“Why?”
“She tried to leave. Take me with her.” His mouth twists. Something bitter and broken in the curve of it. “Cicero couldn’t allow that. Control is everything. It’s a lesson I’ll never forget.”
I should feel triumph. Another crack in the marble. Another weakness to exploit. Instead, I feel sick.
“I made myself a promise that day.”
I shouldn’t ask. Shouldn’t care.
“What promise?”
His eyes lock on mine. Dark and endless and dangerous in ways I’m only beginning to understand.
“That I would never let anyone take what’s mine again. Not my father. Not the Syndicate. Not God himself.” A pause that stretches into eternity. “That includes you.”
The words feel like he just slapped me.
“I’m not yours.” My voice shakes. I hate that it shakes.
“Not yet.” He stands. Comes around the table toward me with the slow, certain grace of a predator who knows his prey can’t run. “But you will be.”
He cups my face with both hands. Forces me to look up at him.
“I know you think I’m the monster.” His voice is rough. Raw. “And I am. But I’m also the only man who will ever want you this completely. Who will show you the real you.” His thumb strokes my cheekbone. The same spot where he caught my tear in the library. “Your body already knows, Violet. Your mind will follow.”
He leans down. His mouth hovers near my ear, breath warm against my skin.
“When you finally stop fighting,tesoro, I’m going to make you feel things you didn’t know were possible.”
Then he releases me and takes a steps back, leaving me trembling.
Later that evening,I pace my room like a caged animal.
“Arrogant, psychotic bastard.” The words feel good leaving my mouth. Justified. Right. “Fucking kidnapper. Monster. Asshole.”
The anger cracks.
Because underneath it is his confession. His mother, murdered by his father when he was twelve. Finding her body. Growing up in the shadow of that violence, shaped by it, broken by it.
No wonder he’s so broken.
What was it like, I wonder despite myself. Growing up without a mother. Without siblings or love from your family. I can’t picture it, not really. My own family isn’t perfect—Ma’sconstant worry that never quite lets up, Danny’s temper flaring hot and fast, Sean’s tendency to fix everything whether you asked him to or not—but at least I never had to wonder if anyone loved me. There was always someone. Always noise, always warmth, even when it felt suffocating.
He’s not just possessive.
He’s terrified of loss.
The monster was made by grief and trauma. He cages things because caged things can’t be taken away. He controls everything because the one time he didn’t have control, his mother died and his world collapsed.
Stop.I press my hands against my temples.Stop analyzing him like a project. Stop finding the load-bearing walls of his psychology and mapping them like you map structural damage in old buildings.
But I can’t stop.
This doesn’t excuse cornering me. Proving my body betrays me. It doesn’t excuse the kidnapping, or the cage, or the surveillance, or any of it.
But it explains.
And understanding is worse than hating.
