Page 70 of Manacled Hearts

“Let’s start,” Carter orders, turning to the two large screens on the wall behind the desk.

“Not yet,” I interrupt, ignoring The Carver’s sigh.

“Why come now after all these years?” I turn to my brother who was already watching me. “And for how long?”

He exhales a heavy sigh, and replies, “It’s not permanent. But in order to protect my family, while doing what we will need to do, this was the best place for us.”

“Protect them… what are you talking about? There is no we, Ronan. Why are you here?”

“Because, brother, I’m not the only one who came back.”

What?

A picture pops up on the screens, and all at once my heart stops, blood stills, and air leaves my lungs.

It’s not possible.

My past is staring me right in the face, brought back to the present in what looks like a very recent photo, and it crashes down on me with enough force that the assault of memories breaks me.

Roberto-motherfucking-Bartiste was supposed to be fucking dead!

A shocked, delicate gasp pulls me back. I whip around at the same time everyone turns to find Evelyn standing in the doorway. Her eyes are wide, not with shock, but terror, her lips parted in a silent cry that seems to split open a dead part of my soul, and the revelation hits me at the same time she utters the name.

“Vassallo.”

CHAPTER 16

EVELYN

Thousands of needles pierce my body all at once. Each and every one of them is a figment of my imagination, bred of fear and grueling nightmares. They hurt, nonetheless. They paralyze me anyway.

Though, my muscles ache like I’m shaking.

Maybe I am… I don’t know.

The world around me disappears. All but the face of the man who was pleased to see that I wasn’t broken beyond use, and joined my destruction. Because he wanted a piece of me too.

This memory was vague until now, lost in the drug haze they put me through. I remember him, his limp as he walked closer to where I laid flat on my stomach, his fat hand squeezing my jaw as he lifted my head to inspect me, and now… his weight on top of me.

I had a feeling, but I hoped the memories of him wouldn’t come. Vassallo, the one whose face faded from my nightmares. He was lost in the darkness I was taken in. But now, in the brightness of this room… I see nothing else but him.

He’s staring at me.

Frozen eyes bore into me, gouging to the surface more of the pain buried beneath the drug-induced memory loss.

My ears pick up on activity around me, but the stinging in my veins and the incessant buzzing in my head mixed with Vassallo’s voice, pull me further away from reality and throw me in a pit filled with all I’ve been avoiding. No, that’s the wrong way of putting this, because I haven’t been avoiding what happened to me. I came to terms with it. But only because I could barely remember it.

What I have been avoiding is remembering.

A frigid ghostly touch grips my nape, my spine tingles with beads of sweat running down it, and my hands hurt, like caught in a crushing vice.

Burning sears my muscles, the pain contracting them around my bones and crushing me from the inside out. Only, the pain holds direction, like he’s yanking on them, controlling the fibers and forcing them to bind me until I can’t escape. Until I return to that dark room where he will come for me again. The other one, Frankie B, too. The one who vowed to keep me.

No, no, no!

They can’t have me! They can’t!

Warm, comfortable pressure tightens around my upper arm, but soft velvet engulfs my cheek.

---