SAVAGE RITES
The drive back to Manhattan was a blur of neon and rain. I didn’t look at Nico. I didn’t look at the road.
My father was gone.
Not dead. Worse. He was in the trunk of a car somewhere behind us, or already being transferred to a “black site” or whatever hell Nico had prepared for him.
But to me, he was gone. The man who had raised me, who had taught me to ride a bike, who had cooked me soup when I was sick… that man had never existed.
He was just a con artist who had played the long con on his own daughter.
When the car slid into the private elevator of the penthouse, the silence was deafening.
The gears ground and lifted us back up to the sky.
We stepped out into the loft. It was still freezing. The blackout shades were still down, sealing us in a tomb of luxury.
Nico tossed his keys onto the counter. He took off his coat and threw it over the back of a chair. He loosened his tie, unbuttoning the top of his collar. He looked tired.
He walked over to the bar cart and poured two glasses of amber liquid.
He walked to me and held one out.
“Drink,” he said. “It will help with the shock.”
I looked at the glass. I looked at his hand.
I took the glass. I downed the scotch in one burning gulp. It tasted like smoke and fire. I didn’t cough.
“I’m not in shock,” I said. My voice was steady. It surprised me.
Nico raised an eyebrow. He took a sip of his own drink, watching me over the rim.
“No?” he challenged. “You just watched your world end, Elena. Most people would be catatonic.”
“My world didn’t end,” I said, setting the glass down on the marble island with a sharp clack. “It just… clarified.”
I walked around the island. I walked toward him.
For the last two months, I had been running from him. I had been cowering, hiding in libraries, trembling in bathrooms. I had been terrified of the monster.
But the monster had told me the truth. The monster hadn’t sold me. The monster had come for me.
I stopped in front of him. He was taller than me, broader.
“You were right,” I whispered.
Nico went still. His eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”
“You were right,” I repeated, louder. “About everything. About him. About the world. About kindness being a lie.”
Nico set his glass down. He didn’t smile. He looked at me with a dangerous intensity.
“Be careful, Elena,” he warned softly. “If you stare too long into the abyss…”
“The abyss is the only thing looking back at me,” I interrupted.
I reached out. My hand was shaking, not from fear, but from a sudden, desperate need to feel something other than the cold hole in my chest.
I placed my hand on his chest, right over his heart. I could feel it beating.
“Make me forget,” I said.
Nico’s pupils dilated, swallowing the gray.
“Elena. You are emotional. You don’t know what you are asking for.”
“I know exactly what I’m asking for,” I said. I stepped closer, until my body brushed against his. “I don’t want to think about him. I don’t want to think about the plane. I don’t want to think about Julian or the scholarship or the lie my life used to be.”
I looked up at him, pleading.
“I just want to burn it down. Help me burn it down.”
Nico stared at me for a long, agonizing second. He was fighting a battle behind his eyes control versus hunger.
Hunger won.
He made a low, guttural sound and grabbed my waist, lifting me off the ground effortlessly. He slammed me onto the marble countertop of the kitchen island.
“You want to burn?” he growled. “Fine.”
He stepped between my legs, pushing my thighs apart. He didn’t kiss me gently. He didn’t romance me. He claimed me.
His mouth crashed onto mine, devouring me.
It was angry and desperate. I kissed him back with the same fury, my hands tangling in his hair, pulling him closer. I wanted him to hurt me. I wanted him to bruise me. I wanted the physical pain to drown out the emotional agony.
Nico’s hands were everywhere, rough on my hips, demanding on my breasts. He ripped the thin camisole I was wearing. The sound of tearing fabric echoed in the large room.
He didn’t care. I didn’t care.
He stripped off his jacket, his shirt buttons flying across the floor as he tore it open. Skin against skin. He was hot, hard, and solid.
“You belong to me,” he muttered against my neck, biting the sensitive cord of muscle. “No more running. No more doubts.”
“I’m yours,” I gasped. “I’m yours, Nico.”
He unzipped his pants. He shoved my trousers down. There was no preparation this time. No slow build. We were past that.
