Page 84 of Sinner's Vows

What happened in the shower was tilting too much in the direction of black in this grey zone we’re existing in, but for my body’s expanding needs, it wasn’t enough. His presence is always calm, but the way he broke down on seeing my scars, it felt as if he was feeling each one individually on his own flesh. All I could do was hold him, be there for him as his shoulders shook in equal anger and agony.

I’m finding the way of this man, his contours, the planes and valleys of his body I’ve had free visual access to in the shower, but it’s his inner world he’s been showing me in glimpses. Images that flit past only when the light hits right, covered in the barbed wire of his no-man’s land. Things he has gone through, things he’s been forced to do, the loathing he has for himself, for the man he was molded into.

He is ruthless, brutal, cruel when he’s in his role inIl Consiglio, a side I never want to see face to face, but with me?—

I bite my lip as he makes the last slip knot, and when he tests the distance between our hands, it’s even less than last night. I lean back to the pillows, and he mirrors me as we manage to get under the covers and settle, facing each other.

“You know what my first thought was when I saw you in that warehouse?” I say, almost reverently as his fingers weave with mine in a soft hold. “When I got shot and had no clue how bad it was? I was so sure I was going to die. I mean, it had been coming for weeks, so at that point, the idea that it was finally happening was such a relief, and then—” I break off, too wrought by everything that’s happened.

“And then?” he prompts, giving my fingers a squeeze.

“And then you were there, and I thought you were my guardian angel.”

He hums a little chuckle. “That’s new. I can tell you now nobody has ever seen me in that light.”

With a sigh, I close my eyes. “First impressions stick. You’ll always be my guardian angel, Dominic Scalera.”

We’re quiet then, truly exhausted. My thoughts drift, grateful I managed to keep Portia’s secret for the one night I promised her, as my brain tries to work through everything I’ve learned today, the hopes it crushed, the reality it’s going to bring with those DNA tests. And then, the biggest question: what are they going to do with me once they’ve placed me as a pawn on this chess board in the game they play?

Somewhere in the back of my mind, the notion of returning to Italy still hammers away, but it’s become white noise with everything else. The fact I’ve failed in the one mission I’ve set out to complete when I was fifteen comes with a wave of discomfort. This is why women are still trafficked. People give up too easily.The monsters are too many. The good guys too few and far between.

My team… who knows what has happened to them, if they’ve given up the search. And then, there’s Gabriella. Who knows what she’s been going through.

At some point, I shift, and arms pull me close, strong and protective, and I dream of a little girl lost. Me. I’m that little girl. Mom dead in a car wreck that could have been orchestrated as much as it could have been a real accident. A little girl who arrives at Franco’s uncle’s dilapidated farmhouse. The vast neglect of the place, with all its farm clutter, only distracting from what was really happening on that small holding.

A feeling seems to come to rest on my chest, suffocating in its weight, prompting visuals of another little girl in my mind.

“Oh my god,” I whisper, the image becoming sharper, the dream turning from black and white to color, one by one as if it’s working through the light prism from one side to the other. “Oh my god,” I call out as I bolt upright, clutching the arm draped over my belly, instantly wide awake.

“Ariana, sweetheart, you’re having a bad dream.”

A shudder runs through me.

“No, no…Dominic…you don’t understand,” I say, desperate, gripping his hand so hard, my nails bite into his skin.

He sits up, another arm around me, hushing me. “It’s okay, sweetheart. It comes to me like this, too. Calm down, I’ve got you. I had you last night, too.”

“No-no-no,” I say, urgently. “It was a vision. It wasn’t a dream. A memory, I don’t know. Triggered…oh, God. She was there, at that house. I saw it, clear as daylight.”

Dominic cups my cheek, turning me to face him. It’s dark, and all I feel is the warmth of his breath as it ghosts over my shoulder.

“Who, sweetheart?”

“They called her Gabi. Her Italian wasn’t great. She had an American accent. It must have been short for Gabriella.”

“When?” His tone is already sharper, the hold on my cheek firmer.

“I—I—” I need to think. “Give me a minute.” My breathing is jagged, my pulse all over, the conviction that this is real and not a product of my imagination still sinking in.

Dominic works the ties around our arms, and they loosen swiftly as I rub at my forehead, trying to go back, to dig into a time I buried so deep away, never wanting to go there.

“I was around twelve? She must have been around seven? She was only there for a short while. Maybe a week? It could have been longer? I had to go to school, it was the last days before the summer vacation, so I didn’t really register her being there.”

Dominic switches on the bedside light and gets out of bed, looking for his phone where he left it in the closet.

“What time is it?”

“Two in the morning.”

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