Then she's gone, disappearing into her room and closing the door with a soft click.
I stand in the foyer for a long moment, trying to process what just happened. She saw me covered in blood from torturing a man to death, and her only questions were who and if I was injured.
Not judgment. Not horror. Just... acceptance.
I head to my room and strip off the ruined suit, standing under a scalding shower until the water runs clear. The blood circles the drain in pink spirals, evidence of violence washing away to leave me clean on the surface.
But I'm not clean. I'll never be clean.
I tortured a man tonight and enjoyed it. Took out every frustration, every moment of powerlessness, every second of not knowing if she'd forgive me. I carved it all into Al-Zahrani's flesh until he was nothing but meat and screaming.
And it felt good.
That should horrify me. Should make me question what I've become.
Instead, I just feel empty. Satisfied but hollow, like I've expended all the violence inside me and have nothing left.
I dry off and pull on clean clothes, then sit on the edge of my bed staring at nothing. Somewhere down the hall, Camilla is lying awake processing what she saw.
Deciding if a man who comes home covered in blood is someone she can live with.
Deciding if the monster who makes her breakfast is still a monster when the breakfast comes with a side of murder.
Does she know that the violence isn't separate from the breakfast and the coffee and the attempts at normalcy? It's all the same man, all woven together into something twisted and dark and completely devoted to her?
I should sleep, but instead I find myself standing in the hallway outside her door, staring at the wood separating us. Does she understand what I did tonight? Does she know I'd do it again, and worse, for anyone who threatened her?
I don't knock. Don't try to explain or justify or make her understand.
I just stand there, separated by six inches of wood and miles of moral distance, hoping she can live with what I am.
Eventually, I return to my room and lie in bed, watching dawn break through the windows. In a few hours, I'll make her coffee. Maybe cook eggs again. Pretend for a little while that I'm not a man who came home covered in blood.
But we both know the truth now.
Both of us lying awake, thinking about blood and breakfast and the impossible question of what love looks like when it's wrapped in violence and soaked in the consequences of who we really are.
Chapter 39: Camilla
I can't stop thinking about his hands covered in blood.
I'm lying in bed staring at the ceiling, my mind replaying the image of Renato standing in the foyer drenched in Al-Zahrani's blood. The expensive suit ruined, his face spattered with evidence of what he'd done.
What he'd done for me.
Did he suffer?
I asked that question without thinking, the words slipping out before I could analyze what they meant. But I meant it. I wanted confirmation that the man who thought he could own me had experienced pain.
And when Renato showed me that photograph, I felt something dark and satisfied settle in my chest.
I should be horrified by that satisfaction.
Instead, I just feel safe.
Protected.
The photo is burned into my memory now. Not the details—those blurred almost immediately. But the reality of it. The proof that Al-Zahrani understood, at the end, exactly what he'd tried to buy.
