Present
“This is so freaking weird when I really think about it,” I mutter and Marco chuckles.
“Did you ever really think that one day it could be like this?”
Did I ever think that we would actually be able to have a public relationship? I mean… I had hoped, but it also felt like a silly little dream that would never actually happen.
Only it has.
And we’re on our way to his family estate to have dinner and meet the newest addition to the Romano family, since Enzo didn’t want to overwhelm Robyn at the hospital.
Robyn had the baby last week, and the entire family has been giving them space to get used to being parents, but we’re finally getting the chance to meet little Lilliana.
And here we are, heading there like it’s the most normal thing in the world when ten years ago, the prospect of anyone knowing about our relationship would send a bone chilling terror through me. It’s been over two months since we stayed in the Hamptons, and other than me staying at my brother’s—or more like our family estate—for Christmas, we haven’t spent a night without each other since unless I was working the night shift.
We’ve completely fallen back into each other, and I can’t say I don’t love it.
“No,” I say with a laugh. “Yet here we are.”
“We’re gonna be okay?” he asks, a sliver of vulnerability in his tone.
“Of course,” I murmur reassuringly and reach over to take his free hand. “That is, if whoever the hell was after us doesn’t—” The car is suddenly flung sideways, and I turn my head slightly to see that a van ran straight into Marco’s side of the car.
Everything around me shifts as my body is flung from one side to the other, my head rattling around, and it isn’t until silence descends that I realize that we’re in a ditch.
“Marco,” I croak as I turn to face him, my voice is drowned out by my pulse thudding in my ears.
Marco is unconscious next to me, his head resting on the steering wheel as blood drips down his face. The image of him starts to blur and I try saying his name again, but everything seems static, like my eyes and body and mouth aren’t really connecting with anything.
Please be okay.
I need you to be okay.
I love you.
I wish I had told you how much I love you.
Why the hell did I wait so long to tell you?
The sounds of clattering chains is what wakes me from a dreamless sleep. I blink my eyes open, expecting to find myself in Marco’s bed.
Except I’m not.
I’m met with the sight of what looks like an abandoned cabin, though I seem to be in a corner of the room with a white sheet being used as a partition in front of me, so I can’t see where the sounds are coming from.
It takes a moment for everything to come rushing back to me, but when it does? A feeling of dread settles in my gut as I recall the last few moments I had with Marco before everything went black.
Marco.
“Marco,” I whisper his name, and a booming laugh comes from inside the cabin.
“Look who’s finally awake,” a voice says before the sheet is pulled to the side. I look up to see a man towering over me. He must be in his fifties, and he looks oddly familiar, though I can’t place him.
“Who are you?” I ask, my voice hoarse.
He clutches his chest dramatically. “I’m hurt you don’t recognize me, but no matter… you’ll find out eventually.”
The confusion must show on my face because he grins down at me before stepping to the side. The view that greets me once he does has my blood running cold and my heart lurching in my chest.
Marco is wrapped in chains, suspended from the beams that run along the cabin. His shirt is ripped open and I can see the blood and bruises that mar his skin. He has to be in agony. He’s awake, and that has relief running through me, but the pain in his eyes breaks my heart.
It’s not pain for himself, though, that I know for sure.
It’s the pain of me seeing him like this.
He’s in pain because we’re in this situation to begin with. That I’m in this situation.
And I know he feels helpless, he feels just like he did all those years ago. The pain of seeing me here with him is killing him.
His eyes run over me, and it’s only then that I realize that he’s not the only one in chains.
My ankles are bound together with rope, which interlinks with a chain connected to the floorboards. There’s more rope wrapped around my torso which is attached to the wall behind me.
The more I look around, the more I recognize my surroundings. This is the abandoned cabin that sits on the back of my family’s property, but how the hell did this guy even know it was here?
My eyes meet Marco’s once more. I watch as his throat bobs as he swallows, his eyes flickering to the guy keeping us here before meeting mine again. He tries to communicate something with his eyes, but my brows scrunch in confusion until he mouths the words to me.
Lie to me, he mouths.
Lie to him? Now isn’t really the time to be playing that little game.
Besides, what the hell happened to no more lies?
And then it clicks… whoever this guy is, he seems to think he knows us. And he’ll use the way we feel about each other to try and torture us. He’ll use every trick in the book to try and hurt us. The easiest way to hurt Marco is to hurt me, and vice versa. So, I just have to pretend I don’t have feelings for Marco and hope like hell that our plan works, though what happens after that, I have no idea.
Should be easy, considering I’ve spent the last ten years lying to myself about those feelings.
I give him a barely perceptible nod, so he knows I understand what he’s about to do, and he sends me a look that I can only describe as him. It’s full of love, longing, and pain. It’s a look that says that no matter what happens here, he’ll do everything he can to get me out of this, and he knows that I’ll do the same. It’s a look that’s telling me to hold on, to stay strong.
I’d sacrifice myself for the man in front of me in a heartbeat, just like he would for me.
We’re in this together. Always.
We can get through this with the help of each other. He’s telling me that this time around, he’ll lean on me. He’s not shutting me out like he did all those years ago.
“What are you expecting to get from this?” Marco asks, and the guy who’s been oblivious to our silent conversation turns to him.
“I want what belongs to me.”
