88 – Guilty?

88 – Guilty?
Leonor...
The fog of the last few days evaporates in an instant. What the hell is happening here? Damien brought me here to “protect” me, but apparently there’s no reason for that anymore.
“Did you kidnap me, Damien?” I ask, still clutching the towel around me and trying to keep my voice steady, though it comes out sharper than I’d like.
If my so-called husband isn’t dead, if there’s even the slightest chance he’s alive... and I’m here with Damien...
“He’s dead, Leonor. We both saw him that night, your wedding night. Remember? I had to pull you off his body,” Damien says, and my head floods with a thousand thoughts, each one contradicting the next.
I move across the room toward the window, which is locked tight. Damn it.
“I’m screwed, Damien. Completely screwed. You’ve destroyed my life, you kidnapped me on my wedding night. Romero’s going to kill me. We had an agreement, and now it’s all over. Everything’s over because you decided to take me!”
Damien looks at me carefully, too calmly.
“How much do you actually remember from that night, Leonor?”
“What?”
“The way you talk, you don’t sound like someone who might be guilty of a crime.”
I stop pacing, glaring at him. His hands are buried in his pockets, and his calmness makes me want to scream.
“Damien, I’ve been here for three days. If he’s alive, and I’m sure I didn’t kill anyone, then my life is over. He’s going to come after both of us when he gets back from wherever he is. He’ll think I broke our deal, and he’ll kill me.”
He walks toward me slowly. I step back, swallowing hard. There’s something in his eyes that reminds me how dangerous he really is, maybe even more dangerous than his father ever was. Right now, looking at me like that, he is the danger.
“What deal was that, Leonor?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.
My face burns as the memories surface, my dress falling, Romero coming toward me, his hands on me, mine on his shoulders.
I think I heard someone at the door interrupt us... but then I remember waking up next to him, Damien hovering over me, telling me Romero was dead. And I remember the panic, because part of me thought he wasn’t. The more I think about it, the less I know what’s real.
“What did you do to my father, Leonor?” His tone turns severe, threatening.
I straighten up, but only for a moment. My memories are too fragmented, so I just tell the truth.
“I don’t know, okay? We were about to… I don’t know, someone knocked at the door, and then I woke up with you beside me. The rest is a blur. I took some pills, mixed them with alcohol, and it messed with my memory. Can you stop looking at me like that?”
He doesn’t move.
“I don’t want to find out he touched you, do you understand me? I don’t want to know you betrayed me. I’d dig up his body myself to- What the hell, woman! We have a dinner to attend. Get dressed.”
Damien turns away from me, and I’m left standing there, trying to make sense of what just happened. He can’t just walk out like that. We’re not done.
“Why did your brother say he’s missing, Damien?”
“Because he wasn’t there. Because my father’s body disappeared. Someone got to him first and took it, Leonor. That’s why.”
“But why would anyone do that?” I ask, and he laughs, bitterly, without even a trace of humor.
“We have enemies, my love. Collections of them. Any one of them could’ve thought it clever to steal a corpse.”
“But I don’t understand. If he’s officially missing, why are we here on this ship? Why are you lying to me, Damien?”
“I’m protecting you. I tried to get rid of the evidence, but you never know what else might show up. I gave you something to purge your system, you vomited, I detoxed you from whatever the hell you took. You’re in double danger, my love. Either as a suspect or as a target.”
I swallow hard. Memories crash over me, Damien taking a bullet for me, the man pointing a gun at me in that nightclub, the endless surveillance since the moment I entered this cursed world.
Even before that, my paranoid mother never stopped warning me about threats I couldn’t see.
Maybe someone really was trying to kill me that night.
Maybe I’ll never be safe.
Then something flashes in my mind, a sliver of memory. Damien asking me if I drank from a particular bottle of whiskey.
Why would he ask that?
I lean against the wall, then slide down it to the floor. Damien’s expression softens, his dominance flickers into concern.
My gaze locks on him, and the words slip from my mouth as barely a whisper.
“It was you.”
“What did you say?” he asks, though I know he heard me perfectly.
“It was you. You killed him. How else could you be so sure he’s dead? Maybe he got up, maybe he walked away, but you’re too certain. You’re certain because...” I can’t finish the sentence.
Damien steps forward and hauls me up. I fight him, but it’s useless. He drags me across the room, into the closet, and drops me onto a cushioned bench.
I crawl backward until I hit the floor.
“I believe you when you say you didn’t kill my father. In the state you were in, you probably don’t remember half of what happened. Now stop with the useless theories and get ready. We’re leaving in a few minutes.”
I stand, fury replacing fear, clutching the towel that’s slipping from my grip. I’m not even properly dressed to run, and where would I go? I’m trapped on a ship with my kidnapper.
“I’m not going to any damn dinner with you,” I say, and he looks one breath away from losing his temper.
“Leonor, stop making an already delicate situation worse. I have things to handle, and you’re coming with me. Just cooperate for once.”
I hate the tone he uses. The tone of someone who has absolute control.
“And if I don’t? What are you going to do? My life is already ruined. I’m cut off from my mother, from my friends. I’m stuck here with my kidnapper, who’s also a murderer. What else can you take from me, Damien? Nothing. Even my freedom’s gone. So do me a favor and let me go back to bed. Let me grieve everything I’ve lost.”
Damien runs a hand through his hair.
“Fuck this. I tried doing it the easy way. You can’t say I didn’t try.”
He storms out of the closet. I tiptoe behind him, just enough to peek through the door. He’s rummaging through a drawer, his face cold, jaw clenched. When he turns back toward me, he’s holding an envelope in his hand.