Good.
He thinks this was a victory. He thinks he took something from me. He thinks that by forcing my body, he has conquered my mind.
He is wrong.
He just gave me the weapon I need to destroy him. Shame is a powerful lever, and Killian Kavanagh is drowning in it.
I finish the water. I walk to my bedroom. I sit on the edge of the bed in the dark, feeling the burn of him still inside me.
I do not cry. Falcones do not cry.
I begin to plan.
Chapter Six
KILLIAN
I wakeup with the taste of copper in my mouth.
It takes me three seconds to remember why.
First comes the headache—a dull, rhythmic throb behind my eyes that feels like someone parked a truck on my skull. Then comes the smell—sterile, expensive air that doesn't smell like my apartment. Then comes the memory.
The glass. The city lights. The sound of my own breathing, harsh and ragged, filling a room that was otherwise silent as a grave.
And him.
The way he went still. The way he let me do it.
I sit up. The movement is a mistake. The room tilts on its axis, sliding sideways before slamming back into place. A groan works its way out of my throat, low and rough. My stomach rolls, threatening to revolt against the whiskey I poured into it last night.
The sheet falls to my waist. I am naked. My clothes are in a pile on the floor where I dropped them—the suit rumpled, the tie coiled like a dead snake.
I look at the room.
It’s white. Aggressively white. White walls, white sheets with a thread count that feels like water, white curtains filtering the grey morning light into something soft and diffuse. It feels like a hospital. Or a morgue. A place designed to be easily cleaned, where messes are wiped away with antiseptic and efficiency.
It is Alessandro’s world. And I am the dirt in it.
I look at my hands.
The split knuckle on my right hand has scabbed over again, a dark, ugly line against the skin. I stare at it. I flex the fingers. The scab pulls tight, threatening to crack. I want it to crack. I want to feel it bleed. Pain makes sense. Pain is simple.
What happened last night is not simple.
I get up. My legs feel heavy, like I’m wading through wet concrete. I walk to the bathroom. The mirror is huge, brightly lit, unforgiving. I look at my reflection.
My eyes are bloodshot. There are dark circles under them that look like bruises. My hair is a mess. I look like exactly what I am: a thug who drank too much whiskey and forced himself on his husband because he was too scared to face the reality of the cage he’s in.
I grip the edge of the sink until my knuckles turn white. The porcelain is cold.
I have done violent things. I have broken bones. I have hurt men who deserved it and men who were just in the way. I have killed people, and I have slept soundly afterwards because I knew why I did it. It was business. It was survival.
But this?
This was weakness.
He didn't fight back. That’s the thing that sticks in my chest like a shard of glass. He didn't scream. He didn't plead. He just… went away. He turned off the lights inside his head and let me use his body like a piece of equipment. He treated his own rape like a transaction I had insisted on completing.
