First Comes Blood by Lilith Vincent
6
Chiara
Lorenzo’s weight against my back and the knife hilt pressing on my bare privates vanish at the same time. The searing heat from his body lifts and I listen to his footsteps recede. I stay where I am, huddled against the wall. There’s a shhhk sound, like a knife being shoved back into a holster.
Then silence.
Minutes pass, and I don’t dare move or open my eyes. I’m naked beneath my dress. Naked and—how did it happen?—wet. I see again my G-string in Lorenzo’s big hand with its tattooed fingers, his thumb rubbing slowly over the slippery patch. One of these tyrannical men turned me on while they were threatening and tricking me. But which one? Salvatore as he was putting diamonds around my throat and choking me? Vinicius with his smooth-talking trickery? Cassius with his indulgent concern and fiery threats? Or—please god, no—Lorenzo’s sadistic depravity? As I remember each man, I can’t discern any difference in my feelings toward them. Whatever crazy reaction my body had, I hate them all.
In the distance I hear a deep, nasty laugh. Lorenzo as he tells the others what he just did to me? What if they all come back and do what he threatened they would do?
One after another.
I push away from the wall and look desperately around. My hands are fastened painfully tight behind my back and every movement makes them burn. I’m totally defenseless. On my left is a staircase leading down to the kitchen. I head for them with a stifled sob, knowing that there’s safety at the bottom. People who love me. People who’ll protect me.
Don’t cry.
Don’t you dare cry.
Familiar voices reach my ears as I make my way downstairs. Stephan, who chauffeurs and serves dinner. Violette, who cleans the house.
“…lined up like they were judging her. It was awful.”
“And on her birthday, too. The poor girl is only seventeen.”
I stagger down the last few steps and into the arms of a comforting, floury woman in an apron. Francesca, our cook. “Do you think that the Mayor—Chiara!”
The horrified expression on her face is the last straw, and a sob rises up my throat. These people are my friends. They’ve always been kind to Mom and me and looked out for me when I was little, especially Francesca. She’s nearly sixty and the lines on her face are as comforting as they are familiar.
She pats my back as I press my face into her shoulder. I refuse to go to pieces over what happened tonight. It’s what those horrible men want, so I hold my breath and grit my teeth against the tears.
“Stephan, are her hands tied? Cut her free.”
Stephan finds a pair of scissors and cuts the zip tie. I pull away from Francesca and gaze down at my shaking hands through blurry eyes.
Violette touches my arm, her brow pinched with worry. “Chiara, what’s happened to you? Was it one of these men?”
I open my mouth to tell them all what happened tonight and what my father intends for me, but before I can say a word, Lorenzo’s seething threat comes back to me.
If you scream for help, I’ll kill anyone who tries to rescue you and make you watch.
My throat convulses. The other three are probably just as ruthless and won’t try to stop him.
“Nothing. I’m fine. I…”
Three doubtful, worried faces stare back at me. There isn’t anyone who can help me right now. I just have to make it through tonight, and then Mom and I will have a year to find a way out of this mess.
I glance at the clock and see that it’s just past eleven. Dad told me I’d be promised to one of these men tonight. I just want to hide down here in the basement kitchen with people who are kind to me.
“Chiara,” Francesca says, reaching out to pat my hair. “Did one of those men hurt you?”
“Of course they hurt her!” Stephan exclaims, brandishing the broken zip tie. “Look at her. Look at this. We have to do something.”
His face is a mask of fury. If he goes upstairs to face them he’ll be torn to pieces.
“Nothing happened. Don’t worry about me.” They don’t believe me, but they don’t have to as long as they stay down here. I can’t let them put themselves in danger for me.
High on the wall, the clock ticks out the passing seconds.
Tick tock.
Violette glances nervously at the others. “Did you recognize that huge, dark-haired man? He owns all the strip clubs in the city. The girls who work there end up dead if they whisper even one word about what they see and hear.”
Francesca nods. “That’s Cassius Ferragamo. The fair-haired man, the good looking one—I swear that’s Vinicius Angeli. He was arrested for money laundering last year, and then they just let him go.”
“And the other two—” Violette begins.
“Salvatore Fiore and Lorenzo Scava,” I whisper.
They all stare at me, doubtlessly wondering why four such men were invited to my birthday party. Working for the Mayor of Coldlake requires discretion and I’ve never heard the three of them gossip about the important men and women Dad entertains. There are sometimes celebrities who visit and occasionally the governor of the state. They could lose their jobs if Dad thinks they’re being indiscreet, but I can feel them itching to ask me what happened tonight.
