She stops mid-stride. “Excuse me?”
“Change for dinner. Eight o’clock.”
Her eyes flick to the wardrobe. “I’m not wearing anything you picked out. Not ever. You can burn it all for all I care.”
“You will.” I keep my voice even. Patient. “Eventually. When you’re ready. I can wait.”
“I’ll wear these clothes until they fuckingrotoff my body?—”
“Your choice.”
“—and then I’ll strangle you with them, I swear to God?—”
“Good.”
She blinks. Thrown by my response.
“I will.” Her voice shakes with conviction. “First chance I get. First moment you let your guard down. I’ll put something sharp through your throat and watch you bleed out.”
The threat is raw. Violent. No holding back.
This is why I won’t give her the chance.
“I know.” I reach the door. Turn to face her one last time. “Dinner’s at eight. Something will be sent for you to wear. If you choose not to change—” I shrug. “No meal.”
“I’d rather starve than eat with you.”
“We’ll see.”
I step into the hallway. Close the door. Listen for the click of the lock engaging.
Then I wait.
On the other side of the door there’s nothing but silence. No screaming. No breaking things. No throwing herself against the walls like she did before.
She’s thinking. Planning.
Good girl.
Every escape attempt will teach me something new. Every plan she makes will show me more of how her mind works. The patterns, the priorities, the lines she’ll cross and the ones she won’t. I’m building an encyclopedia of her, page by page, and I have all the time in the world.
I’ve waited weeks. Months. Longer, if I count back to the photograph.
I can wait as long as it takes for her to understand that this is permanent.
This is her life now.
7
VIOLET
Eight o’clock comes and goes.
I know because there’s an antique clock on the wall, of course it’s antique, marking each second with a tick that makes me want to rip it down and smash it against the marble floor.
I don’t.
Instead, I lie on the silk sheets fully clothed in dirty jeans and yesterday’s henley, the boots I’d found kicked beneath the bed now back on by choice, grinding Palermo mud into five-hundred-thread-count Egyptian cotton like a small, stubborn, act of war.
