Seeing the fear on my face, he stood and bent, lifting me into his arms. “It’s okay, precious,” he murmured, pressing his lips to my temple, and I felt oddly comforted. “You’re safe now.”
“I-I… That guy,” I whispered, burying my face in his chest, breathing in deep and taking his scent into me. His smell calmed me further and all I wanted was to have that scent in my nose forever. “He’s dead.”
“Yes,” he growled, the sound almost animalistic, making me shiver.
“Did you mean...to kill him?”
“He’s lucky I didn’t slit his fucking throat,” he rasped, walking purposefully toward my house.
I shuddered, but clung to him as he climbed the steps to my porch.
“Keys, precious.”
I bit my lip and lifted my head. “They’re in my backpack. I-I dropped it.”
His jaw clenched but he gave a single nod. “Don’t worry. I’ll get it and return it to you.” Setting me down on the top step, he stroked a finger down my cheek, wiping away a few of my tears. I saw the cuts on his knuckles, the bruises already forming from where he’d beat the driver unconscious. “Call the cops and your mother. I will get your things back to you.”
I watched him turn and walk back toward his car, but before he could get to the bottom of my driveway, I found myself calling after him. “Th-Thank you, G.”
His wide shoulders stiffened, but after a moment he gave a single nod and kept walking. I waited until he was in the car and drove away before calling the sheriff and then my mother.
Four years later...
Gian
Where the fuck is she?
My heartbeat pounded against my temples, making it close to impossible to think clearly as I tore through her house, searching for some sign of my precious one.
It was empty of course. No Monroe, or her sister. No brother or parents. The house felt soulless without Monroe within its walls to fill it with life. Just as I’d felt since I realized I couldn’t hear her breathing.
When I closed my eyes, the sound of her heartbeat was absent and my own heart had stopped, thinking that something was wrong. I’d had a break in my busy day and as always, I’d found myself opening the app on my phone that connected me to the chip in her necklace. There was a GPS and microphone in the Saint Michael medallion I’d given her years before. The microphone was so sensitive it could clearly pick up a whispered conversation from fifty feet away from the person wearing it.
And when it was quiet, I could hear Monroe’s heartbeat as easily as if my ear was pressed against her chest. At night, as I lay in bed, unable to shut off the noise of the past, the sound of her heart beating so steadily soothed me to sleep. I couldn’t rest without the sound filling my senses.
But it wasn’t there earlier when I opened the app to listen to what she was doing. There was no background noise of a television set or even the annoying drone of one of her teacher’s voices. She’d graduated the week before, so I wasn’t expecting to hear them, but I was waiting for one of her siblings or her parents to say something in the background. Or for her to speak to me, as she sometimes did when she was alone.
She couldn’t have known I could hear her, yet she spoke out loud to me at times. As if I were right there beside her, she would ask what I was doing, or how my day way. And when she was feeling particularly lonely, she would ask why I hadn’t come for her.
It was when she asked that particular question I had to pick up a bottle and drink until I couldn’t think straight, or I would go to her. Take her away from her loving family, and hide her away from everyone but me. I was selfish where my precious one was concerned. I wanted all her time, all her smiles, all her love. But I knew I couldn’t have her. Not yet, maybe not ever.
But I could have a part of her life every day, even if it was stolen. The medallion allowed me into her life, gave me peace. She was safer without me pulling her out of her world and into mine, I would remind myself. Safe and loved and happy.
Yet when I hadn’t heard her, or even her heartbeat, something snapped in me. A flip was switched and all I could think was that I needed to find her.
Now.
I ran up the stairs and straight into her room, the door banging against the wall in my rush to find a clue that would take me to her.
What I found only had my heart pounding harder, making me gasp for breath as I lifted the necklace out of the box I’d given her all those years ago. Back then, I’d only wanted to protect her. After one look at her in the surveillance pictures my adopted father had shown me, I’d ached to keep her safe.
Over the years, however, that need to protect her had grown into something else. Something...more. And while protecting her was still my number one priority, I would have sold my soul to have her for my own.
If I still had one.
But between my real father, Enzo Fontana, and my adopted one, Carlo Santino, they had destroyed it, making it impossible to bargain with.
Under the necklace was a folded piece of paper. My fingers balled into a fist around the chain as I reached for the paper with the other. Seeing her pretty handwriting made my heart stutter for a moment before it began thumping wildly against my chest once again.
G,
I knew you would come when you realized I was gone. I’m not stupid, I knew there was a microphone in the medallion. How else could you always know when I was in trouble?
Please, take it with you when you go. I can’t do this anymore. Having your necklace around my neck made me think I was yours, that maybe I belonged to you, but I’ve realized that’s a fantasy I’ve been feeding myself. If you wanted me, you would have already made me yours. My mistake. I’m sorry, I just didn’t understand before now.
Maybe I am stupid after all.
Whatever. It doesn’t matter.
Take the necklace. Don’t worry about me anymore. I’m not your responsibility. I never was, although I’m thankful for all the times you saved me.
Goodbye, G.
Monroe
The paper fell to the floor without me realizing as I stared down at the medallion hanging from the chain in my hand. She had realized there was a microphone.
Which meant she really did know she was talking to me all those times…
Fuck.
And now I didn’t know where she was.
I sucked in a deep, calming breath that did nothing to ease the tightness in my chest or the constriction around my heart.
Unacceptable.
I needed to hear her voice. Her heart beating. I needed to know she was safe. That no one had harmed her. No one had taken my precious one from me.
I would find her.
And I would take what was mine.