no matter what. I wouldn’t do him or his family any favors by walking on eggshells.

“We understand, Damon,” my mother finally said.

The car slowed, and I heard the gate to our estate creak open, and then the car sped forward again taking us home. I remained huddled at the end of the seat, against the window and feeling my body pull as we circled the drive and stopped up in front of our home.

Maybe I should be grateful that we still had the house. My father—the mayor of Thunder Bay—was gone, our businesses, assets, and real estate seized, and nearly every dollar to our names taken. My mother was thankful that Ari and I could at least sleep in our beds and not lose the place where we’d grown up.

But she was delusional. None of this was ours anymore. The house and everything in it was in Damon’s father’s name. We truly had nothing.

You would think that’d be heartbreaking, but there was a freedom in knowing that I no longer had anything to lose. He’d never fought someone who had no fear.

The door opened, and I heard bodies shift as they rose.

“I’m not coming in,” Damon said.

There was a moment of silence and then my sister’s brief protest. “But…”

But she didn’t finish. I didn’t know if she just decided it wasn’t worth the effort, if my mother gestured for her to shut up, or if she remembered his instruction not to ask questions, but she passed me and climbed out of the car, the soft scent of her Gucci perfume following behind her. The train of her dress brushed over my flats.

My mother passed next, always preceding me, so she could guide me to the front door.

But as soon as I scooted forward, I was grabbed by the collar, hauled forward into a hard body, and the car door was slammed shut right before I heard the lock click.

I sucked in a breath, an electric current coursing under my skin as his warm breath fell on my lips.

“Winter?” my mom called from outside. “Damon, what’s going on?”

I heard one of them jiggle the handle, trying to get the door open again.

“Hey.” My sister’s voice followed and a knock on the window.

I made to move my arms to push him away, but dropped them back to my side almost immediately. He wanted me to fight him, and I wasn’t ready to give him the satisfaction. Not yet.

“Wise choice,” he whispered. “Save your strength, Winter Ashby. You will need it.”

His breath caressed my mouth, tickling the corners, as his chest rose and fell faster than before.

He wasn’t calm anymore.

The door opened, and I was flung out of the car with little effort, stumbling into my mother’s arms before hearing the door slam shut again.

Someone grabbed my arm—my sister, I assumed—as I straightened myself.

“What was that about?” she snarled.

“Are you stupid?” I bit out in a low voice. Did she really not know?

None of this had anything to do with her, and she knew it.

My mother guided me into the house. I felt my sister’s gown brush past me as soon as we entered the marble foyer, and I let go, holding out my hand to find the stairs ahead. Once inside, I knew my way.

The stairs creaked above me. Probably Ari seeking out her room.

Some wedding day. No guests. No reception. No wedding night. At least not yet.

“Mom?” Ari called out as I swung around the bannister and headed to my room down the hall. “He and I will need a bigger room and more privacy, as well as the master bathroom.”

I clenched my jaw, lightly skimming the wooden bannister with my hand as I charged to my room. Opening the door, I ducked inside and slammed it shut, locking it behind me.

My nerves fired underneath my skin, and I felt to my right, immediately grabbing the dining room chair I’d stolen. I nudged it underneath my door handle for additional protection.

He might’ve left for now, but he could be back at any time.

Any day. Any hour of the night. Any minute.

Mikhail brushed his wet nose on my leg, and I crouched down, petting him and holding his head to mine, savoring the feel of the only thing that made me feel good anymore. Other than dancing.

I adopted the golden retriever last year, and while I adored the company, it would be hard to leave with him if I was going to run now.

I stood up, rubbing my eyes.

God, I couldn’t believe Ari. They were taking my mother’s bedroom.

Anger boiled my blood, but I guess it was a good thing. We shouldn’t hide under any illusions. We lived, ate, and slept under someone else’s good graces. Now, we were simply guests in our own home.

How could my father leave us to this?

If caught, he would’ve gone to prison, which I was sure was Damon’s desire. An eye for an eye. A little payback. A dose of his own medicine.

But my father had just enough time to run, and no one knew where he was now. If he had used some of the money to hide us away, get us out of the country with him, or put us under the protection of friends, I might’ve been able to forgive him. Or at least trust that he had a care in the world.

But he just left. And he left us high and dry at the mercy of anyone who came along. What was Damon going to do to us?

He would certainly have his fun. My sister was gorgeous. My mother still had her figure and face, judging from the comments I’d overheard around others. My sister would do anything he asked, and so would my mother. If she refused, he’d just threaten me, and she’d do anything.

She might’ve even been an option for this alliance, if not for the fact that she was still married to my father. And I wasn’t an ideal choice, either, because I’d fight him and never stop fighting him. Ari was the easy choice.

But dodging that bullet didn’t mean I was safe. What the hell else was I going to do? I had to leave. It was time. I knew this.

I should’ve just stayed gone. After high school, I’d completed two years of college in Rhode Island but quit to come home and focus on dancing, training, and trying to convince any choreographers or company directors to give me a chance. It had been a horrible year, though, and getting worse.

Kneeling down, I slid my hands under my bed skirt, feeling around for the nylon strap, and yanked a packed duffel bag out from underneath. The cool, oblong bag had been hidden in my closet since I sent Damon to jail five years ago, always ready for flight, because I knew I would lose in the inevitable fight. There were two changes of clothes, an extra pair of sneakers, a burner phone plus charger, a hat, sunglasses, a first aid kit, a Swiss Army knife, and all the cash I’d been secretly scrounging since then: nine thousand eighty-two dollars so far.

