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  Twisted

  Natasha Knight

  Copyright © 2019 by Natasha Knight

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  About This Book

  My brother was right. I always wanted my own Willow Girl.

  What happened on that island didn’t break me.

  It twisted me.

  Corrupted me.

  Made me into a monster.

  Although, I guess it’s true what she says. You can’t become something that wasn’t inside you all along.

  This was always going to happen.

  I was always going to take Amelia Willow.

  History and destiny sealed her fate. Sealed both of ours.

  For months, I’ve been waiting.

  Watching.

  Preparing.

  And tonight, everything will change.

  Because tonight, I’ll collect my own Willow Girl.

  *

  Twisted is a spinoff of the Dark Legacy Duet. I recommend you read Taken and Torn before reading Twisted. You can find buy links for Taken here and for Torn here!

  Contents

  Inspiration

  Prologue

  1. Gregory

  2. Amelia

  3. Gregory

  4. Amelia

  5. Gregory

  6. Amelia

  7. Gregory

  8. Amelia

  9. Gregory

  10. Amelia

  11. Amelia

  12. Gregory

  13. Amelia

  14. Amelia

  15. Gregory

  16. Amelia

  17. Gregory

  18. Amelia

  19. Amelia

  20. Gregory

  21. Amelia

  22. Amelia

  23. Gregory

  24. Amelia

  25. Gregory

  26. Amelia

  27. Gregory

  28. Gregory

  29. Amelia

  30. Gregory

  Epilogue 1

  Epilogue 2

  Thank You

  Excerpt from Salvatore: a Dark Mafia Romance

  Also By Natasha Knight

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  “Sometimes I can't believe my existence

  See myself from a distance

  I can't get back inside.

  Sometimes the air is so anxious

  All my thoughts are so reckless

  And all of my innocence has died.

  Sometimes I wake at four in the morning

  Where all the darkness is swarming

  And it covers me in fear.

  Sometimes I’m full of anger and grieving

  So far away from believing

  That any sun will reappear.

  Sometimes

  The end is not coming

  It's not coming.

  The end is here.”

  - U2, The Little Things That Give You Away

  Prologue

  Amelia

  He says that together they twisted him.

  Made him the monster he’s become.

  But you can’t become something that wasn’t inside you all along.

  A tear drops to the sketchbook on my lap, the blob smearing the lead. I wipe it away with the tip of my finger and watch the stain spread to the edge of the page.

  I can’t seem to stop drawing that night.

  The night when the Scafoni brothers stalked into our home and we were made to wear those rotting, disgusting sheaths and forced to stand on those ancient blocks as Sebastian Scafoni, first-born bastard, looked us over like we were cattle.

  I can’t stop drawing the look on his face when he saw Helena.

  Even if she wasn’t bound like she was, she’d have stood out.

  She always thought herself the ugly duckling but she’s the most beautiful of all. She’s special. Always was. Different from us. And so much stronger.

  Crap.

  I swipe the back of my hand across my nose and listen to the sound of tears drop fat and heavy onto the page and this time when I lay my hand on the sketch, it’s to smear the wet across like maybe I can wipe away that night. Rub it off the page. Erase it out of history like it never happened.

  “Oh, now look what you’ve done,” he says. His voice is deep and low, and I swear I can feel it as much as hear it.

  He takes my hand with his gloved one and pulls it away.

  “Ruined it.”

  I look at him. I finally make myself look at him.

  “I hate you.”

  He grins. Shrugs a shoulder, his grip growing infinitesimally harder.

  I glance at my palm—it’s black from the pencil—and look down at the page in front of me.

  He’s right. It’s ruined.

  But it doesn’t matter. I have dozens like it.

  Hundreds.

  Thousands.

  I can’t stop drawing that night.

  Can’t stop it from happening.

  Can’t stop the Scafoni bastards from walking into our lives, upending everything. Coming into our home like kings, like they owned the place.

  Although, I guess they did.

  They owned everything. Our house. Our land. Our parents.

  My sister.

  Me.

  I force myself to meet Gregory Scafoni’s dark eyes with their strange turquoise specks and wonder how I’d ever thought he was an angel.

  My angel.

  My savior.

  When all he is, is the devil.

  1

  Gregory

  I’ve been watching her for weeks.

  Following from the shadows. Always nearby.

  Lurking, like a ghost.

  And it’s a good thing for her because I’m not the only monster on these streets. She seems to attract them like bees to honey.

  Sweet, sweet honey.

  She feels my presence. I know it.

  I see it in the way she looks over her shoulder when she steps out onto the street. The way she scans every room she enters.