He lifted my hips and thrust into me.
I cried out, a sharp, shocked sound that turned into a moan. He filled me completely, stretching me, possessing me. It was intense and overwhelming, and it was exactly what I needed.
I wrapped my legs around his waist, anchoring myself to him.
Nico moved with a savage rhythm. He wasn’t making love. He was conquering. He watched my face the entire time, his eyes dark and wild, drinking in every expression of pleasure and pain.
“Look at me,” he commanded, gripping my chin when I tried to close my eyes. “Don’t you dare close your eyes. You look at the monster you chose.”
I looked at him. I saw the scar on his eyebrow. I saw the sweat beading on his forehead. I saw the man who had destroyed my life and then saved me from the wreckage.
“Nico,” I breathed, matching his pace.
The friction built rapidly. It was a sprint to oblivion. I clawed at his shoulders, leaving marks. He groaned, burying his face in the crook of my neck.
When the release came, it was violent. It shattered the numbness. I screamed his name, my body convulsing around him.
Nico followed me seconds later. He stiffened, his grip on my hips bruising, and poured himself into me with a final, deep thrust that touched my soul.
We stayed like that for a long time. Me sitting on the cold marble, him buried inside me, our breathing harsh and ragged in the silent penthouse.
Slowly, the world started to creep back in. The hum of the fridge. The distant sound of sirens from the street below.
Nico pulled back. He rested his forehead against mine. He wasn’t smiling, but the hardness around his eyes had softened, just a fraction.
“You can’t go back now,” he whispered. “You know that.”
I nodded, exhaustion washing over me. “I know.”
“You’re done with the past,” Nico said. He stood up, adjusting his clothes, then reached out to pull my torn camisole together. “From now on, you are a De Luca. You live by our rules. You die by our rules.”
He picked me up off the counter and set me on my feet. My legs were like jelly. I wobbled, and he caught me.
“Go to the bedroom,” he said. “Sleep. We leave for Blackwood in the morning.”
“What about my father?” I asked one last time.
Nico looked at me. “Who?”
I stared at him. Then, I understood.
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
Nico smirked. He kissed my forehead.
“Go to sleep, Elena.”
I walked toward the bedroom. I didn’t look back. The girl who had arrived in New York was dead. The woman walking down the hall was something else entirely.
***
The drive back to Blackwood University was different than the drive to the city.
There was no aggressive speeding. Nico drove with one hand on the wheel, his other hand resting on my thigh. It was a casual touch.
We had left the penthouse at dawn. Nico had burned the clothes I wore the day before, the torn camisole, the travel-stained trousers. He had handed me a black dress from a closet I hadn’t even known existed in the loft. It was wool, long-sleeved, high-necked, and fitted like a second skin.
I looked like a widow. Or a weapon.
As the familiar iron gates of the university loomed in the distance, rising out of the mist like the entrance to a gothic underworld, my stomach gave a small, traitorous lurch.
“Nervous?” Nico asked, his thumb tracing a slow circle on my leg.
“No,” I lied.
“Good. Because you have nothing to be nervous about. The faculty has been handled.
The Dean believes you had a family emergency. Your uncle has been… transferred to a facility upstate. He won’t be bothering anyone.”
“And the students?” I asked, “They think I’m a rat.”
“They think you are dangerous,” Nico corrected. “And they are right.”
He bypassed the main parking lots and drove straight up the hill to the East Wing mansion.
The car purred to a halt in the driveway.
It was Sunday afternoon. The campus was quiet.
Nico killed the engine. He turned in his seat to face me.
“There is one loose end,” he said. The air in the car grew heavy.
“Julian,” I whispered.
“He will come for you,” Nico predicted. “He is stubborn. He will see your return as a sign that you escaped me. He will try to ‘save’ you again.”
Nico reached out and cupped my face. His fingers were cool, his expression deadly serious.
“If you waver, Elena… if you give him even an inch of hope… I will destroy him. And I won’t do it quickly.”
“I know.”
“You need to break him,” Nico said softly. “Not physically. That’s my job. You need to break his spirit. You need to look him in the eye and tell him that you chose this. That you chose me.”
