Merciless Union by Faith Summers

10

Aria

The sun is just going down.

I’m not sure what day it is. All I know is it’s time to leave this place.

Dad came back an hour ago, and the version of me he found in the cage was exactly what Pasha promised. A shell.

That’s how I feel. Like I’m a shell.

It’s what happens to you when you are forced to do things you don’t want to do.

That does something to your brain and your sense of self. That instinct to protect your mind and body is rattled, and you almost lose your identity.

They had to chain me down to take mine.

Like tying me up to beat me. Although with my lack of strength, I don’t think anyone would have needed to go to such lengths.

I’ve been through too much. My lack of sleep just adds to my instability and fractures my mind. Night after night, I had to watch that man jerk off. I couldn’t sleep because I was so afraid he’d do more than that to me. Just because he said I was too old to fuck, didn’t mean he wouldn’t try to do more than what he was doing.

His filth stayed on me the whole time. To eat or drink, I had to use the tips of my fingers with care, making sure where I touched didn’t have his stuff on me. Even with that, I don’t know if my hands were ever really clean.

It’s been four nights of that shit.

It was only when my father came that I was allowed to go back upstairs to the room I was initially in and shower. As the water ran over my body, I couldn’t get clean enough.

I couldn’t use enough soap to cleanse my skin, and I couldn’t wash away the memory of the disgust I felt with him and myself.

I stopped speaking too, and I’m not talking now. I’m just doing as I’m told.

I’m going through the motions until the day my father plans to kill me. I’ve accepted it now that it’s going to happen, so there’s no point in hoping and wishing or even trying.

I’m just waiting, and like a piece of meat, I’m being transported from one place to another.

Dad leads me out to the awaiting Sedan. There is an entourage of six other cars behind ours and two motorcyclists. I recognize two of Dad’s bodyguards in the car directly behind us. I’ve seen them on many occasions.

Dad opens the door to the back seat for me, gives me a weird look because I haven’t spoken to him at all, and I keep not speaking to him as I get in.

He gets in with me and orders the driver to go.

I glance back to the enormous wooden door to the house I just left behind and see Pasha standing by it, watching us drive away.

His gaze connects with mine, and he smiles wide and proud. It’s the smile that belongs to a winner. A person who has just conquered another, and both parties know it. Me the defeated and him the conqueror.

I watch him until I can’t see him anymore, and I wonder if I’ll ever see him again.

For whatever time left I have on this earth, I hope to never see that monster again.

I glance at Dad out the corner of my eye and note he’s just staring ahead. I’ve been thinking about when it was he became so evil. At first, I tried to pinpoint exact moments based on the few memories I have, but I gave up when I realized he was always that way.

I just don’t think people like my mother, or my grandparents realized. I can’t speak for my aunts. I’m willing to bet Sienna knew but probably never said anything because she didn’t want to make him look bad or worse than he was to me.

I can’t be sure of anything.

What ravages my mind with curiosity is this secret between Dad and Pasha. What could it be?

I just want to know how the pieces of the puzzle fit before I die. It was the

reason Mom died too.

I look around as we drive down the road and see we were in North L.A. We drive away from there like we’re heading toward San Francisco. By the time night falls, I see that’s exactly where we’re going from the route signs on the highway.

I wasn’t given any details, but I was under the impression that I’d be going to Campania tonight.

We continue to the intersection, where all I see is an endless stretch of shadowy trees on either side of me.

Sienna took me around a few times after I awoke from the coma, and she helped me relearn to drive. I never got a car, but we drove as far as San Francisco Bay together. Never this far, though.

“We’re going to meet your uncle in Bodega Bay. He will be escorting you to Campania,” Dad speaks against the silence. “I will join you there a few days before your birthday.”

My uncle. He’s talking about his brother Marico who is just as much of an asshole as he is. My guess is if Marico is escorting me, he’s part of this plan and knows what my father is like.

“Did you hear me, Aria?”

All I do is look at him. I don’t comment, though. I’m not talking to him. I don’t want to, and I see no reason why I should have to when my answers mean nothing.

Dad grabs my face. I’m so sick of people doing that to me.

When he does it, it hurts more. Maybe because of who he’s supposed to be to me and isn’t.

“When I talk to you, I want you to fucking answer me. Let’s try this again. Did you hear me, Aria?”

“Yes, I fucking heard you, prick,” I shout in his face. I’m so loud even the driver looks back at me, but I don’t care. “Now fuck off, and get your fucking hands off me.”

Dad gives me the slap I knew I was going to get. I never expected the second slap, though. One to each cheek. My face feels like it’s going to fall off, and the pain cascades down through my body like a zap of electricity.

“Don’t ever speak to me like that again. Don’t fucking do it, or you’ll get worse next time. Do you understand?”

“Fuck you,” I reply, knowing I’m dancing on the edge of trouble.

He’s about to lunge for me again when an explosion rips through the night.

We both look back at the same time to see the last two of the cars behind us in our entourage crashing together. Both are on fire.