  Even inside her borrowed apartment, she knows she’s not alone.

  Not safe.

  It wasn’t hard to find her. To arrange everything for her.

  And tonight, after all the preparations, all the waiting, I will reap my own Willow Girl.

  I choose a seat at the darkest corner of the bar, look at my phone for the signal that she’s on her way, check my watch when I still don’t have it.

  But she’ll be here. She has no choice.

  The bartender appears with my drink. He gives me a nod of untrusting acknowledgment. I’ve become a regular of the hundred-year-old bar over the last weeks. It’s one of the last that still allows smoking. I do enjoy a cigarette now and again, but even I hate the lingering stale smell and constant fog of smoke. I don’t know what it is that’s drawn her to this place.

  Or maybe I do.

  It’s so opposite who she was.

  Or who I thought she was.

  I wonder if the night of the reaping broke her or if she was broken all along.

  I check my phone again. Still, no message. I text Matteo.

  Anything?

  Nothing.

  I swallow my drink. Signal for another.

  The door opens then, and I swear every time she enters a room, something shifts inside it. Like there’s a charge of energy, a wire, live and dangerous, sparking electricity.

  It’s almost palpable, that shift.

  And I know in an instant how she slipped unnoticed past Matteo.

&n
bsp; The bartender does a double take. He smiles.

  She makes her way to her usual spot as he sets a drink in front of her.

  I hear her quiet voice from here. See her hold up her hand, signal the number three.

  The bartender raises an eyebrow and she tucks her hair behind her ear and nods. The tips of her fingers are black. She must have done it herself.

  A moment later, three shot glasses are lined up and tequila poured. The most expensive bottle he has.

  I smile.

  In the months she’s been away from home, she’s changed. The docile, meek Barbie-doll is gone. Was she ever that? The darkness inside her, it’s on the outside too now. She took care of that tonight.

  She drinks the first shot, pushes one toward the bartender. He likes her, I can see it. He’s probably the only guy in this place who doesn’t look at her like he wants to eat her alive. Although he’s also about eighty-years-old.

  They clink the remaining two shot glasses together and throw them back. Again, she squeezes her eyes shut as she swallows the stuff. The old man watches her with the tenderness of a father, and I think she just ordered another round because he’s hesitant.

  But she insists, and she always gets her way.

  It’s how it is with beautiful women.

  Men drop to their knees to worship them.

  The thought makes my jaw tighten.

  I did it, didn’t I?

  I knelt.

  I worshipped.

  The whiskey tastes bitter as I swallow it down.

  She picks up a few of the bar napkins and the pencil the bartender has already put in front of her. She never seems to remember to bring her own. I know she has better pencils. Sketchbooks full of the image she’ll draw tonight.

  Again, and again, the same one.

  Hell, she’s as obsessed as I am.

  She starts, almost absently sipping on one of the shots. She rubs her right eye with the heel of her hand. Checks her watch.

  I know what she’s waiting for.

  Who she’s waiting for.

  And it’s time for me to make my move.

  I slide off my barstool and make my way toward her. Her pencil pauses, and again, she pushes black hair behind her ear, and I see how she shifts just her gaze, peering at me from the corner of her eye.

  The old man sees too because he’s suddenly closer, wiping off a glass, eyes narrowed on me.

  He’s protective of her.

  I’m glad.

  He’s been my ally for the last few weeks and he doesn’t even know it. Because I’ve been protective too. I’ve been beating the monsters back. I’m not the only predator in town.

  Her pencil is moving again, but her back has gone rigid.

  I take the seat beside hers, angle my body toward her. I put my boot on the foot rest of her stool and lean in to peer at the napkin and when I inhale, I smell hair dye and her.

  “I think the lady prefers to be alone,” the bartender says.

  I don’t bother looking at the old man. Instead, I meet Amelia Willow’s spectacular blue eyes and in that instant, I know she knows who I am.

  I know she has not a single doubt.

  “I like what you did with your hair,” I say, pushing that same, disobedient lock back behind her ear, feeling her shudder as my gloved hand touches the smooth skin of her cheek.

  My gaze falls to her mouth, glossy, pouty lips parted in surprise. I think how I’d like to kiss those lips.

  Sink my teeth into them.

  I look at the choker around her neck. A simple piece of black ribbon to match her newly dyed dark hair. The collar of her oversized sweater is wide. I push it over a little, watch it slide off her shoulder to reveal a red bra strap.

  And when I put two fingers over her pulse, I feel the rapid drumming of her heart.

  “Now look here,” the bartender starts.

  I meet her eyes again, smile.

