“Why not just kill those leaders who won’t go along with what they want? If these Houses are as powerful as you say, why don’t they just replace those leaders with their own people?”
“Because that would be noticed by the masses. What you have to understand is that the Entente might have the money, but it doesn’t have the numbers. If the people knew how the world was really run, they’d rise up against the Entente. The point of controlling from the shadows is that no one knows it’s being done. And they do it pretty damn well. The people are blind to the truth. The ugly reality is hiding in plain sight, but they refuse to see it.”
Disgust pulled at her lips. “There have to be some people who know.”
“There are. The ones smart enough to figure it all out are labeled conspiracy theorists and nuts. That’s usually enough to get them blackballed in society. The ones who have actual proof the Entente exists? Those are the ones who are assassinated.”
She stared at me for several beats, then looked back down at her hands. And in the silence, I knew she still didn’t completely believe me or understand what kind of danger she was really in.
Fuck. It was now or never.
I drew a deep breath. “As the oldest and the heir to the Salvatici House, I was indoctrinated by my father to the ways of our family early on. I was thirteen the first time he took me to an event like the one you saw in the woods in Tuscany. At thirteen, I didn’t know anything about the way the world worked or my House’s involvement. All I knew that night was that there were naked girls in the middle of the woods. The men in my family called them kittens. I didn’t understand what that meant, but when one of them came toward me and everyone encouraged me to touch her, yes, I participated. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, but she was eager and willing, and when it was over, I wanted to do it again. I couldn’t wait for the next gathering to start.”
Silence met my ears, so I kept going. “I told you the gatherings are orchestrated. They don’t happen regularly, only when needed. Sometimes they’re not rituals but parties, like the one you saw with Gio on Long Island. It really depends on the depravity of the person being targeted as to which type of event is staged. I went to several when I was a teenager. Encouraged by my father and the men in our family, I participated in all of them. In some sick way, I thought it was a rite of passage, that it was part of becoming a man. It wasn’t until I went off to Oxford that I realized the rest of the world doesn’t agree.”
Natalie sat quietly on the window seat, and, unable to meet her eyes for fear of what I’d see when I did, I forced myself to keep talking. “My father directed me to attend the House Merrick parties in England while I was off at school, to create goodwill with the English House and to hopefully ease some of the tension between their House and ours. It was at one of these parties—in one of the tame, presentable gathering rooms where some wives and daughters are permitted—that I met a woman named Felicity. Her father, like mine, was head of his House. Our meeting was prearranged. Intermarriage between Houses is often encouraged. It forms alliances that come in handy during conflicts. Felicity knew that was why we were being set up, but unlike me, she also knew what her family was really all about, whereas I’d been in the dark most of my life. I stupidly thought my father was a winemaker, and that his empire was built on that alone.”
I was probably giving her too much detail, but I didn’t care. I wanted her to understand. I cleared my throat. “What my father didn’t plan for was that Felicity would educated me about the Entente, about our Houses, about their clandestine enterprises, and about the purpose of their parties. I didn’t want to believe her at first, but I instinctively knew there was more beneath the surface than my father had told me. I avoided going home that first year and took a job in London over the summer. To keep the peace with my father, I went to the House Merrick parties and made sure I was seen at those parties, but I began to lose my interest in attending. Something about them felt…forced. It wasn’t as exciting to me anymore.”
I didn’t tell her I still took part in the debauched revelries that went on behind closed doors. I didn’t tell her I fucked dozens of kittens because they were ready and willing and begging to be fucked. But I knew from her silence she didn’t need me to say the words. She already knew the truth.
“By the time I was twenty,” I said, forcing myself to finish what I’d started, “I could no longer ignore my father’s orders for a visit home. So I went, hoping that everything Felicity had told me would wind up being a lie. It wasn’t. I overheard my father discussing a shipping problem up the coastline with his brother—not of wine but of heroin, imported through Italy and our connections, and headed north into Europe. Italy is important to the Entente because it’s the main gateway between Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, and the drug trade is just one more thing the Entente controls to manipulate the masses. Keep the people dependent on drugs, and they won’t look too closely at what’s going on behind the scenes. It was the first time I realized just what kind of business actually funded our life. I wanted to have no part of it. I planned to leave for London and go back to my university that night, but my father wouldn’t let me go. He found me in the courtyard and told me there was a ritual being held that night to honor me home, and that I was required to attend. I knew it was a lie. I knew there was some other reason for the gathering, but I didn’t want to know more. I just wanted to go back to school. So I kept my mouth shut and I went.”
Images flashed in my brain—the torchlight, the flat slab of rock, the circle of men in black capes and white bauta masks, chanting. And the girl. Barely eighteen. Slim, gorgeous, with blonde hair down to the middle of her naked back as she was paraded into the circle and helped up on the altar.
She’d done all the right things, made all the right sounds as she’d lain back on the rock altar and three masked men had begun pleasuring her. And at twenty, even though I hadn’t wanted to be there, my dick had been hard and biology had taken over as I’d watched the scene unfold. I’d wanted to hear her scream when I penetrated her. I’d wanted to fuck her hard and deep. I’d wanted everyone in that circle to see her body shake when I made her come.
