Taming Seraphine

SERAPHINE

We spent the rest of the morning looking through pictures of Dad’s employees. It’s easy to remember the ones I want to kill because they feature prominently in my recurrent nightmares.

Sometimes, I’m not peeping through the gap in the door, I’m inside the room, screaming at them to stop. Other times, Dad grabs me and hands me over to his guards.

After so much time in captivity or in the company of perverts, my brain has filled in the gaps so the dreams are as vivid as real life.

In the end, we only find four viable targets out of the seven men who attacked Mom: Julio Catania, Paolo Rochas, Mike Ferante, and Edoardo Barone. Two others were killed when Leroi detonated explosions around the mansion, while another died last year.

I hope they’re suffering in hell along with Dad and the twins because any death that isn’t the result of slow torture is far too quick.

We also found the twins’ driver, Pietro Fiori, who took me to and from my assignments. I’m not sure if I want him dead. He never once threatened to detonate my chip with the remote, and there were times when he got out of the car to carry me into the back seat because I’d been injured. But then, he knew I was a prisoner but failed to help. Leroi suspects Pietro might know where Dad has hidden Gabriel. I’m not so sure, but that won’t stop me from slicing pieces of his flesh until he screams something useful.

While new sofas are being delivered to replace the blood-soaked ones that were disposed of, I pass time coloring in pages from the book I bought from Wonderland.

When I get bored with filling in the lines, I pull out the blank notebook and draw a picture of Leroi sitting in the full lotus position with his hands resting on his knees. His eyes are closed in meditation, and empty thought bubbles rise from his head.

My lips curl into a smile. Beside him, I draw myself, mirroring his pose, except my thought bubbles contain screaming faces and knives dripping with blood. After coloring my hair with the yellow felt tip, I tilt my head and examine my work.

Leroi thinks that killing the men on my list will cleanse my thoughts. That after the last man is dead, I’ll no longer be haunted by my past, but I’m not sure that’s true. I add little red droplets to my thought bubbles and make them drip into my hands.

Afterward, Leroi takes me across town to a high-rise building overlooking the ocean.

“Is this where Pietro lives?” I ask as we exit the car.

“We’re visiting an associate who will make you look less like yourself.” Leroi places a hand on the small of my back and leads me up a paved walkway to the building’s entrance.

I shrug him off. “Why are we wasting time on disguises? Gabriel needs us now.”

Leroi’s steps halt. He turns to face me, his eyes sharpening. “How many men did the Capello’s force you to kill?”

“Why do you want to know?” I ask.

“Humor me.”

My fists clench. Can’t he see the situation is urgent? We spent all morning eating, meditating, and getting deliveries. Now that we’re ready to get started, he wants to add one more useless task. I shoot him a glare, still not understanding why he wants to know my kill count.

“Don’t know,” I mutter.

“Guess.” His stare intensifies until my skin begins to itch.

Teaming up with Leroi was a mistake. Each time he’s on the verge of giving me what I want, he withdraws. Now that we have a lead on Pietro, he wants to make a detour. This is just like how he got me so close to my first orgasm last night and then tied my wrists behind my back to leave me aching.

The weight of his glare is suffocating, but I refuse to cower. Leroi’s eyes are too dark, too penetrating. It’s like he’s peering under my skin and looking into the ugly void.

My nostrils flare. The urge to claw at him spreads across my flesh like wildfire, but I force my hands behind my back. As soon as I find Gabriel and kill those men, I’ll hollow Leroi’s eyes until he’s crying blood.

For now, I’ll be civil and remind him of what’s really important.

“Gabriel could be all alone without food or water⁠—”

“I asked you a question, Seraphine,” he says.

“Maybe twenty. I lost count.”

“Twenty or more deaths under similar circumstances, with each man last seen with an angelic little blonde.”

“So?” I snap.

He raises a brow as though the conclusion is obvious. “The only reason there isn’t a manhunt for you is because Capello suppressed any investigations with the shit-ton of dirt he had on the police.”

My lips tighten. “I don’t have time for this. We need to find Gabriel.”

“The only reason the relatives and associates of the men you killed haven’t found you is because Capello kept you in a basement.”

“What’s your point?”

“Your appearance is too distinctive. Eventually, someone will recognize you as the girl who was seen on the arm of multiple dead men and word will spread. Finding Gabriel will be the least of your worries if you become a target.”

Oh… I hadn’t thought of that. Tearing my gaze away from Leroi’s, I walk toward the building’s entrance.

“Besides, Fiori will disappear if word gets out that he’s being hunted by a little blonde angel,” Leroi adds.

I scoff. “You should see what I did to the last man who called me that.”

“Don’t tell me you stabbed him in the eye.” He opens a door that leads to a huge art deco hallway.

“I electrocuted him in the bathtub.”

“Bullshit.” He strides down the corridor. “Most circuits are designed to shut off power if there’s any risk of electrocution.”

“Then why did he die twitching?”

We cross a black-and-white tiled hallway of ebony walls adorned with paintings of flapper girls. I have to walk fast to keep up with his long strides. At the elevator, he glances down at me, his gaze skeptical.

“Did you drug him first?” He presses the call button.

“Why do you ask?”

“Did you?” The elevator doors open, but he doesn’t step inside. “Well, did you?”

