Page 24 of Psychotic Faith
I stand to leave, but his voice stops me at the door.
"Luca? If she compromises this family, I'll handle her myself."
The threat makes something violent rear up in my chest. The idea of Marco touching Faith, hurting Faith, even looking at Faith makes me want to paint the walls with his blood. Brother or not.
"You won't touch her."
"Then make sure I don't have to."
It takes Zapatero an hour to die. Messier than it should be. Louder. Marco will hear about this, will know I didn't follow orders. But Marco doesn't understand. This isn't just work anymore. Everything is about her now. The violence, the obsession, the need to possess and protect and destroy anything that comes between us.
By the time I'm done, it's past midnight. My clothes are ruined, blood soaked through to skin. I'll have to burn everything, shower at the safe house before going to her.
Because I am going to her. Tonight. Not to take anything, but to leave something. To escalate our game.
Two a.m. and I'm standing in her bedroom again. She's asleep, curled on her side, one hand tucked under her pillow where the knife I sharpened waits. The same position she alwayssleeps in, except tonight she's wearing that silk nightgown. The one she wore for me before she knew my name.
She knows I'm coming. Knows I can't stay away.
I've brought two things. First, a dress. Red silk that will cling to every curve, show enough skin to make men stare, make them stupid, make them targets. When she wears it, she's declaring herself mine. Claiming me as much as I'm claiming her.
Second, the panties she was wearing last night. The ones soaked with her arousal, with the evidence of what I do to her. I had them cleaned, pressed, folded perfectly. The message clear: I take what I want, but I give it back changed. Improved.
I place both on her pillow, right where she'll see them when she wakes. The dress draped carefully, the panties on top, a note tucked between them:
"For when you're ready to beg."
She shifts in her sleep, mumbling something. I freeze, watching her face in the dim light from the street. So beautiful. So innocent-looking even though I know the darkness that lives inside her. The violence she dreams about.
We're the same, her and me. Both just pretending to be human.
Her cracked phone sits on the nightstand, the spider-web pattern across the screen catching the streetlight. Evidence of her loss of control, of what I drive her to. I could send another message, wake her up, make her see me standing here. But this is better. The anticipation. The knowing that she'll wake to find I've been here again, that nowhere is safe from me, that locked windows mean nothing when you belong to someone the way she belongs to me.
I'm at the door, hand on the knob, when I hear it.
"Luca."
My name from her sleeping lips. She's said it before. But hearing it now, unconscious and unguarded, whispered like aprayer or a summons, it hits different. This is her subconscious claiming me, dreaming of me, unable to escape me even in sleep.
I freeze, every muscle locked as I watch her shift in the darkness. Still asleep. Still dreaming. But dreaming of the real me. The monster who just left her cleaned panties on her pillow like a calling card. The unhinged Rosetti she knows she shouldn't want.
My cock goes painfully hard, and I have to grip the doorframe to stop myself from going back. From waking her up and making her say it again while she's conscious, while I'm inside her, while she's screaming it.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow she'll wear my red dress, claiming me as surely as I've claimed her. Both of us knowing exactly what we're choosing.
11 - Faith
My panties.
Cleaned, pressed, folded with surgical precision and placed on my pillow like a calling card. The black silk I wore to the gala, the ones soaked with evidence of what he does to me, now pristine and waiting for me to find them.
I'm frozen in my bedroom doorway, towel wrapped around me from my shower, water dripping down my legs as I stare at the violation on my bed. Six hours since I locked him out. Six hours of fitful sleep, dreaming of icy eyes and hands that kill. And while I slept, he was here. Inside my apartment. Inside my bedroom. Touching my things.
In my sleep-deprived state I'd stumbled to the bathroom when I woke, barely opening my eyes.
Now I see it. Underneath the panties, red silk spills across my white sheets like blood.
My hands shake as I approach, already knowing what this is, already dreading the message it sends.
