Chapter three
Carlo
Iwake up slowly, consciousness creeping back in layers like fog lifting. For a moment I’m disoriented, unsure where I am or why my body feels so heavy and strange. Then reality crashes back with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
I’m still chained to Giovanni Torrini’s bed. Still naked. Still completely at the mercy of a beautiful, unhinged twenty-one-year-old who thinks kidnapping is a valid dating strategy.
Fuck.
I have no idea what time it is. There’s no natural light down here in this underground tomb, just the same warm glow from the recessed lighting that makes everything feel artificial and disconnected from the real world. It could be morning, could be afternoon, could be the middle of the fucking night for all I know. The thought of Ginni living like this, cut off from sunlight and fresh air, trapped in this expensive basement like some kind of exotic pet, makes something twist unpleasantly in my chest.
The absence of windows feels deliberately cruel. No way to track the passage of time, no connection to the natural rhythm of day and night. Just this eternal artificial twilight that could drive a person slowly insane. How long has Ginni been living like this? Years? Since he was a teenager? The idea of spending your formative years buried underground like a dirty secret makes my stomach turn.
What the hell is wrong with his family? I know they’re ashamed of him, know they prefer to keep their feminine youngest son hidden away from prying eyes, but this is worse than I thought. This isn’t just discretion or old-fashioned values. This is imprisonment disguised as luxury accommodation. They’ve built him the most beautiful cage money can buy and convinced themselves that makes it acceptable.
The kid deserves better than this, even if he is completely fucking insane. He deserves sunlight and fresh air and the basic human right to exist in the world without shame. Instead, they’ve turned him into a basement dweller, isolated and forgotten, left to fester in his own thoughts until those thoughts became dangerous.
Maybe this is what happens when you lock someone away for being different. Maybe this is the inevitable result of years of rejection and shame and being treated like something that needs to be hidden. Not that it excuses what he’s done to me, but it certainly explains it.
Despite everything he’s done, despite the handcuffs and the complete violation of my personal autonomy, I have to admit I’m remarkably comfortable. The mattress is high quality, and the sheets are some kind of Egyptian cotton that feels like silk against my skin. Even the temperature is perfect, neither too warm nor too cool, maintained by what must be an expensive climate control system.
The pillows have been positioned perfectly to support my head and neck, Ginni adjusted them multiple times last night, saying he wanted to ensure I wasn’t uncomfortable. I remember gentle fingers arranging and rearranging, testing angles and heights until everything was just right. The memory should be disturbing, but instead it’s oddly touching.
Even kidnapped and chained, Ginni is trying to take care of me. The thought shouldn’t warm something in my chest the way it does.
Something warm and solid is pressed against my side, and I turn my head to see Ginni curled up next to me like a cat seeking warmth. He’s using my chest as a pillow, one delicate hand splayed across my ribs, his breathing slow and even. His hair is mussed from sleep, falling across his face in soft waves that catch the artificial light.
He looks impossibly young like this, all sharp cheekbones and long eyelashes, so small and fragile that I could probably snap him in half with one hand. His face is peaceful in a way I rarely see when he’s awake, free from the manic energy and calculated madness that usually defines his expressions.
Ginni is tiny. Hollow-boned, like a bird. Vulnerable despite all his carefully orchestrated plots of insanity.
There’s something almost ethereal about his beauty when he’s like this, unguarded and soft. It’s easy to forget, looking at him now, that this same delicate creature drugged me, stripped me, and chained me to his bed. And then did other unspeakable things that I don’t want to think about ever again.
It’s easy to forget the knife he produced with casual menace, the careful planning that must have gone into every detail of my captivity.
He doesn’t mean to be a menace, I realize with uncomfortable clarity. This isn’t calculated cruelty or deliberate sadism. This is just who Giovanni is, the way his broken mind processes theworld. He sees something he wants and takes it, consequences be damned. He feels something intensely and acts on it without considering that other people might not share his particular brand of logic.
In his mind, this probably isn’t kidnapping at all. This is love. This is courtship. This is him finally taking action after years of waiting and watching and wanting. The fact that it’s completely illegal and morally reprehensible doesn’t factor into his calculations because Giovanni Torrini has never lived in the same reality as the rest of us.
This is such a mess. A horrible, tangled mess.
He’s my best friend’s little brother. The family member they hide away in a basement because they’re ashamed of who he is, what he represents. So what the hell are they going to do when they find out about this? When they discover that their carefully contained secret has finally exploded in spectacular fashion?
Lock him up in some private institution where he can’t embarrass them anymore? Disown him completely and cut all ties? Ship him off to some remote facility where he’ll disappear entirely from their lives? The Torrini family has money and connections. They could make Giovanni vanish without a trace if they wanted to, and part of me suspects they’ve been considering it for years.
The poor kid can’t help the way he is. His brain is just wired differently, and instead of getting him proper help or learning to accept him as he is, his family stuck him underground like something shameful that needs to be hidden from polite society. They’ve spent years treating him like a problem to be managed rather than a person to be loved, and now they’re all going to act shocked when that treatment produces exactly the kind of results you’d expect.
A shiver dances down my spine. I know what I need to do. It is the only option.
When I escape from this insanity, I’m going to have to cover it all up. Pretend it never happened. Bury the whole thing so deep that no one ever finds out what Giovanni Torrini is capable of when left to his own devices for too long. Because if this gets out, if people find out that Marco’s baby brother drugged and kidnapped a capo, there might not be time for an institution or a gentle exile.
There might just be a bullet and an unmarked grave.
The thought makes something cold settle in my stomach. Whatever twisted feelings I might have about this situation, whatever confused arousal and unwilling fascination might be clouding my judgment, I can’t let anything happen to Ginni. I know that much is true. He might be completely insane, he might have violated every boundary I’ve ever set, but he’s still just a kid who’s been failed by everyone who was supposed to protect him.
That’s the reality, the cold, hard truth. Even though I’m furious. Outraged beyond words at what this little deranged nightmare has done to me. Ashamed of my own reactions, of the way my body responds to his touch despite my mind screaming that this is wrong on every possible level. Humiliated by how easily he’s stripped away every defense I’ve spent years building, how completely he’s turned my carefully controlled world upside down. Even through all of that, I still don’t want anything bad to happen to him.
It’s so fucking confusing, because if anyone else had the audacity to pull a stunt like this, I know exactly what I would be planning. I’d be thinking about which tools would cause the most pain, which methods would extract the most satisfying screams, how long I could keep them alive while making them regret every decision that led to this moment. I’d be planning their death in exquisite detail, savoring every moment of anticipated revenge.