Walking in, I mutter, “He would have jumped out of the tub otherwise.”

Leroi snorts.

I whirl around. “What?”

He selects the eleventh floor. “If he was convulsing, then it was an overdose. The poison you injected your target with killed him, not the electricity.”

“You don’t know that.” I cross my arms. “Anyway, why are you so bothered by all the minor details?”

“Because you’re reckless. The toaster you threw into the man’s bath would have attracted attention, or at least started a fire. You also could have gotten yourself electrocuted.”

“Hairdryer,” I mutter.

“What?”

“I threw a hairdryer into his bath. The toaster oven would have needed an extension lead, and it was too far away.”

Leroi shakes his head. “You must have a guardian angel because anyone else in your position would have gotten caught.”

The elevator doors open, and we step out into a hallway lined with black doors. Leroi takes a right turn and leads us to the apartment at the very end. Before he gets a chance to ring the bell, the door swings open, revealing a tall, thin man wearing a pink kimono and a flesh-colored wig cap. He’s blessed with a natural beauty, high cheekbones, a pert nose, and thick, dark lashes that don’t need makeup.

His gaze passes over Leroi and lands straight on me. “This is the girl?”

Leroi nods. “Can you help her?”

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” the man asks with a broad grin.

“You don’t need to know.” Leroi shoves his way inside, making the thinner man stumble backward with a shriek. “This is Farfalla. Don’t hurt him.”

Farfalla steps aside and lets me in. I cast him a wary glance, but his eyes only radiate warmth.

My gaze lands on an indigo velvet sofa that takes center stage of his apartment, adorned with silver throw pillows. The walls are painted cream, and the artwork is so colorful that my eyes hurt. Fashion sketches hang beside magazine covers in gilded frames and three-dimensional paintings.

A jazz instrumental fills the room, along with faint hints of incense. Vague memories of art lessons rise to the surface, but I shove them back. I’m no longer the carefree girl who took cookery and art classes at an expensive private school.

Leroi walks through the colorful space as though he’s seen it all before and leans against a wall. “We need a subtle disguise that will make her look less⁠—”

“Angelic?” Farfalla asks with a raised brow.

My lips thin. “Don’t call me that.”

Farfalla’s gaze snaps to Leroi’s, and something unspoken exchanges between them. I take another look at the man, wondering if there’s more to him than his harmless appearance.

He gazes down at me, his features softening. “If you want to look less distinctive, you’ll need heavier makeup, darker hair, and a change in eye color.”

“Is that really necessary?” I ask.

“Yes,” Leroi says.

Farfalla leads me into a dressing room illuminated by a vanity mirror surrounded by lightbulbs. Clothes racks take up most of the walls, each displaying an array of feminine costumes. It’s obvious that he’s some kind of performer. A sink sits in the corner beside a wall-mounted hood dryer and chair, where there’s already a box of store-bought hair dye.

Leroi slips a stopper beneath the door to keep it wedged open. I try not to bristle that he doesn’t trust me alone with his friend and instead focus on Farfalla.

He tilts his head, his gaze wistful. “It’s almost a shame to dye such lovely hair.”

“Then darken it with coffee,” I say.

Both men stare down at me like I’ve said something crazy.

I raise a shoulder. Whenever Dad was away on long business trips, Mom used to experiment with her hair. Sometimes, she would go lighter with lemon juice or chamomile, other times, she would change her shade of blonde to something warmer.

Being her guinea pig in those hair experiments was fun. Mom was always a different person when Dad wasn’t around. She wore different clothes and went out to meet girlfriends.

I used to love helping her choose her outfits and wished she would invite these glamorous female friends over to the house for coffee. Her excuse was always the same. These women were old money. They lived in the illustrious Alderney Hill and wouldn’t care to visit a house in Queen’s Gardens. She’d just blow me a kiss and leave with Raphael the bodyguard and not return until the next day or the day after.

It took her death and my imprisonment to work out that these ‘ladies’ nights’ were a sham. Casting aside the bitterness, I zone back into the conversation and ask, “Don’t you know about natural hair remedies?”

Farfalla grins. “Leroi can brew the rounds of coffee. While we’re waiting for the pigment to darken your hair, I’ll teach you how to apply makeup and fit your contact lenses.”

The thought of playing dress-up while Gabriel is festering in a darkened room makes my throat thicken with so much guilt that my breath stalls. I hate that Leroi has a point. All my missions were carefully planned so I would meet the target with few witnesses. Even if I was spotted, it was only briefly.

The twins worked out my exit routes and always had Pietro waiting to drive me away. I escaped mostly unscathed. A disguise might allow me to move about without anyone connecting me to former missions.

Leroi heads toward a kitchen area behind the sofa and opens and closes cupboards without complaint. This man isn’t like my captors. He lets me talk to people and we’ve been outside every day. He hasn’t taken advantage of me, unlike every man I’ve met since Dad handed me to the twins. When he disappears out of sight, my chest tightens until he returns with a coffeepot.

My jaw clenches. I can’t grow too attached. For sixteen years, I was Dad’s princess, until he decided that I wasn’t. Leroi might be the most attractive and interesting man I’ve met in my entire existence. He might even be my perfect match, but that doesn’t mean he won’t stab me in the back.

Which is why I plan to stab him first.