A whizzing sound flies by and knocks car number three off the road, sending it sailing into the mass of trees to our left in a ball of fire.

“Fucking hell, Porter, drive faster; we’re under attack,” Dad shouts. Porter, the driver I now know the name of, guns the engine and speeds way past the speed limit.

He’s going fast, but in the commotion behind us, I pick up the sound of motorcycles.

Lucca rides a motorcycle. But how could it be him?

There’s no way it could be him for a number of reasons. The main one being he’s supposed to be dead. No one talked about him since that night. Pasha said he probably died in a ditch somewhere.

I assumed silence meant that was exactly what happened, and there was no hope Lucca was alive.

I need to stop thinking about him and push my grief aside so I can think logically.

The problem with people like my father is they have many enemies.

So, this attack could be any from the number of them.

More explosions rip through the night, and just when I think things couldn’t get worse, a bullet rips through the window behind me and lodges in the back of Porter's head.

His head bobbles as blood pours out of the wound. His body then slumps forward, lifeless against the steering wheel as we speed uncontrollably down the road.

I scream, and Dad tries to move to the driver's seat. We’re going too fast, though. When the car bounds off the road and into the trees, there’s no hope.

We speed along into the mass of tall Sequoia trees, then crash into a big foreboding one that crushes the car. Dad goes smashing against the window from the impact.

I get propelled forward into the driver’s seat and knock my head hard, but I’m still conscious.

Jesus, I’m still conscious and aware that I’m in this car and with one person I’m sure is dead and Dad who is possibly dead or unconscious.

Whichever it is, I’m not staying to find out, especially if Dad is only unconscious.

I get the answer, though, when he moves, and a low groan falls from his lips.

When I see that, I unhook the seat belt and open the door.

I’m out of that car before I can take another breath, with the cold night air on my bare legs and the stony gravel crunching beneath the little ballerina pumps I was given to wear.

In the tunic I’m still wearing, I look like I escaped from a mental hospital.

Right now, I could care less if I looked like I escaped from the circus. What I care about is this route of escape.

I run through the trees and keep going, summoning all the strength I have inside me. Footsteps and voices fill the area, then bullets fly, and the engines of vehicles rumble to life.

I don’t stop moving, though. I just keep going, relishing this reprieve I’ve been given.

Until I turn down the wrong path and see one of the motorcyclists coming toward me.

As I recognize the bike as one of my father’s men, I whirl around and run back the way I came.

He follows me down the path, and I only manage to evade him when I jump over a log and slide down the drop to a narrow path. The engine of the bike cuts then I hear footsteps as he runs after me.

I can’t allow him to get me. I can’t. I don’t want to die.

Letting him get me means death, and this taste of freedom has given me a hunger for life I want so badly.

I don’t want to die, so I can’t stop. I must keep moving, must keep focusing on putting one foot in front of the other.

I’m focusing so hard I don’t even realize when I crash into the hard chest of a man who jumped out from behind the trees.

He grabs me, enclosing me with his hulking body, then laughs in my face with disgusting tobacco breath.

“Where do you think you’re going, Princess?” he taunts. “I got her Mac.”

I scream and try to kick against his grasp. But it’s to no avail.

Mac reaches us, and the man holding me hoists me up into the air like a trophy he just won.

“You bastard, let go of me.” I kick him in his balls, and when he doubles over, he rips my clothes tearing the meager fabric from my body.

Apart from my panties and shoes, I’m naked.

“Fuck me,” Mac says, yanking me from the asshole who was holding me. “I wonder if the boss will mind us having a turn before we hand her over. Who can resist titties like that?”

He covers my mouth and reaches for my breast squeezing hard as I scream into the palm of his hand.

He’s about to bend down to suck my breast when the sound of a gunshot pierces through me, and his head explodes before me with blood spraying everywhere.

A masked man jumps out of the trees with a shotgun and takes down the man who was previously holding me.

Aware of my nakedness and hysterical cries, I run away again, not knowing if this is someone else who’s coming to hurt me.

My efforts are, however, fruitless. I manage to get back to the log, and the masked man grabs me.

The way he holds me, though, is different. It’s not to hurt me.

It’s more of an embrace.

Then I smell him. That scent of musk and sandalwood tickles my nose, and as he holds me closer, I feel that presence I’ve always associated with safety.

When he pulls off his mask, my eyes tangle with his silver ones—eyes that look like pure moonlight. They’re the eyes of the boy from my dreams and the man I never thought I’d see again.

“Lucca,” I choke in disbelief as tears of joy run down my cheeks.

“It’s me, Aria,” he assures me, cupping my face. “You’re safe now.”

I sink into his chest as he holds me closer, and I feel safe. I feel safer than I’ve ever felt in my life. So safe, I stop the worries that come in the moments he holds me.

As he scoops me up and carries me, I just allow the presence of him to take me away from the nightmare I’ve suffered over the last few weeks.

Lucca is alive. He didn’t die.

He’s still with me, and he found me.