Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
I nod, although she has her back to me so she can’t see me. I straighten. “Fine. But I will know who hurt you. As for tonight, there’s nowhere to go. The house is locked up tight and guarded. You’ll stay in this room until I give you permission to leave it. And if you try to use a weapon against me again, you’ll understand what real punishment is, am I clear?”
“Crystal.”
“Good,” I move to the door, glance back once. “Goodnight,” I say, unsurprised when all I get for a response is a show of her middle finger. I should punish the act, but I don’t. She’s tired. I’m tired. So I close the door and lock it behind me.
5
ALLEGRA
Only when he’s gone can I finally breathe. I sag against the pillows and pull the duvet closer, needing the warmth and weight of it. I hold it to my chest as my eyes adjust to the dark room. Moonlight streams through the stained-glass windows casting soft purple and red light into the strange space with its dark opulence and its vaulted ceilings.
I turn my face to the pillow beside mine, but it’s a mistake. His scent lingers here, aged leather with a dark, woodsy undertone, a scent that leaves a trace of raw masculinity in the air and I hate the fact that I’m breathing it in.
Fuck. Something is seriously wrong with me. Cassian Trevino is a brutal man. He is the villain. I should not be attracted to him. The opposite. I should be repelled.
And yet, as I lay on my back and stare up at the ceiling, my mind revisits the feel of his hands on me. His eyes.
His mouth.
Fuck. His mouth.
He put me in his bed, not the one in the adjoining room. I know what that means, don’t I?
I reach to switch on the lamp on the nightstand. The light is warm and just bright enough for me to make out that a mural paints this ceiling too. I noticed it all when they brought me in. He lives in a church. Old St. Anastasia’s. It’s part of the history of Devil’s Peak. We studied it in school, how it was built in homage to the church in Verona. This one is not as old, obviously, but I pored over the photos in our textbooks when I was younger. My class, when I used to attend them before I was home-schooled, had even taken a field trip here. It wasn’t used for worship anymore by then, it was more of a monument going to ground. A near-ruin.
I also recall the darker history of it, how people disappeared in the catacombs. How the priests of St. Anastasia wielded their power in those dark days. But no secret rooms were ever found. There were no hidden dungeons. So maybe they were just rumors. Tall tales that took on a life of their own over the centuries.
I recall talk of the church being sold to some secret buyer and the ridiculous amount of money he was pouring into it. There was so much speculation as to who it was. I remember the whispers that it was sold to a crime family but, like everything else, the next story came and this one was forgotten and the town moved on.
I push the duvet back and get out of the bed. Soft carpet cushions my feet as I wrap the throw that was at the foot of the bed over my shoulders. I cross the room to the oversized, eight-sided baptismal font. It’s big enough for an adult to sit inside. The stone is cold to the touch. I circle it, taking in the worn carvings. I recall from my lessons that this was imported from a ruined cathedral in Italy, I don’t remember which. The building is about four hundred years old, but this is even older. I wonder how many others have touched it like I am now. How many babies were baptized inside it. How many adults drowned in it. Because that, too, is part of the church’s history.
I shiver with a sudden chill that has nothing to do with the temperature in the room. I hug the blanket closer. My clothes are tatters on the floor. I pick them up and put them in the trash can where his bloody shirt is and walk over to his closet. I open the door and switch on the light. It’s not what I expect. Not at all. The interior is a modern, huge closet without a single empty shelf.
I touch the edge of a jacket sleeve. Cassian Trevino apparently likes clothes. A lot of them. Definitely not something I’d have guessed. I walk through, read the designer labels, some I don’t even recognize, most Italian. He’s vain. Well, someone as beautiful as he is, I get it.