I get out of bed. Everything in my cottage looks normal. My furniture, my books, my kitchen where I've made countless cups of coffee while congratulating myself on my bold new life.
It’s all a lie.
I pour myself a glass of wine with hands that won't stop shaking and sink into my kitchen chair. The same chair where I've sat planning my tourism business, writing emails to friends back home about my wonderful new life.
Sarah's business card is still in my pocket. The one with her cousin's number at the U.S. Consulate in Naples. I pull it out and stare at the embossed seal, thinking about what it represents. An escape route if I ever need it.
But do I take it?
That's what he's giving me until morning to decide. Submit to the reality of being with a dangerous man who controls every aspect of my life through deception, or disappear completely from everything I thought I'd built here. Tuck my tail between my legs and return back home to the United States.
Those are my choices. Stay and accept that I'll never have privacy, autonomy, or honest communication with the man who claims to care about me. Or flee and lose the house and the life I believed was mine.
Even though none of it was ever real.
I think about the way he touched my body when he threatened me. Gentle, possessive, completely confident that I belonged to him. The way he spoke about making me disappear.Not angry or regretful, just matter-of-fact. As if my leaving is a business decision.
This is who Enzo Benedetti really is.
He's someone who orchestrates elaborate deceptions to get what he wants and eliminates obstacles when they become inconvenient.
And what he wants is me. Not as a partner, but as a possession.
The wine tastes bitter in my mouth as I finally understand what Sarah and Jessica were trying to tell me. This isn't love, it's ownership. The protection he offers comes with total submission to his will. The safety he provides requires surrendering my right to make independent choices about my own life.
I think about his casual mention of helping me "disappear" from Monte Vento if I can't accept the truth about our relationship. How many other people has he helped disappear over the years? How many of them had a choice in the matter?
My phone buzzes with a text message. From Enzo: "I know this is difficult to process. But what we have is real, even if the beginning was unconventional. I've never lied to you about my feelings."
I stare at the message for a long moment before typing back: "You've never told me the truth about anything else."
His response comes quickly: "Tomorrow, we'll talk honestly. About everything. You deserve that much."
"What I deserved was the truth from the beginning. What I deserved was the right to make my own choices."
The typing indicator shows he's composing a response, then disappears. Then appears again. Finally, a message comes through:
"You're right. I'm sorry."
Two words that don't begin to address the scope of what he's done to me. Two words that feel like another manipulation, designed to make me think he's capable of genuine remorse when everything I've learned tonight suggests otherwise.
Tomorrow morning, when he comes for my answer, I'll be ready. Not because I've decided what to do—that choice is still terrifying and impossible—but because I finally understand what I'm choosing between.
A life of comfortable imprisonment with a man who sees me as something to be possessed and controlled.
Or freedom, with all the uncertainty and loss that comes with it.
For tonight, I sit in my cottage, drink my wine, and mourn the life I thought I was building. The romance I believed was real. The independence I thought I'd achieved.
All of it carefully constructed by a man who wanted to keep me close enough to watch, but never close enough to truly know him.
Until morning, I'm still living in his fabricated reality. But at least now I know it's not real.
And maybe that's enough to help me find the courage to step outside it.
Chapter 28: Enzo
I drive back to the villa, my hands steady on the wheel despite the fury building in my chest. Not at Madison. Never at her. Only at myself for the catastrophic error that may have cost me everything.