I’m more concerned about their lives than their jobs. The longer I stay down here, the more I’m putting them in danger.
I back away from them. “Thank you. I’m fine now, don’t worry about me.”
The smile I force onto my face feels brittle and they watch me head for the stairs and go up into the house. The hall is paneled with dark wood and the lights are low. There are voices coming from the dining room. Deep, male voices talking rapidly.
I can’t face anyone yet. I go into the nearby bathroom and lock the door.
In the mirror, my face is pale and tense and mascara has blurred beneath my eyes. I sit on the closed toilet and swipe beneath my eyes with wet tissue, trying to make sense of everything that’s happened tonight.
The men who occupy the seedy underbelly of Coldlake are supposed to be Dad’s enemies. I was on stage with him at his campaign rallies three years ago and he spoke about being a law-and-order mayor and being tough on crime. The people cheered when they heard that. Coldlake is prosperous and safe for the most part, but there are dangerous places, too. Dangerous people. Among the big, flashy stories in the news about a new park opening or a business achievement award, there are short paragraphs about missing people and unsolved murders. Money going missing from retirement funds and shops being burned to the ground. No city is perfect and there’s no such thing as zero crime anywhere, but I always believed that Coldlake was a better city than most. Is that because it is, or because I’ve been told that, over and over?
I stare around at the marble tiles and vanity. The gold taps on the sink and art on the walls. Isn’t it strange that we can afford such a big house and expensive lifestyle on Dad’s salary? I’ve never thought about it before. I reach up and pull the tiara from my hair, turning it this way and that in the light. Dad gave it to me this morning. I assumed that the sparkling stones were cubic zirconia. Imitation diamonds. In my reflection, the diamonds around my neck sparkle with as much luster as the ones set into the tiara.
Dad can’t afford a diamond tiara. He shouldn’t be able to afford a diamond tiara.
This house. All that we possess. Our lives weren’t built with hard work, but with lies.
“Dad, what have you done?” I whisper, the tiara dropping from my fingers.
I have to find Dad and tell him that he’s out of his depth. These men can’t be controlled. They’re forces of nature, and he’s not as powerful as he thinks he is.
I slip out of the bathroom, my heart pounding, and edge down the hallway. The voices from the dining room are louder now, and I can hear Dad’s voice among the four men’s. There’s an ornate Venetian clock standing against the wall, brought to the United States by my great-grandfather. I huddle in its shadow, the tick tock of the mechanism drowning out whatever’s being said. If I can just make it to midnight without being promised…
It’s a stupid thought. Even if I hide until dawn, there’s nothing stopping the men from coming back tomorrow night, and the night after, and the night after that until they get what they want.
I don’t want to know what they’re saying about me.
I can’t do this.
Why is this happening?
These four men could be blackmailing Dad somehow, and he thinks he’s got no choice but to appease them by marrying me to one of them. Maybe he’s too ashamed to tell Mom and me the truth, but I’ll never be ashamed of him if he’s honest. Honesty and transparency are the most important things. That’s what Dad’s always said.
I place my hand on the cool wood of the clock and peer around it. I can see the door to the dining room from here, but no one who’s inside.
Suddenly, heavy footsteps approach and a voice grows louder. “…business to attend to and then we can finish this. Excuse me.”
Dad appears in the doorway and heads upstairs without noticing me. His face is serious and he seems confident and at ease, but after so many years in office and training himself to appear self-assured, it’s impossible to tell what he’s really thinking.
Now’s my chance. I’ll follow him upstairs and beg him to call this whole arrangement off. Once he hears what his so-called friends have done to me, he’ll have them thrown from this house. Mom and I have always been at his side and the people of Coldlake trust us. If we speak out alongside Dad about whatever he’s suffered at the hands of these men, we’ll be able to overcome all their lies.
As I approach the staircase, I hear a voice that turns my whole body to ice.
“I won’t let you have her.”
Mom, in the dining room.
She’s with them.
Alone.
Mom speaks clearly but there’s a tremor in her voice, as if she’s summoned up the very last of her strength to confront this pack of demons. “Any of you.”
There’s a deep, rich laugh in response. Cassius’ laugh. In his accented voice, he asks, “And who are you to stand in our way?”
