But I know how. Because Luca isgoodat this. He’s a predator who spent three years planning the perfect revenge, and I was just another piece on his chessboard. A tool to be used, a life to be destroyed, a means to an end.
And the worst part—the part that makes me hate myself almost as much as I hate him—is that Iknew better. I knew what he was capable of. I knew his capacity for cruelty and violence. IknewI shouldn’t trust him or let my guard down, and Idefinitelyshouldn’t fall in love.
But I did it anyway.
I fell in love with the man who was planning to murder me and my father. I let myself believe in a future that was never going to exist. I was so desperate for connection, so starved for gentleness after weeks of fear, that I mistook manipulation for affection.
God, I’m such afool.
A knock on the bedroom door makes me lift my head.
“Giuliana?” Danny’s voice now, and the bastard actually soundsconcerned. How touching. “Can you let me in? We need to talk.”
“No.” My voice is hoarse from crying and vomiting. “Go away.”
“I’m worried about you?—”
The laugh that escapes me is ugly and broken. “Then you should havewarnedme! You should have told me what he was planning instead of letting me fall in love with the man who was going tomurderme!”
Silence. “It’s not that simple.”
“Yes, itisthat simple!” I’m on my feet now, stumbling out of the bathroom toward the barricaded door. “You knew. You’ve known this whole time what Luca had planned, and you saidnothing. You let me believe that Luca had changed when I was really just—” My voice cracks. “Just a complication waiting to be resolved.”
I can hear him sigh. “Giuliana, listen to me?—”
“No.Youlisten.” I press my palms against the door, my forehead following. “I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to talk toanyone. I just want to be left alone. So go away and tell your boss that if he sends anyone else, I’ll start breaking things. Starting with that priceless vase in the hallway that I know belonged to his grandmother.”
I hear Danny sigh heavily. “Alright. But if you need anything, food, water, someone to talk to?—”
“I won’t.” I turn away from the door, from his concern that comes too late to matter. “Just leave me alone.”
The sound of his footsteps grows softer, and I’m alone again with my grief and rage.
I sink onto the bed that’s once again my prison, and my hand drifts to my stomach, to where a tiny life is growing. A baby I was going to tell Luca about, thinking it might bring us closer.
A baby whose father was planning to kill its mother.
The thought makes fresh tears burn behind my eyes.
What do I do now? How do I protect this child from his father? How do I survive in a house with someone who?—
Who what? Whowasplanning to kill me? Because that’s what Luca keeps claiming; that the plan changed, that his feelings changed everything.
But how can I ever trust that? How can I believe anything he says when every word out of his mouth might be another calculated lie?
I can’t. I won’t. Which means I need to get out of here.
It’s like a lightbulb has gone off. I need to escape. I need to get as far from Luca as possible.
Buthow?
His security is too tight, his control too absolute. The guards watch everything. The gates are monitored. Every communication is tracked?—
My phone. I pat my jeans pockets and yank it out.
I could call Katie and beg her to help somehow, to?—
I pull up my messages and start typing frantically, my fingers shaking. But the words won’t send. Won’t eventryto send.