I stared at a spot on my boot because I knew right here was the point at which Natalie was going to hate me forever, but I couldn’t stop that from happening anymore, so I just had to get it done. “Since the ritual was held in my honor, I was the first. The girl was young and beautiful, and I told myself that she was there like all the others—because she wanted to be there. But halfway through, I looked into her eyes and saw that she was high. Not so much she didn’t know what was happening, but…enough to make me realize she wasn’t excited by it like all the men around her. She was just trying to get through it.”
The feelings—the guilt—that went with that memory tried to take hold, but I forced them back, focusing on the words instead of what they meant. “I couldn’t go on. I pretended to finish and pulled my cape around me as I retreated into the darkness. But I couldn’t watch as the ritual continued and the others used her. I couldn’t leave, though, either. I needed to know if I’d imagined what I’d seen in her eyes because of what Felicity had told me, or if it had really been there. So I waited until it was over, said my goodbyes to everyone, then pretended to leave. But I didn’t really. I lurked in the darkness and watched what they did with her. And when they dressed her and put her in a dark sedan, I followed.
“Two men took her to an apartment in Florence—not a great one, but not a total dive either. I waited in the shadows on the street and watched the windows to see which room they took her to. They didn’t stay with her long, and after the lights went dark and they reemerged on the street, got in their car, and drove off, I used the fire escape to climb up to her balcony.
“I went in through a window she’d left cracked. It was dark. I couldn’t see much more than her shape, lying still on her side on the bed. I didn’t know what they’d done to her, but I was relieved when I found her pulse strong and tha
t she was just asleep. But I still needed answers. So I woke her.
“She was groggy. Worse than she’d been during the ritual, and I knew they’d given her something more after it was all over. I also knew from the way she looked at me that some part of her remembered me, only she couldn’t figure out how. I didn’t know what to do, so I sat on the bed next to her and asked her questions. Her name was Vittoria. Most of her words were slurred, but I learned she was a student in Florence. She was from a tiny town in the country. She wanted to be a model. And she’d had an interview with a photographer from Covet just that afternoon. She was waiting to find out if she’d gotten the job.
“I knew right then that she’d been coerced into that ritual, and that every man there had taken advantage of her. Me included. I also knew if I didn’t do something to help her, they’d do it to her again. So I found her passport in a drawer. I wrapped her in a blanket, and I took her down to my car. She drifted in and out of consciousness as I drove. I didn’t have a plan where I was going—just somewhere far away—and I didn’t stop until we crossed well into Switzerland.
“I was exhausted and couldn’t keep driving, so I found a hotel on the outskirts of Bern, checked us in, and took her up to a room. She barely made a sound as I tucked her under the covers on the bed, which I was thankful for because I didn’t know what I was going to say to her or how I was going to explain everything when she awoke. London seemed like the logical place to take her, but I was too tired to think about the details then. I fell asleep on the couch while she slept on the bed. I thought the danger was behind us because we were out of Italy, but I was wrong, just as I’d been wrong about everything else with regard to my family.”
Memories of what came next made my stomach clench in a way I couldn’t stop. “A noise woke me. At the time, I didn’t realize what it was, but when I opened my eyes and discovered she was gone, I knew it had been the door slamming. She’d come out of her drugged haze sometime in the night, awoken to find a strange man with her in a strange hotel room, and she’d run. I rushed to the balcony to see which way she’d headed and spotted her crossing the street. I went after her, but she heard me chasing her and darted down an alley. When I finally caught up with her, they already had her, two men I’d never met but with tattoos on their hands I recognized. A triskele between their thumb and first fingers, the signet of House Diedrich in Germany. One had her by the throat. The other held a gun pointed at me. There was a third I didn’t see. Before I could do anything to help her, he stabbed a needle into my neck and injected me with some kind of drug that made me black out.”
My stomach twisted tight, and I paused because a whole host of emotions pummeled me from every side. Even though I tried to fight them back, they were already worming their way through the cracks in my armor, and I knew I had to hurry the story along, to get it over with before those cracks split me into a million pieces.
“I woke to the sounds of her screams. I knew immediately we weren’t in Switzerland anymore. I recognized the stone walls and slate floor. It was an outbuilding on my father’s estate, one you didn’t visit when you were there, and one I wouldn’t have let you near. They…”
My voice wavered, and I cleared my throat to hide it, adjusted my feet, and stared down at the carpet in the hopes it would keep me focused on something solid and not the memories threatening to pull me in. “The three who captured us were taking turns raping her. I…I tried to help her, but I was chained to a chair, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t get to her. They acted like I wasn’t even there, no matter how I struggled or screamed for them to stop or begged or threatened. And then I heard my father’s voice.
“He was behind me somewhere, watching it all. In my ear, he said this was my fault. That I’d sentenced her to this by thinking she was good for anything other than being a fucktoy. I knew then that what they were doing to her wasn’t about her. It was about me. It was my punishment for going against my House and trying to save her. I thought if I promised my father it wouldn’t happen again, they’d let her go. I thought if I shut my mouth and stayed quiet, they’d finish and she’d be okay. I was wrong. Before I even realized what was happening, one of the three pulled a knife and sliced her throat open.”
