Broken Bride

“I’ve been rich and privileged my entire life. Happy doesn’t last. Rich does. That’s what my…”

I was going to say that’s what my father says, but he doesn’t say anything anymore. He’ll never say anything ever again. I feel tears threatening to choke me. I don’t want to cry. I refuse to cry. He wouldn’t want me to cry. He would be ashamed if I did.

I change the subject. I ask Mark an impertinent question.

“You’re a criminal, aren’t you.”

He lets out a chuckle. “I suppose I am these days. It was never my intention. I used to work for law enforcement.”

“Oh.”

“Angelo has a way of corrupting those he comes into contact with,” he says, the smile fading from his lips and from his eyes. It makes me wonder if he likes Angelo, or if it is how it was between my father and me, a sort of biological love which persists long after any rational reason for it is gone.

I have only just met this man, and already we are sharing our demons. Is it the effects of the very late night? Or do we have something in common, a kind of kinship? I know that I am desperate to be understood, and that I am desperate to forget.

“Do you love Angelo?”

“Wow,” Mark draws a deep breath in. “That’s a question. Short answer? Yes. Angelo met me when I was a repressed, desperate, drug-addicted agent trying to survive. And what he did to me was cruel. He ruined my life. But he… he sort of saved me.”

“I don’t think he’s going to save me,” I whisper.

“Are you going to try to run away, or try to escape, Tilly?”

He’s asking me the question very honestly. I answer him with the same courtesy.

I shake my head.

“No?” He lifts a brow at me. “You don’t want to get out of here?”

“I have no money that I can access, nowhere to stay. Where would I go?”

“Anywhere you pleased, I suppose.”

“Are you trying to find out if I’m going to run away? Or do you want to run away? Are you some kind of counselor for captives? Trying to work out what I’m going to do?”

My tone sharpens toward the end of the barrage of questions, because I am angry at myself. I know I should be trying to run away. That’s the first thing that happens in any movie about people being stolen. You’re supposed to try to escape. But I don’t have the courage to try. I don’t even know what I would do if I did leave.

Mark gives me a long, quiet look. “You need some sleep.”

I expected him to get angry at me, maybe to hit me. That’s what happened in my father’s house if I ever expressed what he would call ingratitude. I learned to keep my thoughts and feelings to myself, so much to myself that most of the time even I don’t know what they are.

“I’m… afraid.”

He nods. “That’s understandable.”

I fall silent again. I want to ask him if I will be safe here, but my gut already tells me the answer to that is no. And then there is the fact that this man works for and seems to love the monster who brought me here. I have to remember that he's not on my side. Even if he pretends to be.

“What is happening in this place?” The question isn’t specific, but he seems to know what it means.

Mark smiles, a warm expression which seems so incongruous to all my recent experiences. “That is a good question,” he replies. “I don’t think any of us know. Angelo kept you a secret from the rest of us.”

“Are they going to hurt me?” I say they, but I mentally include him in the question too.

Mark extends a hand and pats my knee over the blankets. “I won’t let them hurt you.”

“How chivalrous of you, Mark.”

Angelo is standing in the doorway. My eyes flit to him in shock. How did I not notice him there? I wonder how long he has been listening. By the laughing look in his dark eyes, I feel as though it might have been a long time.

I wish I wasn’t in bed. I wish I hadn’t taken my dress off. Being in his presence makes me feel vulnerable. I can’t help but notice that Angelo is no longer wearing a shirt. He’s naked from the waist up, dark hair curling on his chest, and the planes of hard muscles visible below. He is in very good shape. I think he might have to be.

Mark stands up and turns to face Angelo.

“I was just trying to make Matilda feel at home,” he says. “Poor thing hasn’t slept a wink.”

“It can be difficult to sleep in new places,” Angelo says. “Even more difficult when somebody is keeping you up.”