Chapter 1: The Tape Came Off
The rope cut into my shoulders before I felt anything else. Thick tan loops boxed my arms tight against my sides, pinning the light blue blazer to the wooden chair, and every breath I tried to take had to lift against it. The bulb above us swayed just enough to make the shadows crawl across the crates stacked against the warehouse walls, and that movement was the only thing that wasn't held still. I was locked in place. He wasn't.
Enzo stood so close his black jacket brushed my knee. His dark wavy hair fell forward as he leaned in, his mouth set in that controlled, intense way that made it hard to tell if he was angry or enjoying this. The snake tattoo on the right side of his neck caught the warm light when he turned his head. He had his fingers on my chin, not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough that I couldn't look away.
My name is Mary River.
The black tape made a soft, ugly sound when he started to peel it. I hadn't realized how much I'd been breathing through my nose until I watched his thumb find the edge at the corner of my mouth. He pulled slow. The adhesive tugged at my skin and then gave, inch by inch, and the air hit my lips cold and sudden. I gasped before I could stop myself, a shallow inhale that hitched in my chest because the rope wouldn't let my lungs open all the way. He held the strip of tape in his hand after, dangling it between his fingers like he was deciding whether to put it back.
I stared at that piece of tape. It was warm from my face, the underside marked where it had been pressed over my mouth. My lip stung. Tears were already on my cheeks and more kept coming, blurring the hanging bulb into a halo. I tried to swallow and my throat clicked.
"So, where's all that confidence now?" he said.
His voice was low, even. Not loud at all in that big empty space with the beams and the concrete floor. That was what made it worse. He said it like he was asking about the weather, like he had all the time in the world and I was the one who had run out of it.
I didn't answer right away. I couldn't. My mouth was dry and my breathing wouldn't steady. I looked at the rope instead, really looked at it for the first time since he'd put me here — how many times it went around, how the knot sat against the back of the chair where I couldn't reach it, how deliberate it was. This wasn't rushed. Someone had taken their time.
"Please, that's new," he said when I stayed quiet, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
That wasn't what I'd said. That was his line after mine, and I hadn't even gotten mine out yet. My eyes flicked up to his. He was watching me the way you watch someone take a test, waiting to see if they'd pass or fold.
"Enzo, please," I said. My voice came out smaller than I wanted it to. Scraped and wet.
He tilted his head a fraction, like he was considering it.
"What do you want from me?" I asked.
It was supposed to sound tougher. It didn't. It sounded like exactly what it was — a woman taped to a chair in a warehouse who didn't know the rules of whatever game she'd been dropped into.
He leaned closer then. Close enough that I could see the stubble on his jaw and smell the faint cologne under the dust and wood smell of the place. His brows drew together and the faint smirk he'd been wearing flattened into something serious, something focused that made my stomach drop.
"I want to see how tough Mary River's really is," he said.
May you like
He said my name like he owned it. Like he'd heard it somewhere before this room and had been waiting to use it out loud.
Behind him, past the crates and the cool blue light coming in from the high window, a metal door I hadn't noticed before shivered. Not opened. Just the handle turning, just the barest rattle of someone on the other side about to push it in. Enzo didn't turn around. He kept his eyes on me, and I could hear his breath change, just a half-beat pause before he decided what he was going to do next.
