"It means you're a very good actor. All those moments where you seemed conflicted, where you looked like selling me was tearing you apart. That was all performance, wasn't it?"
"No. The conflict was real. The feelings were real."
"The auction was fake, the buyers were fake, the training was fake. Why should I believe anything else was real?"
I have no answer. Nothing that would make any difference now.
"Save your excuses and take me back to the villa," she says. "I'm exhausted and I need time to think."
"Camilla, please—"
"There's nothing to explain. You lied to me for weeks while putting me through hell." She meets my eyes. "That's the truth, isn't it?"
I want to deny it, want to find words that could make her understand. But looking at her face—the betrayal, the hurt, the fury—I realize there are no words that could justify what I've done.
"Yes," I say quietly. "That's the truth."
She nods like I've confirmed something she already knew. "Then we understand each other perfectly."
The drive back to the villa is silent. But this time, it's not the comfortable quiet of recovery. It's the cold silence of trust shattered beyond repair.
I rescued her from traffickers, eliminated threats to her safety, moved heaven and earth to bring her home.
And in doing so, I've lost her completely.
She's safe now and free.
Free to hate me for the rest of her life.
And I have no one to blame but myself.
Chapter 33: Camilla
The villa looks exactly the same, and that somehow makes everything worse.
I stand in the main foyer where this nightmare began, staring at the elegant staircase that leads to the room where I was held captive for weeks. The Persian rugs, the expensive art, the subtle scent of wealth and power. All of it perfect, as if nothing happened here.
As if I didn't kill a man in the salon down the hall.
As if I wasn't systematically broken down and rebuilt in the bedroom upstairs.
As if everything I believed about my situation wasn't a lie.
"The staff has prepared a room for you," Renato says quietly behind me. "Whichever one you prefer. You're not going back to—"
"To my cell?" I turn to face him, noting how he keeps his distance like I might run. "Because that's what it was, wasn't it? No matter how you dress it up."
"Yes." The simple admission catches me off guard. "It was a cell."
I expected him to argue, to find some way to justify it. The honesty is somehow worse than lies would be.
"I need to see the salon," I say suddenly.
"Camilla, I don't think that’s a good idea."
"I need to see where it happened. Where I killed a man believing I was saving myself from being sold to monsters." My voicecracks slightly. "Where you let me believe I was about to be sold to monsters."
He hesitates, then nods. "Okay."
