Ready for what?
To die.To burn.
I choke on it.
Love isn’t supposed to look like this.It’s supposed to be soft. Or kind. Or safe.
Not a man wearing his own execution and daring the world to hurry.
My fingers curl inside chains that don’t give.
My chest hurts in a place I didn’t know existed.
I whisper his name again, just in case something out there still listens.
He doesn’t hear me.Or he does—and refuses.
Because if he turns — if he sees my face like this—
He’ll wreck the world for the right to keep breathing the same air as me.
And I will not be the thing that kills him.
I swallow blood and terror and a sob that never gets a body.
I watch him take the last step.
And I know—with a clarity that makes me nauseous—
Whatever comes next…
He is not walking out the same man who came in.
The Torture Begins
Carlo lifts two fingers.
That’s it.
Hands fist into my hair—right at the roots—jerking my head back until the ceiling swims. My neck screams. A boot bucks into the back of my knees. I go down, then I’m airborne again, hauled backward across concrete that chews through denim and skin alike. I twist and kick and claw, my nails scraping uselessly against sleeves and gunmetal and bodies bred for this.
I scream for Santino like oxygen depends on it.
“Santino—”
Iron slams.
The word dies in my mouth as the door crashes shut between us. Thick. Final. The sound of metal swallowing me whole.
The room is a box.
No windows.Concrete sweating cold.One naked table in the corner.A rust-stained chair bolted to the floor.A bucket of melted ice—gray with old dirt.Zip ties scattered like shed skins.
And tools.
Not random ones.
Recognition hits slow and sick, the way it only does when nightmares once had court transcripts. My father’s file flashes behind my eyes—evidence photos, captions typed by men who thought distance meant safety.