“I can do that.”
“Prove it.”
He leaned in and kissed me. It was a soft kiss.
We got out of the car.
Matteo was waiting on the front steps. He was smoking a cigarette, leaning against one of the stone pillars. When he saw us, he flicked the butt into the bushes and grinned.
“Welcome back, lovebirds,” Matteo drawled. He looked at me, scanning for damage, and seemed surprised when he found none. “You look… different, Rossi.”
“It’s Vance,” I said automatically, then stopped. “No. It’s neither.”
Matteo laughed. “Feisty. I like it. Did the trip go well?”
“The package has been delivered,” Nico said, walking past him. He tossed the car keys to Matteo. “Park this. And tell Dante to sweep the perimeter. I want to know if anyone has been sniffing around while we were gone.”
“You mean besides Prince Charming?” Matteo asked, falling into step behind us. “Thorne has been camped out in the library lobby for two days. He looks like shit.”
Nico stopped. I stopped beside him.
“Is he there now?” Nico asked.
“Yeah. Pathetic, really.”
Nico looked at me. “Go.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Now?”
“You have your orders,” Nico said. He gestured toward the path that led down to the main campus. “Go to the library. Find him. End it.”
“And then?”
“And then come home,” Nico said. “To the penthouse. Where you belong.”
He turned and walked into the mansion, the heavy doors closing behind him with a final thud.
I stood alone on the driveway.
The wind bit at my face. I wrapped my black coat tighter around myself.
I could go to my dorm. I could pack my bags and run for the train station. I could go to the police.
But my father had sold me. My uncle was gone. And the police were on the De Luca payroll.
There was nowhere to run.
I turned and began the walk down the hill toward the library.
I walked with my head up.
I wasn’t the scholarship girl anymore. I wasn’t the victim.
I walked into the library lobby.
Julian was there.
He was sitting in an armchair near the entrance, a book open on his lap, but he wasn’t reading. He was staring at the door. He looked tired. There were dark circles under his hazel eyes, and faint bruising on his neck where Nico had strangled him.
When he saw me, he dropped the book.
He stood up so fast the chair scraped loudly against the floor.
“Elena!”
He ran to me. He didn’t care who was watching. He stopped just inches away, his hands hovering as if he wanted to touch me but was afraid I might shatter.
“You’re back,” he breathed. “I was so worried. I heard… I heard rumors. Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
He reached for my hand.
I let him take it. His hand was warm.
I looked at his kind face. I saw the genuine concern. I saw the light.
And then I remembered my father’s voice on the phone. She’ll figure it out.
I remembered the feel of the gun in the cabin.
I remembered the fire in Nico’s eyes when he told me I belonged to him.
I pulled my hand away.
“I’m fine, Julian,” I said. My voice was cold. It sounded like Nico’s.
Julian blinked, confused. “Elena? What’s wrong? We can go. I have a car waiting. We can go to the police right now.”
“No,” I said.
“What? Why?”
“Because I’m not a victim, Julian,” I said. “And I don’t need saving.”
“He’s threatening you,” Julian whispered, stepping closer. “I know he is. Tell me what he said.”
“He didn’t have to say anything,” I said. I looked him dead in the eye. “I chose him.”
Julian recoiled as if I had slapped him. “That’s a lie. You hate him.”
“I thought I did,” I lied. “But hate and obsession… they’re very close, aren’t they?”
“Elena, stop,” Julian begged. “This isn’t you.”
“You don’t know me,” I said harshly. “You know a sad story you wanted to fix. But I’m not a story, Julian. I’m a De Luca.”
The name hung between us like a curse.
Julian stared at me. The light in his eyes flickered and died, replaced by a deep, crushing hurt.
“You don’t mean that,” he whispered.
“Stay away from me,” I said. “Stay away from the penthouse. Go play your piano and find a nice girl who needs a hero. Because I’m done playing the damsel.”
I turned my back on him.
It was the hardest thing I had ever done.
“Elena!” he called after me.
I didn’t stop. I walked out of the library.
TBC
