I rocked back on my heels, picturing the common room of the small, fourth floor apartment that I shared with Alexa, as I had left it just a few minutes ago. Miles Davis was playing softly through my desktop’s speakers. The plain wooden table that we had chosen at a secondhand furniture store last week was now covered by a white silk cloth and decorated with a pair of crystal candlesticks. A trail of rose petals—plucked by hand—started from the front door and circled the table before leading into the bedroom. There was only one thing missing.
“I need the best bottle of champagne I can get.”
Stan sighed and stiffly got to his feet. He shuffled around the counter, gesturing for me to follow. I trailed behind him obediently, watching as he paused halfway down the second aisle and selected a bottle two-thirds up the shelf.
“J Schram, 1999. Eighty-six dollars and ninety-five cents.”
I took the bottle from him and turned it over in my hands. J Schram, I remembered, was served at the White House whenever a new president was inaugurated. It wasn’t the $475 per bottle Dom Perignon that my father liked to serve at his parties, but it was fancy enough to drive home my point to Alexa.
“I’ll take it.” I tried to keep my mouth closed and play it cool, but the words came out anyway. “I’m proposing to my girlfriend.”
“Congratulations.” Stan’s voice was monotone as he slipped the bottle into a paper bag and shuffled my bills into a neat pile. His fingers were ringless. Had he never found someone? Not for the first time, I contemplated how easy it would have been to miss Alexa that night at the Niagra, so many months ago. I had been there by chance, subbing for a coworker. By all rights, we should never have met. I shuddered at the thought and reached into my pocket once again to stroke the box reverently, as though it were a talisman. She had to say yes. She just had to.
“Thanks,” I told Stan, grabbing the neck of the bottle with my free hand. The clock behind the counter read 7:46, and Alexa’s bus was due in at 8:00. I had just enough time to put the champagne on ice and start boiling the noodles. I hadn’t prepped a dessert—not of the conventional variety, anyway—but in extremis, there was most of a pint of strawberry Häagen Dazs in the freezer. I smiled faintly as I imagined us lounging naked in bed, feeding each other ice cream in the early hours of the morning.
Outside, dusk had faded into twilight. I retraced my steps past the shuttered storefronts emblazoned with graffiti. Still focused on the daydream, I automatically threaded my way around the piles of garbage bags heaped on the edge of the sidewalk. How would Alexa want me tonight, in the wake of my proposal? What would her mood call for? Would she want me to be slow and sweet, tenderly compelling her to succumb to the gentle strokes of my fingers? Or would she want me to take her, hard and fast—to unveil the full force of my desire and claim every inch of her? Or perhaps…perhaps I would simply remain on one knee to bury my face between her legs and let my tongue slip-slide across her warm, wet heat.
I was so caught up in the fantasy that I didn’t register the sensation of someone walking close behind me until I had to pause at the first cross street. Suddenly anxious, I forced myself not to look over my shoulder. I quickened my pace, silently berating myself for not running this errand during the daylight. Parts of Alphabet City were becoming gentrified, but this wasn’t one such section. Petty crime and drugs were still a problem, and—
Shit.
The footsteps were no longer even with my own. They were faster. I tried to tell myself that the person behind me was simply in a hurry, but my instincts knew better. A hot rush of adrenaline flooded my body, bringing me to the balls of my feet. There was an all-night supermarket two blocks ahead, dingy but well lit. I could make it. My stalker wouldn’t dare try anything if I reached that corner.
I clutched the neck of the J Schram tightly and balled my right hand into a fist in preparation for a sprint. This would not happen. I would not be a victim. Not tonight of all nights—not when the noodles were drying next to the sink and the freshly made sauce was simmering on the stove. Not with Alexa’s ring in my pocket. No. Fucking. Way.
I ran. In a burst of speed that would have earned praise from my high school track coach, I leapt forward, put my head down, and pumped hard with both arms. Gravel scattered beneath the soles of my Doc Martens. I pushed off from the pavement explosively, focused on the goal…only to be shoved sideways into a narrow alley between two buildings before I had taken more than a few steps. I landed hard on my left side, grunting as the impact knocked the wind from my lungs and the bottle from my hand. It shattered in a spray of glass shards and fizzing liquid. Barely two inches from my face, a torn garbage bag leaked pale fluid. The smell of rot was overpowering. Choking on the stench, I tried to scramble to my feet. Scream. I had to get my breath back and scream. Someone would hear me.
