The ceiling softens from gray to pearl. Morning is here, and I don’t want to waste another minute of my life.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and put my feet on the floor. The ankle monitor they installed before I left the courthouse is like an anchor holding me in place.
It doesn’t matter. It won’t stop me from doing what I need to do.
The rug beneath my feet is thick, a Persian pattern Carlotta chose because it reminded her of a story she liked as a girl. I never cared what story; I cared that she wanted it.
The floor beneath is wood, waxed to a sheen in preparation for the homecoming no one was willing to jinx by saying out loud. A dresser sits across from the bed, dark walnut, its top clean except for a silver tray and a photograph in a simple frame.
Carlotta is laughing in it—some party, some summer, sunlight turning her hair to copper. She is turned slightly away from the camera. I do not touch the frame. I look. It is too much for me right now.
The room feels familiar, though it’s not the same. High ceiling, tall windows, heavy drapes. The bed—carved headboard, clean lines, posts Carlotta used to drape dresses over while getting ready for dinner.
A sitting area with two armchairs, a low table, and a stack of books no one ever put back after the day they stormed my office and arrested me.
I shrug off the sheet and stand. My body wakes like an oiled machine. No, I’m not twenty-five, but the last four years of difficulty, determination, and hard work have made me strong and fit.
I go to the window first and pull the drapes open. The view rolls out like a flag: sweeping lawn, trees set in lines that aren’tintentionally random, a hint of the ocean in the distance when the air is clear enough—today it’s just a pale line on the horizon.
The gate is closed. The guardhouse is manned. I can, without trying, point to the cameras. I know where every blind spot is because there are none.
This estate is well-protected. I built it that way. It stands the way I do—no apology for the space it takes up, every weakness considered and reinforced. When I was forced to shrink myself to survive, the house held my family and my memories for me.
In the bathroom, the lights come on with a soft click. Marble, glass, steel, the kind of shower that makes a man feel like a king.
The mirror throws me back at myself. Stubble coats the bottom half of my face, and my hair is longer than it used to be. There are lines at the corners of my mouth I didn’t have the last time I stood in this room.
They don’t make me look older so much as they make me look like a survivor.
And I have survived.
I turn the water on in the shower and wait for steam to billow. When it hits the temperature I like, I step in and surrender to the warmth.
I took a shower when I got home last night, the first luxurious thing my body experienced in eleven years.
Prison showers were fast and calculated. I turn my face up to the spray of water.
This is different. No sound of a guard barking or prisoners talking.
I soap slowly, reacquainting myself with a body that feels like my own again. I carry my past like a map carved into my skin. Scars from a reckless childhood, clawing my way to power. Scars from fighting for my life while a guard stands by watching and laughing.
For a moment, I let grief and love and lust share space in me.
I think about that prosecutor. I close my eyes and imagine her standing before me, joining me in my shower. Elena. Her long dark hair cascading down her back, her blue eyes sparkling with a lustful look I’ve never seen in person but can imagine now.
Her luscious curves, her fit physique, it’s all there, vivid and real. My hands move instinctively, tracing the contours of my body as I picture her doing the same.
My cock throbs as I begin to stroke it, imagining the curve of her perky breasts, her nipples hardening under my gaze. I can envision her on her knees, her wet mouth wrapping around my dick, her tongue swirling with a hunger that matches my own.
I groan, the sound echoing in the large shower, as I lean against the wall, my breath quickening. I can feel her pressing against me, her tight pussy grinding against my hard, throbbing cock.
Her skin is warm and slick with soap, her body responsive, and I can feel her resistance crumbling under the force of our shared passion.
I slide my fingers down her stomach, into the wet heat of her pussy. She moans, her head falling back, her hair brushing against my chest as I finger her, slow and deliberate, feeling her clench around me.
“Luca,” she whispers in my fantasy, her voice breathy and desperate, and I smile to myself, a dark, satisfied smirk.
With each stroke of my hand, I imagine pounding into her relentlessly, her nails digging into my back as she begs for more. Her body is tight, her walls gripping me like a vice, and I growl, the sound primal and raw.