  She’s still watching me, her eyes still wide. I can hear her breathing. It’s a shallow, trembling breath.

  “I said the lady prefers to be alone,” the old man says again.

  “Do you prefer to be alone, Amelia?” I ask her, never taking my eyes from hers, sliding my fingers over her delicate collar bone to the hollow just beneath her throat.

  She tries to speak but has to clear her throat to get the words out.

  “It’s fine, Bobby,” she says, a slight tremor in her soft voice. She never takes her eyes off me. “I know him.”

  2

  Amelia

  I’ve known someone was following me for weeks.

  Without looking away, I crumple the napkin, leave it on the bar.

  Everything will change tonight.

  It’s what I want, isn’t it? Why I’m here.

  His fingers on my throat, they’re gloved, but I swear I can feel the heat of them on me. He’s sliding them back over my collarbone, his touch soft, and I know what he’s doing. He’s letting me know he can feel how fast my heart is beating.

  “You sure, Amy?” Bobby asks. “I’ll ask him to leave—”

  “No.” I turn to the bartender. He’s sweet, he’s been super sweet to me. “It’s okay. I mean it.”

  “Yeah, Bobby, it’s okay,” Gregory Scafoni says.

  I know it’s Gregory and not Ethan. I have no doubt.

  Maybe it’s the gloved hand that gives it away. Helena said he’d hurt his hand. But she wouldn’t tell me more. She never told me more.

  I look back at him. He’s as beautiful as I remember. Why is it the monsters are always so fucking beautiful.

  “Don’t be rude to him,” I tell Gregory, my words independent of my thoughts.

  Gregory grins, picks up one of the shot glasses, the one I’ve been sipping from, and nudges the other toward me with the bottom of his glass.

  I pick it up.

  He clinks his to mine and swallows the contents.

  I do the same, already a little tipsy from the previous two but needing the burning sensation. The numbing effect of liquor.

  He sets his empty glass down, picks up a handful of stale peanuts and throws them into his mouth. I watch him chew while he watches me.

  His fingers smooth a lock of my new shorter, darker hair. I cut it tonight. I took the kitchen scissors and cut away almost ten inches, so it now falls to just above my shoulders. A sort of metamorphosis. The beginning of one.

  I’m sure it’s uneven but I don’t care.

  The color too, there are still smudges of black at my temples, on my fingertips, on the ruined bathroom towels.

  Going from blonde to black is a stark change.

  But I’m different now, too. Starkly so.

  Or maybe I’ve never been who I was supposed to be.

  “It suits you,” he says, meeting my eyes again. “Better than the blonde.”

  “You don’t know me. How can you know what suits me?”

  He smiles.

  “Was it you?” I ask.

  “Was what me?

  “Following me?”

  He nods. “You should be grateful. You attract the less than desirable sort.”

  “Like you?”

  His smile widens, turns into a smirk.

  I exhale loudly, shift my gaze to the empty glasses. I look up at Bobby, but he shakes his head no. He’s leaning against the back of the bar, arms folded across his chest. For the first time since I’ve known him, I realize for as old as he is, he can probably take most of the men in here.

  And he doesn’t like this one.

  I turn back to Gregory.

  He types something into his phone and tucks it into his pocket and I notice how he’s only wearing the glove on one hand, not both. I think it’s strange.

  But tonight isn’t the night for this. For him. Tonight, I pay back the generosity of the woman in whose apartment I’ve been squatting.

  Generosity. I dismiss the word.

  I am an idiot.

  The door opens and I turn to look to see if it’s her come to get
me, but it’s not. It’s a man and he’s dressed in a dark suit, and stands just inside the door, hands folded together and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him before.

  “I need another drink,” I say to Gregory.

  He turns to Bobby and when the old man still won’t get us more tequila, Gregory leans over the bar to take the bottle and pours us each a shot.

  I see Bobby’s hands fist, but he’s seen the man at the door too.

  When I pick up the glass, my own hand is trembling so hard that some of the tequila splashes onto the bar before I can get it to my lips to swallow it.

  “You’re not what I thought,” he says.

  “What did you think?”

  “A beautiful bore.”

  Silence. I have nothing to say to that.

  “What do you want?” I finally ask.

  “A lot of things. Everything.”

  “What do you want with me?”

  He grins. “A lot of things. Everything.”

  The door opens then and this time, it’s her, the woman I’ve been waiting for. Charlie’s with her and when they see me, their mouths fall open.

  It’s the first time in days that the smile on my face is real because fuck them.

  After a moment, the woman narrows her eyes and Charlie gives me a sorry look. I don’t buy it though. He set me up. He pretended to be my friend and set me up.