But before I could open my mouth, a hand, rough with calluses, clamped over my face. I tried to jerk away, but another arm snaked below my ribs. The sharp scent of tobacco chased away the odor of rot as my assailant pressed me tightly against his body. My sudden shock made me momentarily passive. It was him. The man who had been smoking outside the liquor store. He had been lying in wait.
He was breathing heavily into my ear, and I could feel him hard against my lower back. Panic turned to refusal. No. I would not be mugged. I would not be raped. I would not be killed. No. Alexa’s face was clear in my mind’s eye, and the edges of the box in my pocket dug hard into my right thigh. I imagined again the subtle weight of the platinum band in the palm of my hand, its round diamonds winking mysteriously up at me in the softly modulated light of the Tiffany’s showroom.
Etoile.
The ring was precious and elegant and beautiful. It was meant to sit on Alexa’s finger. Where she was concerned, I believed deeply in destiny. Nothing would come between us—not ever.
I bit down hard on his middle finger. He yelled hoarsely, caught off guard just enough for me to twist free of his restraining embrace. I took off again toward the open mouth of the alley, planting my right foot down hard as I skidded around the corner…but a sharp pain blossomed in my hamstring and my leg gave out, on the edge of freedom.
I crumpled to the ground and stared disbelieving at the knife protruding from my jeans. Its handle was glossy and black. I hated it desperately. Closing one palm around it, I grit my teeth and pulled, managing to fling the weapon out of my body. The knife’s clatter against the asphalt was drowned out by the rasping scream that escaped my lips, gushing from my throat as the bright red blood flowed from my leg. God, it hurt—but with the agony came another rush of adrenaline, bringing the edges of the night into sharp focus. Clarity returned in the form of a single imperative. Run.
The sound of slow footsteps approaching galvanized me. I had to get up—to get up or die here. Bracing myself on both hands, I pushed up hard with my left foot, only to fall back to the ground under the weight of my useless right leg. Immediately, I tried again, but he was already looming over me, face obscured by the shadows. He raised one hand and a flash of color caught my eye—something reptilian slithering across his knuckles, briefly illuminated by a thin sliver of light before he cut off my second shout with a vicious backhand to my cheek, so hard that my head slammed against the pavement.
Pain exploded behind my eyes, dazzling my vision with glowing specks as bright as the diamonds in Alexa’s ring.
Get up. Get up, Valentine.
The thought belonged to someone else. It seemed important, but when I tried to raise my head, a wave of nausea forced my jaw open in a wrenching gag. A heavy weight settled on my thighs. Someone groaned in the distance, low and tortured.
And then another bolt of agony, this one lancing through my shoulder, hot and sharp like lightning. The world was blood. I could feel it leaving me all in a rush, pulsing past the lips of the wound in time with my heartbeat. It hurt too much to turn my head, but if I moved my eyes to the right I could just barely make out the dark pool gathering against the darker asphalt. So much blood. I was going to die.
Weakness pervaded my body, insidious and totalizing. I could only twitch feebly as a cold hand slipped under my shirt, palming my stomach and pushing up the fabric.
No,
I tried to say.
No, I am not yours. No, I belong to her. Alexa.
I needed to apologize to Alexa, but one of his hands closed around my throat while the other pushed up my shirt and his mouth was cold and wet on my sensitive skin like the tongue of a snake and it hurt…oh God, it hurt.
All lights were fading. I could feel them being extinguished, one by one—the stars and the street lamps and the cheerful squares of yellow that checkered every skyscraper. Gone. The curtain fell. Darkness like a gun barrel, black as my father’s mercenary soul, narrowing to swallow me—the darkness of dead things underground. If I called her name, would she follow?
My lips moved silently as red ribbons anchored my body to the earth.
Follow me, Alexa. Bring me back. Marry me, Alexa, marry me please I’m sorry I swear I meant forever but I waited too long to tell you and now you’ll never know.
