Catalyst

Sera

Raw, unyielding terror paralyzed me.

The day I’d been kidnapped from the school, a bag yanked over my head as I was thrown into a van and driven to the Marino mansion to be sold, had been the start of a journey through hell. There had been several men in that van. I knew I would never recognize all of their voices, but one of them had seemed so familiar.

It wasn’t until the second I heard that voice in the dark again that I knew exactly whose it was.

That night, he’d said, “Yeah, that’s a Bianchi, alright. I could spot one from a mile away.”

My father’s faithful righthand, Mattia Greco.

And now he was in my house, in my bed, his fingers slipping my nightgown’s strap down my shoulder.

I forgot how to breathe as I stared at him, frozen, even as his brown eyes, black as a void in the dark room lightened only by the moonlight outside, took me in hungrily. “I came to offer my condolences,” he said, his voice raspy as if he hadn’t spoken in a while. “For your father. It was a true tra