Saved: a dark romance Read online

  I sit up.

  She’s holding a syringe.

  “He’s asked me to give you a birth control shot. It’ll last about three months.”

  My heart begins to race. She gives me the shot.

  “And I must tell you, I know you’re upset about Esmerelda. But what happened isn’t what you think.”

  I frown.

  “Not your fault. He’s protected you.”

  She takes a breath and gives me a second to get comfortable, I guess. I’m not comfortable. At all. And I’m not talking about getting pricked in the arm, either.

  “Several have died trying to hurt you. At least three that I know of. One: Andrea. She wanted to sink her claws in him. She’s a family friend. She died because she tried to burn you to death. She heard he was keeping a girl and this girl was what she saw as her barrier to having him. He found out it was her, not the gardener that set the fire, and that it was no accident, so he choked her to death. In front of a lot of people. He went into a rage. My cousin? He’s a scary guy but I’ve never seen him that scary. It was his birthday party and he choked her to death in front of dozens of people because she tried to burn your building with you in it. That fear of something happening to you made him move you to this house, where no one is allowed to stay. No one. Not me, not housekeepers. He has the rest of the family and any guests in a complete other building. Let that sink in.”

  My mouth is open. I am in utter shock.

  “Marcus, a worker who was blackmailing Esmerelda. He died next. He blackmailed her to leave your door unlocked that night. He was gonna take you. He and another … man… they had planned it. Take you to give you to an enemy for ransom from Lex.”

  I make a face and she reads correctly because she elaborates.

  “Alessandro: Lex, his nickname. And Esmerelda. They both died for that. Marcus and her. She cared for you. I know she did. She was a good woman. But, she was blackmailed and felt she had no choice. Her family was being threatened. She told him that but still, she told him after the guy tried to get you. Alessandro wouldn’t forgive that.”

  I’m speechless. In shock.

  “He told you all this?”

  “Yes. He caught the guy almost at your door and dealt with him and I’m glad I didn’t see that. I saw the bodies in the crematorium. I know who lives and dies here. When he got back from killing him, that’s when you were in his room. He would’ve torn this place apart if he didn’t find you right away. You should not feel bad about Esmerelda. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “He … he wants me to believe he’s bad.”

  “He is bad.”

  I frown.

  “You’re getting to him. It could be good. It could be useless. I don’t know.” She shrugs. “I don’t want you thinking Esmerelda is your fault. Esmerelda should have told him when that guy was blackmailing her. He would’ve made it stop. Instead, she let them make her betray him and that he won’t forgive. I’m gonna try hard to not come back, Holly. He hasn’t agreed yet and he might try to make me come back, but I need to move on. I did my time. More than my time. I can’t do this anymore. I just wanted you to know that wasn’t your fault.”

  “Dr. Jimena, I’m so confused. Why is he keeping me?”

  “Holly, I can’t say much. But, let me say this. Alessandro and I spent time together when we were small. He left, his mama ran and took him away for years and he came back different. He came back Lex. And then he spent time with his papa and learned to be who he now is. I don’t want to know him. No one does. I figured he was beyond hope but since you? Since that fire, you change my mind. Maybe you can do something.”

  “How? What---”

  “Just do what you do now. It’s affecting him. Your light. The way you are. It’s doing something to him. Keep bright, Holly.”

  She leaves, locking me in on her way out.

  I’m so confused.

  Alessandro

  No one will ever fucking take her from me. They best not even try.

  The holly is a beautiful thing to behold. Looking at it makes you happy, infuses your blood with joy, beauty, serenity. You become filled with everything connected with it. Peace. More. But, if you dare to taste the succulent-looking fruit, it’s dangerous to your health.

  She was dangerous to my mental health. She made me want things, impossible things. It used to be that having her safe was something that helped me hang on. I guess I was trying to hold onto something inside me that had been slipping away.

  It wasn’t rational. I didn’t allow myself to dwell on it. In hindsight, maybe at first it had something to do with Katarina. She arrived on the anniversary of Kat’s death.