Of course, I had friends and family I could go to, but disappearing was the only fail-safe. I needed to be gone. Out of the country.

But I needed help getting there. Someone I trusted above everyone else who wasn’t afraid of Damon or his family or the elite in this town. Someone who could outwit my new sister’s husband and get me out of here.

Someone I hated putting in Damon’s path, but I wasn’t sure I had a choice.

 

 

“Hey,” Ethan called out from the running car. “Are you okay?”

I nodded, feeling the car brush my thighs and knowing he’d opened the door for me. “I’m fine.”

It was just after midnight, and a shiver snaked up my arms as I exhaled the chilly air outside my front gate and held on to Mikhail. Of course, my mother might see headlights, so I’d told my friend to pick me up down the road, honking three times in a pattern of two quicks and one slow to alert me he’d arrived.

Awareness made the hair on my body stand up. Damon hadn’t come back tonight, but as long as nothing had changed, then he was still the same. He liked to be up at night, so he could still be on his way, and I needed to hurry if I was going to put miles between me and this town before anyone found out I was gone.

I should’ve left when the feds came after my dad more than a month ago. I knew more was going on. Or I should’ve left two days ago when my mother and sister were summoned to a meeting with Damon’s father, and Arion came out engaged. But I was leaving now. I wasn’t spending a single night with him in this house.

My duffel was pulled out of my hands, and I knew Ethan had taken it to toss in the backseat.

“Hurry up. It’s cold,” he said.

I climbed in, forcing the dog into the backseat and pulled the door closed, fastening my seatbelt.

A strand of hair, loose from my ponytail, brushed across my lips before getting sucked into the corner of my mouth with all of my panting. I nudged it out of the way.

“Are you sure about this?” Ethan asked.

“I can’t stay in that house,” I told him. “I’ll leave them to whatever sick game they want to play.”

“He won’t let you go.” I could hear him shift into gear again and the engine rev. “He won’t let any of you go. Your mother, your sister, you… In his mind, you all belong to him now. You, especially.”

The car took off, I pressed back into my seat, and with every inch we sped away from my family’s home, the non-existent breath on my neck got hotter. I hadn’t slept well in a while, but from this moment on, I’d always be looking over my shoulder.

You, especially. Ethan was one of my best friends, and he knew the whole story and how bad this was for me.

“He only married Arion because she was easy. She said yes,” Ethan warned. “It’s you he wants.”

I remained silent, clenching my teeth so hard they ached.

Damon didn’t want me. He wanted to torment me. He wanted me to hear him in the next room with my sister every night. He wanted to see me sitting quietly at the breakfast table, nervous with my knees shaking, wondering if he was watching me and what he was going to do next. He wanted to kill any peace of mind I’d achieved these last years with him tucked away in jail.

I let out a breath. “I don’t care if he comes after me. I’m twenty-one years old. Whether or not I stay in that house now isn’t his decision.”

“But it is in his power to let you leave,” Ethan retorted. “He’ll bring in guards if he has to. We need to be ready.”

I knew he was right. Legally, I could do whatever I wanted, but Damon wouldn’t care about that. With or without my consent, he’d keep me wherever he wanted me.

I still had to try, though. And never stop.

“I’m not scared of him,” I murmured. “Not anymore.”

“And your mom and sister? What he’ll do to them if you don’t come home…”

Which was nothing different than he was already going to do, I finished for him.

“They knew what happened to me when we were kids. And what he did to me five years ago,” I pointed out. “And they still brought him back into our lives. They put me back in his path, because of the money. Not only did they not protect me, but they put us all back in danger. Damon’s family is bad.”

Arion’s behavior didn’t surprise me. We’d been wealthy our entire lives, and she’d always wanted him. Having money again and being his wife, even if he was the cause of all our recent troubles, was more than she could’ve hoped for. She might even be happy this all happened in the first place.

But my mother was a different story. She knew what inviting him into our lives would mean. She knew his end game here, and she didn’t protect me.

And as much as Ari and I didn’t get along, I didn’t want her suffering.

And Damon would make her life hell. What he’d said in the car was no doubt accurate. She’d be popping pills to dull the pain of his treatment sooner or later. How could my mother let this happen? Was she really that scared to lose her home? Was she that worried about how we’d survive?

Or did that intimate look between her and Damon’s father I’d seen when I was a little girl finally make sense?

My mother had an affair with him, didn’t she? Perhaps it wasn’t only fear that controlled her.

And despite what they were willing to endure, I wouldn’t let them make that decision for me.

“We could get married,” Ethan said, his usually light and playful voice, low with a sultry tone.

And despite my nerves, I snorted. “That won’t stop him. It won’t even give him pause.”

Having a husband wouldn’t even protect me from Damon Torrance.

“Ah, shit,” Ethan breathed out.

“What?”

“Cops. Behind me.”

Cops? We’d only been driving a few minutes. I hadn’t felt the turn onto the highway yet, so we were still on my country road. There were never cops out here. I knew that, because how many times had my sister sped up and down this road as a teenager with me in the car and never gotten caught?

“Are their lights on?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“We’re still on Shadow Point?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t stop.” I shook my head. “You weren’t speeding. They have no reason to pull us over.”

“I have to stop.”

He wasn’t worried, but I slid my hands into the center pocket of my hoodie, fisting them. The only time cops were out here was when they were called. Something was wrong.

“Please don’t stop,” I begged.