Mercifully, the pain receded then, leaving me beyond all sensation.
Chapter Two
For the thousandth time since leaving my apartment, I checked my reflection in a nearby storefront window while waiting for a crosswalk light to change. The verdict was the same as it had been a minute ago: my three-button, pinstriped suit, fresh off a Brooks Brothers rack, set off the crystal blue of my eyes and together with my spiky blond hair, completed the image of the dashing young man I was constantly being mistaken for. I had flirted with the idea of going to a bespoke tailor, but that would have necessitated dipping into a bank account that I’d sworn not to touch except in extreme need. And while impressing my date tonight was imperative, it was just as important that Alexa be attracted to me for my own merits, and not because my father is Edward Darrow, Secretary of the Treasury, whose net worth (according to CNN) is at least 650 million dollars.
The suit I was wearing was still an extravagant purchase for someone who was about to revert to student status, but it had been bought with my own money, earned and not inherited. That made all the difference, as far as I was concerned. Mostly, I just hoped that Alexa liked the way I looked in it.
I crossed the street quickly and began checking the numbers on the buildings. Getting close. I twirled the single flower that I held delicately between two fingers and silently chided myself for being nervous. There had been many dates, and many women, before this one. By all rights, I should be operating on autopilot. But there was something about Alexa—something powerful and more than a little frightening—something that made me want to break most of the rules that I’d imposed on myself when I turned eighteen. I had already bent one by getting us a dinner reservation at Stella’s.
As long as I was being honest with myself, I had to admit the facts: first, that Alexa Newland was under my skin; and second, that way deep down, that’s exactly where I wanted her to be. Which was a new feeling.
When I pulled my attention back to the increasing numbers to my right, I realized that I’d gone half a block too far. I retraced my steps and ended up at a brick house, squeezed between a convenience store and a florist. When I rang the bell for apartment 2B, a dog on the first floor began to yap.
The wait lasted forever. Doubt crept into my gut and tied knots there. I raised my hand to ring the bell again just as the door finally swung open—and then my jaw dropped, because Alexa was standing in front of me in a strapless black dress that fit her body like a sheath, and her glossy hair was catching the city lights, and if tonight ended without at least a kiss I knew I was going to die.
I knew I was going to die. Strength had deserted me, borne on the streams of wet that pulsed from my leg, my shoulder. My heart was racing—I could feel it pounding against my ribs—and I tried to tell it to slow down. But when I felt him push one cold, clammy hand beneath my shirt, I begged it to stop beating entirely.
I knew I was going to die. But not fast enough. His mouth followed the trajectory of his hand, leaving a wet trail of saliva across the faint ridges of my abdominal muscles. When I shuddered, he laughed against my skin.
“Please,” I tried to whisper, but gagged on the blood trickling into the back of my throat. Coughing was excruciating. I turned my head to the side and retched sour bile and blood. Undeterred, he laughed again.
“Someday, Valentine,” he crooned. His voice was disturbingly soft, almost melodic. “Someday you’ll appreciate the beauty in this.”
He was insane. I had just enough time to realize it before his teeth sank into the meaty flesh under my right arm. I screamed as his mouth tugged at the wound. The pain was paralyzing. Directly above my head, a fire escape twisted sinuously, dancing in the neon lights of a nearby storefront. Black specks floated at the corner of my vision. I didn’t fight them. I didn’t want to be awake anymore.
But then another arrow of pain lanced through me—a blinding meteor across the welcome darkness, jerking me back into consciousness. Above the pulse pounding in my head, I could hear the heels of my shoes dragging against the pavement. A car door opened, and then another. One of his hands pressed against the wound he’d made with his teeth as he pushed me into the vehicle. The dim, too-distant lights of the supermarket faded in the wake of another wave of agony. I gasped for air and inhaled the sharp odor of newly cleaned upholstery mixed with the scent of stale cigarette smoke.
When he shoved my legs against one of the seat backs, white heat lanced up my spine and my vision swam again. So much, it hurt so fucking much. He knew my name. How did he know my name? Was this about my father? Or was it something else? Would they come after Alexa next? Please no, no, not Alexa—