  I only knew she was safe and she’d been kept that way. She was out of reach. I didn’t touch her. I rarely set eyes on her. In the early months, I barely thought about her being here. Joaquin had told me to buy her, and I did, not realizing that not only was she a virgin, but she wasn’t even sixteen years old when she arrived. No, fuck no. I put her aside.

  And I later found out he did that as a joke. As a dig. To remind me of the sins of some of my relatives who like too-young girls. Fucking cunt that he is.

  A few times, I caught sight of her in my periphery, the few times I was around when she was led to an appointment within the compound.

  In the past few months I’d seen that she was losing her child-like looks. Growing into a woman. A woman so luscious, so lovely that I couldn’t look at her for long or the vision would carve my insides out with a rusty spoon until I took her.

  But now, having her in my possession, it simultaneously made me crazy while it centered me, kept me focused. Thinking about having her filled me with longing. Thinking about ruining her hollowed out my guts, made me feel empty. A conundrum.

  She started out as meaning something to me that I never tried to define, but she’s become something else and it’s tormenting me, while also making me feel alive.

  I had my side tattooed with a black panther when I took over the family business. Dark, but stealthy. Like me. It’s a rare animal. Like me. Nocturnal. Like me. It’s not social and it lives to hunt. Again, me.

  The panther is said to only socialize to mate. I haven’t had to do that, because I have a basement full of available pussy. Only, I haven’t partaken lately, because of Holly.

  I brought her sketchbook with me to the same tattoo guy and he is gonna use her photo to add a small cluster of black flowers to my skin. Black hollyhock. Like she drew with her own small graceful hands.

  To remind me.

  Keep stealthy. Remain focused. Protect her. I protect her now by keeping her close. Even though I know it’s irrelevant that I protect her; it’s just a matter of time until I burn her to ash myself.

  I may have kept the freedom that was stolen from her, but she’s stolen my common sense in many ways.

  Having her safe behind closed doors used to dawn on me in times when I needed something to anchor me, help me stay rational. Like she was a safe but untouchable goddess that I protected, as if protecting her was protecting that small part of the old me that remained.

  But now, after touching her, smelling her on my sheets, after her little games, catching her laugher in the hallways, seeing her smile at me with stars in her eyes and dimples on her cheeks, the way she looks right into my eyes searchingly, like she’s trying to see what others can’t see?

  She’s shattered the protective shield that I put around her to keep her safe. Safe from me.

  She has no idea of the depravity, of the monster that I’ve protected her from. She has some delusion about me being good, deep down. Delusions. Because I’m far from good. Even way deep. I thought that the end of Esmerelda would’ve changed that. Somehow, it didn’t.

  I barely sleep, so I watch her sleep. At least I can see her peaceful. Safe. For now.

  I watch her during the day sometimes, too. I’m haunted the last few weeks by how she stared into space, daydreaming. How she stares at the mirror, but right at me. How she looked at me w
hen the words I’d spat at her had shattered her foolish dreams. How she screamed and cried after I put a bullet in that bitch’s forehead.

  I’m in knots over loving my name on her beautiful lips.

  I’ve always hated that name and all it represents, but when she says it, it does something else to me. Something that hurts. And though hurt usually makes me want to lash out, this hurt is something I take in, basking in, feeling that hurt as if it’s a soothing balm.

  When she says that name, she knows nothing of the meaning of it. To her, Alessandro is the distant stranger that keeps her safe that has that name. To her, I’m not a monster.

  She’s wrong. Deadly wrong.

  To me, she is the one untainted thing that exists in my world. My world is filthy, black, evil --- and I’m a big part of the reason for that. But Holly? She’s clean, pure; she’s light. I’m night; she’s day. And it’s only a matter of time before I lose my loose hold on control and turn her to nothing but charred remnants of what she was.

