Max laid his head on her lap, and she absently stroked the soft, gold fur. He’d become her shadow these past few weeks, as if checking to make sure she was okay and then reporting back to his master with a daily status update. It had taken awhile for the cat to accept the dog’s presence, but now Squish was an expert at ignoring him. She’d briefly hissed when he’d entered the room before snuggling back into Faith’s pillow. In another week, he’d be beneath her notice entirely.

Half an hour or more passed like this when the doorknob jiggled. Before she could ask who it was, Leo stepped inside. He returned the key to his pocket and shut the door behind him. Since the last time she’d tried to lock him out, he’d taken to carrying the key with him. It was a reminder that she couldn’t keep him away from her. This house and everything in it was his.

“Are you okay?” He must not have believed her excuse about all the people.

Faith shrugged and turned her gaze back to the window. “It hurts. This lie. Pretending I’m your fiancée while I’m really your prisoner. They think I have this great life and everything is normal, but I’m like a captive animal. I don’t know if I can stand a week of this.”

She chanced a look at him in time to catch his wince, and immediately felt guilty.

“I told you, you can have whatever you want here. I can’t let you go. I can’t risk that you’d go to the police about Angelo.”

“He’s a monster,” she said, barely above a whisper. “I can’t understand why you’d protect somebody like that.”

“He’s family. I won’t choose a stranger over family, so drop it. We’re leaving for Mass in an hour; be ready.”

He left and locked the door behind him. Leo was right. He owed her nothing, but it still hurt. And yet, if she was only a stranger and family meant everything, why had he protected her from Angelo in the kitchen? Why had he given her this room? Why did he care about her comfort at all?

* * *

The drive to the church was silent—at least in Leo’s car. He looked over at Faith, her body angled away from him in the passenger seat. They hadn’t spoken since their conversation in her bedroom, and now she was somewhere far away, staring out the window at the snow. He imagined she was contemplating the possibility and opportunity for escape. After all, it was her first time outside the house since he’d taken her.

A pang of guilt stabbed him. She was right. She was a captive animal kept in a cage, presumably for her own safety. But Angelo was the criminal, and she was the innocent—no matter how much Leo might wish to ignore the truth.

Gina sat in the back, squeezed between Uncle Sal and Aunt Lily. There was a loud sigh from the backseat. It had to be Sal, because nobody else in the family could sigh in such a heavy and all-encompassing way.