Page 64 of The Freedom in Captivity

“You see me, right?” Rozelyn weakly gestures to herself, breaking up their argument. “Do I look like I’m fit enough to attack, even if I wanted to, which by the way, I don’t.”

Rosen loosens his hold on Aurora, who slowly takes a step nearer. And then another, her ex-bodyguard a constant shadow until Aurora stops at the edge of the sleeping bag and crouches down, one hand positioned on the cement ground to steady herself. Her manicured nails, light pink in colour, and the ring she’s wearing on her pinky are a complete contrast to this basement.

Rosen’s hand darts toward her. “Aurora, get up.”

She throws a scathing look over her shoulder at him. One that makes my own balls shrivel and it’s not even directed toward me. “I play in dirt for fun, Rosen. A dirty ground isn’t much of a difference.”

I doubt the community garden involves blood stains, but the mafia princess choosing to stand or sit isn’t my concern. Ensuring Rozelyn remains still and doesn’t try to attack is.

“Hi.” Aurora directs her attention to Rozelyn. “Feels like a long time.”

“How was the wedding?” is all Rozelyn asks. “Bet it ended with a good nap?”

Aurora flinches at the reminder, and Rosen looks seconds away from murdering Rozelyn. I inch closer to Rozelyn, for her protection.

“Obviously,” Aurora replies dryly. “So getting close to me at the garden was all a set-up.”

Rozelyn’s tongue dampens her drying, cracking lips and she nods once. “My father’s plan. He wanted the distraction while he escaped. You were freshly returned to the family and he knew you’d be more receptive than the others. He wanted to taunt you all.” She glances up at me and then Rosen. “The notes outside your clubs were also from me on his orders.”

Always on his orders.

Aurora’s brows scrunch together. “You were the only person, outside this family, I thought I could have a genuine friendship with. I even hid your presence at the garden from him,” she gestures to Rosen, “because I knew he and my brother would lock me in my room and not allow me near strangers. That’s how much you meant to me.”

“That’s your mistake then.”

My attention slides from Aurora’s hurt expression to Rozelyn. This isn’t at all the woman who was here an hour ago. Her walls are back up; her comments snarkier than they need to be. She’s protecting herself again—for whatever reason, she’s viewing Aurora as a threat.

For all her words, Rozelyn’s eyes lower, seemingly looking through Aurora rather than at her. Rozelyn’s many things, but she’s becoming worse and worse at lying. Or she’s simply giving up.

Aurora shakes her head slowly, the dip between her eyes deepening. “I don’t believe you one bit, Roz. What you did wasn’t because you wanted to.”

Rozelyn flinches with the name she used at the community garden; the name Aurora knew her as. Her gaze lowers again until she’s staring at Aurora’s feet. I’m not the only one noticing Rozelyn’s demeanour change because Rosen is continuously looking between me and the women.

“Believe what you want,” she weakly shrugs, “but it’s the truth. You should hate me, Aurora. After all, them sending you in here is a pathetic attempt.” She glares at me. “Do you not recall the conversation we had less than an hour ago?”

“Iwanted to speak with you,” Aurora cuts in. “I wanted to know why you’d harm me if your father had already escaped.”

“Did he?” Rozelyn asks in a taunting tone, indicating otherwise. “Or was he hiding in the city, right beneath your noses, putting everything in place before his escape? Including me. And now look,” she scans the room, “you’re all so focused on me, my father made his escape.”

This isn’t the truth. Not all of it. For whatever reason, Rozelyn’s editing the facts. She followed her father’s orders to help him—or be under the guise of helping him—but using her real name in the garden, getting captured willingly, it’s a set-up. From her father’s point-of-view, she’s been caught. He has no idea she’s had her own plan this entire time.

Unbeknownst to Aurora, who devours everything Rozelyn tells her, I think Rosen comes to the same conclusion based on the way his expression drops, the tenseness evaporating. He meets my eyes and mouths,Double agent.

“And yet, you used your real name to get in here because you and I both know your reasons go deeper than obeying your father.” I wait until Rozelyn glances at me to silently remind her of our conversation earlier.

“Or talking about the possibility of there being one less Corsetti?” Rosen speaks up, bringing up his reason for stabbing her.

Aurora glances back and forth among the three of us, finally catching up that there’s more happening around her than she realizes.

Rozelyn shrugs. “I had to make it look real. He slipped out of the city while you were hunting for me. Left me here because I was the distraction, but he had eyes on me still, so I couldn’t walk right up to you. He’d know.” She looks at Aurora to explain, “Getting close to you was an act, drugging you the outcome, as he requested.”

“Did you even like me at all? Wasanythingwe spoke about real?”

Rozelyn merely stares. And stares. The weight inside the room becomes tangible, electrifying as we all bide our breaths, waiting for her to shatter Aurora’s heart.

Just when I’m about to reach for her, to shake her until she responds, she speaks. “I used you, Aurora. I lied to you about my identity, but everything I said to you was genuine. When you spoke about your stress regarding the engagement party and later the wedding, and the pressures of your family, the limited information about my own life I told you…it was all the truth.”

Aurora pays her no visible attention. After a final stare, her lips fold together and she pushes to her feet, giving Rozelyn and me her back as she heads for the stairs, Rosen close behind.

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