I vaguely remember casually mentioning it—how I’d love to move to California after graduation, for no particular reason other than it being the furthest state from New York. At the time, my goal was to get as far away from my family as possible, but things are different now. Thinking about Nico brings a smile to my face, and I find that I want to stay. “I think California will have to wait,” I tell him. “I’ve found a reason to stick around in New York a little longer.”
“It’s because of him, isn’t it? Your stepbrother?” he says, air-quoting the word stepbrother. There is something harsh about Dr. Arturo’s voice that has my eyes snapping to him.
“Sir?”
“Why would you waste your talent and brilliance on him?”
I blink at my professor, wondering if I heard him right. Surely not. “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t understand how that’s any of your concern.”
“It’s my concern when you make decisions that are bound to negatively impact your future,” he retorts, his eyes flashing dangerously. I feel a shiver move through me. Where is all this coming from? I’ve never had reason to feel threatened by Dr. Arturo. In fact, he’s one of my favorite professors, and to see this side of him raises every hair on my neck. I want him gone. And I want Nico. Where is he? What’s taking him so long?
“Sir…”
“Mark,” he hisses. “I’ve asked you countless times to call me Mark. You are no longer my student, Gabriella.” When he rises, I quickly jump to my feet, taking a step back when he takesone forward. “How long are you going to pretend you don’t see what’s happening between us?”
“W-what’s that?”
Impatience changes his features as he sighs. “I am deeply in love with you, Gabriella,” he says, and I hear a sharp intake of breath—my own. “I fell for you from the moment I saw you in my first class, but I kept my distance because I didn’t want to risk my career on a relationship with a student. You have no fucking idea how many times I wanted to reach out to you in class and just kiss you.”
I gape at him, confused by the words coming out of his mouth. Is this a dream? Am I still napping? Any second now, Nico will shake me awake, and we’ll both laugh at the absurdity of it—my professor confessing his love for me. That’s madness.
But I don’t wake up.
And this nightmare deepens, turning darker, when Dr. Arturo takes yet another step toward me. “You feel it too, don’t you?” he says, moving closer, and I see his intention to back me against the bed. Christ, there’s nowhere to go. “No one understands you—understands your art—the way I do. No one ever will.”
I shudder when he reaches out to touch me. I press my hands against his chest, trying to push him back, but he’s much stronger. He grabs my wrists and pulls them down. “Please, stay away. My brothers will not spare you.” My skin crawls when he reaches up to trace his fingers over my cheek. I try to sound calm despite the hammering in my chest, “Nico will kill you.”
“Enough about that bastard,” he growls, lunging forward, but I dodge his kiss and, summoning every bit of strength I have, drive my knee hard into his groin. He howls, doubling over and grabbing himself, and I make a run for it. He tries to grab forme, but I scream, dodging his hands as I run to the bathroom, locking the door behind me. I jump when his full weight crashes against the door.
“Open up, Gabriella. Open this fucking door.” I gasp and move back when he starts twisting the handle, rattling it loud enough to shake the frame. “Open this fucking door, you little bitch!”
I sink into a crouch on the bathroom floor and press my palms over my ears, praying for Nico to get back in time. Nico will take care of it. He’ll…
The lock gives with a sharp crack, then falls away entirely. He kicked it. Oh my God—he kicked it!
When the door swings open, I am face to face with a man I no longer recognize. Sweat beading his brow, eyes watching me the way a predator watched its prey, and something worse than fear moves through me. He’s not going to stop.
“I told you to open the door, Gabriella,” he shouts, stepping into the room. “Since when are you this disobedient?”
“Sir…”
“Don’t fucking call me that!” he roars, charging me. But a crash from the other room stops him. He turns to the doorway, and a second later, another man comes barreling in. It all happens in an instant: One second, Dr. Arturo is on his feet, and the next, he’s airborne, slamming back against the tub. He groans, trying to rise, but a fist shoots out and connects square with his face, and he stays down.
Nico.
He came.
A whimper slips from my throat as I lift my eyes—and stop. The face looking back at me is familiar, but it’s not Nico.And just like that, a fresh wave of fear crashes in. “Bruno,” I whisper, staring into the eyes of my long-absent stepbrother. The man who kidnapped Sofia and threatened to kill her. He’s here. Oh God, is he here to finish what Dr. Arturo started?
“Are you okay?” he asks, brows furrowed with concern that doesn’t fit my memory of him When he reaches out, I whimper, flinching back, but there’s nowhere to go. “Hey now, I’m not going to hurt you.”
I don’t know if I believe that, despite the easy set of his face. I don’t have many good memories of Bruno. He and Nico were close when I was younger, but something happened in adulthood that made them grow distant. I sensed a sadness in him in those later years—a heaviness that I never quite understood and always felt vaguely wary of. Something about him feels different now, but I’m afraid to trust it when I’ve just been proven how bad a judge of character I am, or else I never would have opened the door to my professor in the first place.
Still, the heaviness I sensed in Bruno before is absent, and when he offers his hand again, I start to reach for it. But before I can decide, the bathroom door flies open once more, and this time, I see Nico’s livid face clear as day.
“You!” he growls, grabbing his brother by the collar and shoving him away from me. He cocks his arm back to swing, but another man steps in, planting himself between the brothers. “Get the fuck out of my way!”
I’ve never seen Nico this furious before, veins standing out, eyes wild with it. He looks close to killing his brother. When his feral eyes cut to the stranger in the patched jacket, I move.