Page 20 of Broken & Bound

He crossed the room and threw back an old set of moth-eaten drapes, kicking up more dust. He coughed loudly. Furniture, draped in dusty sheets, took shape as he continued opening other curtains. Cobwebs hung in corners and from the chandeliers.

With the light now filtering in, I could make out the room more clearly. The grand staircase awaited us. I’d never seen it before today. The Mask always blindfolded me when he brought me inside. And it was always from another portion of the house.

The old servant quarters. Even from my vantage point, I could see the first landing. There were three large windows of stained glass. It depicted a coat of arms. Was that the Hawthorne’s or Richard Sallows?

It felt strange knowing his name. He’d always be the Collector to me. Feeling catatonic, almost, I put one foot in front of the other, climbing the steps. Each one felt strangely familiar.

My body remembered, and the memories rose to the surface. The flood to my senses, rage—fear and abject horror washed over me. Despite it all, I was drawn forward inexorably toward the first of two places I wanted to visit.

With each step, the weight of those years came back in startling clarity. Parts of me felt like a zombie. Sonny’s room loomed four doors down, and directly across from it was the dollhouse room.

“Bedroom first,” I croaked.

Pasha’s presence and the steady firmness of his hand on the small of my back offered me a level of comfort. I took a deep breath and twisted the doorknob. As we stepped inside, a wave of horror and pain slammed me back.

I recoiled and turned to run. Strong arms encircled me, and the weight of the past, of the many unspeakable acts Sonny committed while I watched, threatened to be my undoing. Every corner seemed to hold a whispered secret, and I wanted to be anywhere but here.

He pulled my face back, cupping it with his loving hands. His features were drawn tight with a mixture of responsibility and empathy. I fought the overwhelming urge to scream.

“You’re doing so good. I’m right here and you’re safe,” he crooned, soothing me for several long minutes.

Then a loud gasp escaped him. His eyes had adjusted to the dimness of the room. In my heart, even without having to look, I knew what he was seeing—why he made the sound he had.

I turned. And like staring at a train wreck in slow motion, my eyes landed on the bed first. So much pain and suffering took place there. All in an effort to teach me how to be still and Sonny’s perfect doll. The twisted memories seemed on auto-play, one right after another.

I knew I needed to look, but for the life of me, I stood frozen in place. The painting was there. It would be Sonny sitting upon a grand chair, his form cloaked in shadows. His face was obscured, hidden behind a masquerade ball mask. He was wearing a tuxedo.

In his arms and sitting on his thigh, between his legs, would be a doll—one with the perfect likeness of me. Frozen in porcelain perfection and dressed in Victorian garb that seemed as out of place as a grown man holding a life-sized doll, it would be forever etched in my brain. I mustered the courage I needed and lifted my eyes to stare at the monstrosity.

From every aspect, the man’s grip was possessive, almost suffocating. His fingers dug into the delicate lace on her arm. I’d captured with a silent violence, his entire persona. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end in warning.

It was as if he was going to come alive any minute, leap from the frame and tackle me to the bed. I lost it. Every internal fight mode inside me emerged with a startling rage. I tore myself from Pasha’s embrace and scanned the room as panic surged through my veins.

Off to the side, near the fireplace sat a dusty covered poker. A guttural scream tore from my throat as I strode across the room and grabbed it. My fingers closed around the cool metal surface with resolve.

My steps were fueled by adult rage and a child’s desperation. For years, this painting had existed as nothing more than a memory. A ghost. An abhorrent thing my mind revisited in the darkest hours of the night before shoving it back into whatever corner it had crawled out of.

Yet here it was.

As real as the heart in my chest beating erratically. And it was waiting for me. The sight of it stole what little air remained in my lungs and the rest of my composure. It wasn’t even the man leering at me.

It was so much deeper than that. Because staring at it now, as a grown woman, all I could see was the little girl standing in front of an easel, desperately trying to get it right.

Trying not to disappoint the wrong people so I didn’t get beaten. Trying to make it perfect so that I might survive another day.

I remembered the ache in my fingers from gripping the brush too long. The fear that his anger would soon flare and no one would save me from it. No one would lift a finger to stop him.

Everything about it was suffocating and threatened to swallow me whole.

Anger surged through me so fast that it made my hands shake. It was so different from all the controlled anger I’d carried around. This was raw—guttural and filled with a primal need to destroy.

This was anger that had waited decades for permission to exist. And once I’d given it room, it exploded.

“No,” I screamed.

The word wasn’t for the painting. It was for every memory attached to it. Every stolen moment. Every nightmare. Every piece of myself they had taken. It was in direct defiance. It was for all the times when I could not say it aloud.

It was for little Isabella Rose Caruso. For Autumn. For my sisters. For the girls before me. For X. I raised the poker high above my head and brought it crashing down against the glass frame.