No walls. No partition.
Just a bare seat bolted to the floor, beside a showerhead fixed directly into the concrete wall.
No curtain. No privacy. No dignity.
A rusted drain sat beneath it, the only thing separating water from flooding the room.
That was it.
No table. No mirror. No clock.
Nothing.
My chest tightened painfully as the truth sank in.
This wasn’t just a room.
It was a cage.
A place designed not just to confine me—but to break me.
To strip me of privacy and identity.
I swallowed hard, my throat dry.
This was where they planned to keep me.
Where they planned to use me.
Where I would wait.
For whatever came next.
My legs trembled beneath me.
I took a slow, unsteady step forward, then another, moving deeper into the room as if testing whether it was real.
Whether I was real.
My fingers brushed against the wall.
After the fucking bloodbath at the academy... after those endless, brutal fights with Vincenzo’s men — punching, kicking, clawing just to stay alive, only to end up with more cuts and bruises than I could count...
That short bastard who tried to force his way between my legs.
I was beyond exhausted.
I could barely keep my eyes open during lectures, my brain screaming one thing only: get back to Vincenzo’s estate, collapse face-first into that guest room bed, and let the painkillers knock me out.
Let my battered body heal somehow.
Who the hell would’ve guessed I’d end up here?
Kidnapped.
My body still black and blue, still leaking blood, pain ripping through me in fresh waves that refused to die down.
I looked down at myself.
