* * *
Luca’s timing is so lucky I might have thought he’d done it on purpose to save me. But I know the truth. The basement is truly soundproof. Ivan could keep me down here for the rest of my life—and no one would hear my screams. And besides, Luca would never go against Ivan. Not even for me.
Ivan studies his bodyguard for a moment. Then his gaze slides to me. I can see him deliberating whether he wants to let me go to the surface. Whether he thinks I’ll make a run for it.
“Sir,” Luca says, and I hear something in that voice. Something I’ve never heard from the street-hardened man—a sliver of fear.
Ivan must hear it too. “Show me.”
He doesn’t exactly let me go upstairs. Nothing as gentlemanly as allowing me to walk ahead of him. No, he heads upstairs. And I’m free to follow, even though I’m still shuddering. The air feels like glass, and I’m sucking it in by the lungful. My body doesn’t believe that I’ll be able to take another breath, so it’s hoarding them, making me pant even when I’ve had enough.
We reach the top, and the hallway is empty. That’s not that strange considering how early it is, but my skin pricks. The hair on the back of my neck rises, and I don’t think it’s only because of Luca’s strange behavior. There’s something in the air, a metal tang. Blood.
That’s the first thing I see when we push into the alley
way. Buckets of blood. A goddamn river of it, coating the ground and mingling in the ever-present puddles. Some of it’s clotted. I clap my hand over my mouth, smothering my cry and keeping myself from throwing up. I want to cry. I want to scream. But all I can do is stand there, frozen.
“Where’s the body?” Ivan asks, his voice cold. He sounds almost unaffected. God, maybe he is unaffected. What’s a little blood to clean up? Or a lot of blood…
I don’t know how he even noticed there wasn’t a body, but now that I look—there isn’t one. Only blood. It’s actually creepier this way, without a source.
“We’re pulling the tapes,” Luca says. “We’ll find out what happened.”
West is there, looking serious.
So is Oscar, the head of security. “I already called Blue,” he says. “And the cops.”
Ivan’s face is a stone mask. “We’ll handle this in-house. Heads will roll.”
Heads will roll. Violence and more violence. Blood and more blood. A hysterical laugh bubbles out of me. Only then do they look over at me.
West seems concerned, Oscar angry.
Luca seems disgusted.
And Ivan…he seems like he always does. Calm. Calculating.
“Get back inside,” he says, somehow cool in the face of this gore.
I’m rooted to the spot, unnaturally drawn to the gruesome scene, straight out of my nightmares. The Grand has always been my safe place. And now that I’ve decided to leave, the dreams have found me here.
“Inside,” he repeats.
“I’m done listening to you,” I say, and even I can hear the panic in my voice, the high-pitched thread of fear. “You don’t get to order me around. You don’t even get to talk to me.”
Ivan stares at me, and I imagine him slapping me. I imagine him pushing me against the bloodstained brick and choking the life out of me. I imagine him turning me over the trash can and spanking me.
His expression softens. “It’s okay, Candy. Look at me. Focus on me. You’re okay.”
“I’m not.” My voice is shaky. It’s my little-girl voice, the one I only use for him. Except now West and Oscar and Luca are hearing it too. Not just as part of an act, with a dress-up schoolgirl outfit and pigtails. This is the real little girl that’s buried inside me, right on the surface.
Ivan sees it too. He reacts to it, even if he doesn’t want to. “I want you to go inside and wait for me. Right now.”
“I’m scared,” I whisper. “It’s happening again.”
A month ago there was a message left on my vanity mirror with bubblegum lipstick. John 10:16. A Bible verse. A warning. And now this, a river of blood. Ivan believed that was a random attack, but it felt familiar. And this feels personal.
Ivan doesn’t deny it. “I’m going to fix this,” he says, right there in the back alley, in front of Luca and West, with the seedy downtown Tanglewood as my witness. “Daddy will make it right.”