My chest contracted at the memory, and tears I hadn’t shed in years burned my eyes. I blinked rapidly to force them back, swiping a hand over my face so Natalie couldn’t see. I’d gotten through the worst part. I was almost done. I had to finish.
I had to tell her the rest.
I had to make her understand.
I cleared my throat again. “When it was over, when the three men had left, my father made me look at her lying still on the mattress in a pool of blood. And then he told me that the next time I chose to risk everything for a woman, it had best be one from the right bloodline and the right House, and that if she wasn’t, she’d end up exactly like Vittoria.”
Natalie didn’t respond. The room was utterly silent but for the roar of blood in my ears. I didn’t dare look at her. I couldn’t bear to see the revulsion in her eyes. I couldn’t face that even though I knew I deserved it.
I drew one last breath so I could get it all out. “My father unchained me. He told me they had me on video fucking her in the woods. That my fingerprints were already on the knife used to murder her. If I went to the police, if I alerted anyone to what had gone down that night, I’d take the blame for her death. The fact he had the support of House Dietrich told me I couldn’t even trust another House to back me, and that any alliance I’d formed with Felicity could get her killed as well. It also told me that gathering in the woods had been designed to blackmail me. So I’d fall in line with what my father wanted and never again question anything my House did.”
I rubbed a hand across the back of my neck, desperate now just to tell her the rest. “My father then told me to get my head in the right place and that we’d talk later. He left me there with her, and as I stared at what they’d done to her, I vowed then and there never to participate in any of their sick rituals again. I left Italy that night with only the money in my wallet. I didn’t go back to England. I didn’t talk to my mother or my siblings about what had happened. I walked away from my family and everything they stood for, and I didn’t look back. I knew they’d find me—I knew they could find me wherever I went—but I didn’t care.
“I finally heard from my mother about six months later. I was in Australia at the time, working for a shipbuilder, when I got a letter from her. I’m not sure how she tracked me down, but I called her back as she instructed, knowing I couldn’t stay silent. She told me she didn’t know what had happened between me and my father, but claimed he felt bad over it. I didn’t believe her. I also suspected she knew more than she was letting on and that she’d taken my father’s side. She asked me to come home. I said no. When she realized I wasn’t going to budge, she said that my father had agreed to let me take some time to deal with my issues, but that eventually, I’d have to return and take my place with the family. I didn’t answer her. I didn’t have an answer for her.
“They left me alone for about six years, then bit by bit forced me back into the family. They knew I’d started a business in Tahiti, and they sent a man to my warehouse to make that known to me. I’ve kept this island secret. It’s not on any maps or on any bills of sale. It’s also not in my name, so for now, it’s hidden. But I realized when that guy showed up that if I wanted it to continue to be hidden, I couldn’t go on ignoring them. And if I wanted to live, I couldn’t pretend they didn’t exist. That might sound selfish to you, but my life was the only thing I had left. So I did as little as possible. I went back to Italy now and then and made public appearances at Salvatici events so my name was once more associated with our House. Every time the winery expanded, I showed up at the festivities like the heir everyone expects me to be. I even showed up at Covet events during fashion weeks in Rome and Milan and Paris and let myself be photographed by the press just to keep my father off my back. But I a
voided going home, and I never again attended any of my House’s depraved parties or rituals. That masquerade on Long Island was the first I’d been to in twelve years. And the gathering in the woods that night in Tuscany… The only reason I went to that was because I was afraid if I didn’t, they’d go after you.”
What came next was the most important thing I had to say, so I lifted my head, intending to look her in the eyes when I said it, but the best I could force myself to do was gaze at the dark window above her. “You have every reason to hate me. I hate myself for getting you wrapped up in all this. I shouldn’t have touched you in Italy. I should have stuck with my original plan and been such an ass, you couldn’t wait to run home to Idaho, but I didn’t. And when I realized you’d fled my parents’ estate, I knew I had to do whatever it took to make sure what happened to Vittoria never happened to you. So, yeah, I followed you. I drugged you so you wouldn’t make a scene they could find. I brought you to the South Pacific when you were unconscious, because I knew you’d never go anywhere willingly with me after what you’d seen. And I arranged for us to be married when you were barely lucid, because spouses in the Entente are protected against execution. Then I brought you to this island, where we’d be hidden for a while and where you couldn’t escape, so you’d have time to adjust to our new situation. And I did that because—and this part is important—spouses are only protected so long as they’re willing participants in the marriage. None of it was right, and all of it was wrong, but I’d make each and every choice exactly the same again without hesitation to keep you safe, because that’s all that matters to me now. Making sure no one ever hurts you again is my only focus.”
The last of my words echoed in the room like a doomed drumbeat. She didn’t respond, didn’t ask any questions, didn’t even look up at me. And as silence stretched between us like a vast ocean, the carefully constructed walls I’d built to protect myself started to crumble.