Choosing the monster I know over the monsters I don’t.
“I don’t forgive you.” The words come out quiet but firm. “For kidnapping me. For keeping me locked up, away from my job, my family. For lying.”
“I know.”
“I might never forgive you.”
“I know that too.”
My forehead tips against his. My hand stays in his hair. His breath mingles with mine.
“But I’m staying close. For now.”
His eyes close. Relief flooding his features.
“For now,” he echoes.
22
VIOLET
The cage has a different shape now, wider. I’m no longer confined to a handful of rooms. In fact, Elio encourages me to explore, saying I’m safe on the estate. That it’s the only place I’m safe.
My heart disagrees. The only place it feels safe is next to him.
I spend most of my time in the gardens surrounding the property. They’re different at night. During the day, they’re a manicured perfection. Terraced hedges, lemon trees, gravel paths raked into precise patterns. Evidence of control, wealth, and the same obsessive attention to detail that built my prison.
But at night, the edges soften.
Jasmine blooms heavy and sweet, the scent thick enough to taste. Orange trees cast shadows that shift in the breeze. The Mediterranean glitters in the distance, and if I squint, I can almost pretend I’m just a tourist. Just a woman taking an evening walk in a beautiful place.
Almost.
I wander deeper into the garden, my jeans and tank top a deliberate rebellion against the designer dresses hanging in my closet. Not that they aren’t designer. They are. But they make mefeel a bit more like the person I used to be before Elio Marchetti decided to collect me.
Stay close to me.
His voice echoes in my head. The desperation in it. The way his hands shook when he thought I’d compared him to ordinary cheaters.
I told him he made me feel safe and I meant it. Whatever I feel for him has been slowly growing, and is now blooming like the plants in the solarium. Rich and vibrant despite being kept in a glass cage. Or maybe because of it.
Stockholm syndrome,the rational part of my brain whispers.Trauma bonding. Classic captor-captive psychology.
But it doesn’t feel like psychology, it’s too messy for a textbook. Too real for a diagnosis.
My fingers brush the leaves of a hedge as I walk, the rough texture dragging me back into my body, back into something real and present. I’m still here. Still me, even if I don’t recognise the person I’m becoming in this place.
A commotion near the main house stops me.
Sharp Italian voices cutting through the courtyard, heels cracking against stone with the kind of speed that means fury. I step back into the shadow of an orange tree as a woman storms through the courtyard entrance.
She’s stunning. The kind of stunning that makes other women feel inadequate just by existing. Dark hair swept back in a sleek twist. Cheekbones that could cut glass. A tight black dress that clings to every curve like it was painted on. High heels. Red-soled.
Two guards move to intercept her. She waves them off without breaking stride, her hand cutting through the air in a gesture that saysdon’t you dare touch me. The confidence of someone who’s never been told no in her entire life.
They let her pass, one of them speaking into their cuff as she continues on her way.
Mafia royalty,I think.She looks like she was born to this world, like she belongs here.
