Except I'm not a captive anymore. Haven't been for a while now, if I'm being honest with myself.
I'm choosing to stay.
I'm choosing to wait for him to come home.
I'm choosing to want to see the man who killed for me.
The day stretches endlessly. I try to read, but the words blur on the page. I swim laps in the pool until my arms ache, but it doesn't quiet my mind. I eat lunch because I know I should, but I barely taste it.
All day, I'm just waiting.
For the sound of his car. For his footsteps in the hallway. For the chance to see him and confirm that what I felt last night wasn't some kind of blood-soaked delusion.
Evening comes. Then dinner. Then darkness.
He still isn't home.
By 10 PM, I give up and go to bed, feeling foolish for spending an entire day waiting for a man who's probably avoiding me because he thinks I'll be horrified by what he did.
If only he knew.
I lie in the dark, listening to the sounds of the empty villa, and try not to feel disappointed.
Then, sometime after midnight, I hear it. A car in the driveway. The front door opening and closing with careful quiet. Footsteps on the stairs.
I hold my breath as the footsteps approach my door and then stop.
He's standing right outside. I can sense him there, separated by just a few inches of wood. Waiting. Listening. Maybe trying to decide if he should knock.
My heart pounds so hard I'm sure he can hear it.
But after a long moment, the footsteps move on. His door opens and closes down the hall.
And I'm left lying in the dark, wide awake again, with all the thoughts from last night flooding back.
But now there's something else mixed in with the satisfaction and the dark comfort of his violence.
There's memory. Sharp and intrusive and impossible to ignore.
What's keeping me awake now is the memory of other hands. Other eyes. Other men who looked at me like I was something to be purchased and used.
I close my eyes and I'm back in that salon. The fake auction that felt so terrifyingly real. Three men examining me while I stood there in that black dress, unable to run, forced to let them evaluate me like I’m less than nothing.
Kozlov's cold blue eyes traveling over my body, assessing every curve. Al-Rashid's calculating gaze as he discussed my "breeding potential." Torretti's clinical assessment, checking my teeth like I was a horse at market.
The memory makes my skin crawl.
But worse than the looking was the touching.
I can still feel Kozlov's hands on me. The way he grabbed my dress and yanked it up, his fingers forcing between my legs without permission, without hesitation. Violating me while pretending it was "verification." His breath hot on my neck as he grunted with satisfaction at finding me "intact."
I drove that fountain pen through his throat, and I'd do it again.
I'd do it a thousand times.
But killing him didn't erase the memory of his touch. Didn't undo the violation of his fingers inside me. Didn't remove the dirty stain of being handled like an object instead of a person.
Those hands. That moment of absolute powerlessness.