  Finding out she was in danger when I heard her frantic voice on the phone? When someone shouted, as I hung up, that the servant residence was up in flames? It flipped a switch. I accused her of flipping the switch by sexualizing herself when she knew I was watching, but really, it was the fire that did it. It was the fire and the notion that Holly could be taken from me that made me lose it.

  I knew I wanted her. I knew she was waiting. I knew down to the pit of my gut that I’d eventually give in and make her mine. But it was all in the back of my mind, safe from me.

  And then, I touched her. I saw how she looked at me up close.

  I felt something strange, like a fist wrap around my heart, as she took that leap and trusted me to catch her. The feel of her in my arms? It felt right. Righter than anything. And I had to shake it off, because of what it made me want to do.

  Touching her, holding her, it flipped the switch to the nuclear reactor that is my libido. And that fist has become two. One that still has me by the heart. And the other that has me by the cock.

  And because I haven’t acted on my urges, I’ve lost focus.

  The coming days of watching her, seeing her spirit up close? Smelling her on my sheets? Fucking flower blossoms and peaches. Killing me softly.

  Hearing her voice in the halls and then how she fucked with me when she figured out I’d been watching her? Her drawings of me? How she saw me and translated what she thought she saw to paper? Fuck.

  It was reckless to kill Andrea in front of a crowd. But squeezing out her last breath was my only option. Like blinking because something was in my eye. There was no other possible outcome.

  Same for Esmerelda and the shit stain that conspired with my enemy to try to steal Holly from me. There was no way on earth they weren’t gonna die for that. The ever-grinding rumor mill is chewing on the fact that there’s a girl I’m keeping for me. A white, blonde, blue-eyed young virgin with a sweet ass and a rack that would make any heterosexual man’s mouth water.

  I should have known when Andrea asked about her, asked if it was true that I was saving a virgin, that the rumor mill was saying I’d been saving her for two years. I seethe with the knowledge that because I didn’t shut her down, she took a jerry can and matches down there in her evening gown and her $2,000 shoes, and poured, lit, and then strutted back here and downed more champagne, as if she wasn’t trying to kill the only possession of mine that I actually want.

  Her actions meant the end for her. And the way I ended her life meant that eyebrows were raised and now the rumor mill wasn’t only grinding away about Holly. It was likely that there were more comparisons being made between me and my father.

  And I was still pissed at Andrea. If I could, I’d go back and put her in a building and set it on fire so she could know fear as the flames closed in, the fear she put Holly through. And then Andrea would slowly burn to death. Fucking bitch. Spoiled little bitch. Her father died six months ago, a business associate of my father’s. Luckily for me, I guess, otherwise I’d have more enemies.

  I hated parties. I hated having people at my house. My sanctuary.

  Jimena, some other cousins, my dead half-brother’s mother, a few of my father’s favorite slaves all lived in his mansion, on the other side of the property.

  But this home, along with the business buildings were behind fences. This was the house I built for me. So that I had a memory-free place with no unknown surveillance systems in it, to exist in until I could end all this shit. But this place overlooks where the filthy shit happens. I don’t hide it behind a wall like he did. I make myself look at the bed I’ve made for myself every fucking day.

  Jimena was the only person related to me that had semi-regular access to my house. She organized the party with some of my relatives as a sense of duty and as a fake surprise, per my directions. It was a necessary evil that I had her orchestrate based on directions that came to me.

  A necessary evil. Like me.

  I hate surprises, even fake ones, but pretended it didn’t piss me off. I had to do it and it snowballed from a Romero family party into a thing with eighty guests, including important contacts there to surprise me, to test me as per usual, so I kept my cool and played along. Until finding out that Holly was in danger.

  Party over. Test failed.

  And after choking the life out of that bitch for trying to kill Holly, word got back to my enemy. And who knows how many other people have it in their heads to conspire to take her.

  The more people think they know what she means, the more I save her, the more the enemy knows of her value to me.