“Chiara’s mother,” she exclaims, her voice stronger. “I don’t know what my husband has promised you all, but the deal is off.”
“He’s promised us his daughter and we will have her.” Salvatore’s arrogant tone. “You have no idea of the pain we will rain down on your family if you dare to defy us.”
Taut silence stretches. I rest my hand against the wall by the door. I can’t see any of them, but I can picture my painfully thin and distressed mother standing up to those men all on her own. Behind me, the clock ticks closer and closer to midnight.
Tick tock.
A strange sound reaches my ears over the clock.
Shhhk. Shhhk. Shhhk.
Lorenzo’s knife, as if he’s flicking it in and out of its holster. That goddamn knife. Mom’s always been deathly afraid of weapons of any sort. I have to go in there and put a stop to this.
“Pain?” Mom suddenly cries, and I freeze, pressing a hand over my racing heart. “You think you could cause me more pain than ripping my only child away from me? I have a whole year to find a way to stop you all from getting what you want, and if that fails, I’ll hide her where you’ll never find her. She’s not yours, and she never will be.”
I can hear the truth in every syllable she utters. She’ll do anything and everything to protect me from these men. Tears prickle my eyes as the full force of my mother’s love breaks over me.
“You’ve got a death wish, Mayoress Romano,” Vinicius replies, sly as always, but without any of the charm he used on me. How cold he sounds when he’s not bothering to manipulate. Almost as cold as Lorenzo.
“I don’t care about my own life,” Mom spits in revulsion. “If you’d ever loved anything but yourselves, money, and power, you’d know that giving up your life for the one you love is nothing. Nothing. But you can’t love, can you? You don’t know how. You’re all despicable. Hateful. Abhorrent. Now get out of my house!”
I hear the garden door slide open and my mother walking away rapidly with a faint sob. She’s so much stronger and cleverer than me. I thought I could reason with or persuade these men, but she saw them right away for what they are.
Monsters.
You can’t reason with monsters. You can only fight back.
I turn around and walk quickly and silently back down the corridor and around to the staircase leading to the kitchen where there’s another door to the garden. As I come out into the night air, Mom’s standing on the edge of the pool, her face in her hands and sobbing like her heart will break.
With Mom on my side, I won’t be promised to anyone tonight. We’ll stand strong together against everyone.
A lone figure in a black suit emerges from the dining room. His head and shoulders are in the shadows and he stands where he is, staring at Mom’s back. Anger races through me. They didn’t leave the house as she ordered them to, or not all of them, at least. Who has remained, and why must he go on tormenting her?
Tick tock.
I can hear the ticking from out here. How can I hear it from out here? The clock’s got into my head, and I can’t get the sound out of my ears.
The man steps forward and grasps Mom viciously by the hair, pulling her head back. Her throat arches and her hands fly out as she gasps mid-sob. In his other hand, a wickedly pointed knife gleams in the darkness.
The grandfather clock in the hall begins to chime.
Midnight.
It’s midnight and I’m not promised. I’ve won.
Haven’t I?
The knife flashes in the darkness. The clock chimes, heavy and slow. Time’s slowing down.
“No!”
Someone screams.
I’m running toward my mother. My legs feel like they’re in molasses. My lungs are burning as if I’ve already run a marathon. Blood gouts from Mom’s throat as the knife finishes its vicious arc and is brandished in triumph. She falls forward, eyes wide, into the swimming pool.
I run and I run, and she falls slower and slower as the deafening peals of the clock ring out across the garden. So much blood. It’s like a fountain down her front. I can’t get to her in time. I won’t make it. I fall to my knees at the side of the pool and snatch at the trailing skirt of her dress. The silky black fabric slips through my fingers, and Mom plunges headfirst into the pool, her arms flung wide.
The water blooms red. Mom bobs face down in the water, blood billowing from her throat in a hideous stain.
“Mom.”
I try to throw myself in after her, but a hand grabs a fistful of the back of my dress and holds me. I flail in his grip, sobbing and screaming, my tears falling onto a pair of black leather dress shoes. He’s clutching a knife with blood dripping from the point.
Lorenzo’s knife. The same one he’s been taunting me with all evening.
My breath comes faster and faster. I don’t want to look, but I have to know which one of these monsters did it.
Who will I hate for the rest of my life?
Who will I destroy for killing what I love?
Mom’s blood continues to turn the swimming pool red and her black dress spreads out around her. I look up.
Into his face.
At the man who murdered my mother.