  He contacted me after the party and laughed at me. He had no directions this time. He just wanted me to hear him fucking cackle like the lunatic he is. I hung up the phone. He called and laughed again after Marcus. I knew it was him that arranged that. He wanted to see how loyal the staff were so he was behind it, offering money to Marcus without revealing his identity.

  This time he didn’t laugh. This time he said, “I’m watching you. Don’t get weak, Alessandro. Don’t allow anyone weak to work for you and be in your space. I’m always watching.”

  He hasn’t called back since. It has been a welcome break the past few months. I never get too comfortable. He could call and put more demands on me at any point in time.

  I’m heading to Thailand with Rocco, my right-hand man and the only person in this outfit that I semi-trust. We’re going to get a couple things in order, so that we can help the Ferrano brothers in their efforts to take down some mutual enemies. Particularly one enemy. The man who sent Holly to the auction and got word to me that there was a morsel there that day I should have Rocco bid on for me. Joaquin Delgado. There’s only one person on this planet I want dead more than I want Delgado dead. So, I’m gonna help the Ferrano boys get Delgado dead.

  The Ferrano boys won’t know we’re in the background assisting their endeavors. Zack Jacobs, our mutual acquaintance, is serving as a go-between. And then, if necessary, I’ll find a way to connect with Tommy Ferrano, the brother of Holly’s sister’s husband. I’m hoping I can appeal to the head of the Ferrano family, get him to reason with Dario Ferrano, the new brother-in-law of Holly.

  Like I told Holly, if necessary, I’ll forge an alliance with them the old-fashioned way --- marriage.

  A joke. Marriage. As if someone like me would have that kind of bond with someone. That kind of life. That kind of life for me is about as possible as the redemption of my soul. Not very fucking likely.

  I don’t want these men as enemies. I helped recover their sister from the same slave auction house Holly came from. She’d been nabbed and sent there after her brother pissed off some pissant in Nevada.

  I offered the sister back in exchange for their word that they’d forget any notion of taking Holly from me. It’s not working out to be that simple. And though I didn’t expect it to be, I expected something different than what actually happened. Their actions and a few words from Zack Jacobs tells me that they’re not on side
with a lot of what their father would’ve been a proponent of.

  I asked Zack Jacobs some very pointed questions and his responses tell me that they’ll soon be my enemies if I’m not cautious. I won’t risk them trying to take her from me. Instead, I’ll make them even more indebted to me.

  I’ll help them take down Delgado and destroy a place he has a stake in called Kruna, the resort of pure depravity in Thailand that had Holly’s sister. It’ll be good to take him down. It’ll also be good to take Kruna out of the equation. My father had a longstanding relationship with many of those senior partners. Fewer men like him in the world? Not a bad thing.

  And the Ferrano boys may be more useful as allies than as foes, particularly if Zack Jacobs comes through for me soon, with the task we are both working on.

  I was impressed at the coup Tommy Ferrano pulled off a few months ago when he took out Juan Carlos and as part of the process, handed his business to competition, who helped him pull off that coup. It’s something I’d have done. In fact, it’s something I gave a nod to, when an ally came to me to say that Ferrano had approached them for a partnership.

  And it’s a chance to stick it to Jesse and Juan Carlos that little bit more in their graves. Me, in a friendly alliance, maybe even in-laws with the men who killed them.

  My grudges went deep enough that even knowing my father’s uncle and my father’s second-born son were worm food, I still felt the need to stick it to them. It should’ve been me that took those motherfuckers down. It’s good they’re no longer breathing, but I’d have preferred it to be at my hand.

  No, I have zero loyalty just because those men were blood to me. Blood doesn’t mean squat to me.

  Joaquin Delgado wasn’t blood, he was more of a brother to me than Jesse ever was and here I am, plotting to help get him dead.

  Someone fucks me over, they pay with their life. Simple as that.

  And Delgado may be more of a brother than Jesse was, he’s also the reason that Holly is mine. But, he’s a liability who has put me in a variety of uncomfortable positions in the last few years.