Anger. Something twisted.
He held a cigarette between his fingers, unlit, turning it idly as if he were deciding whether to smoke it or use it for something else.
His shirt smelled faintly of stale smoke and whiskey, the scent drifting toward me with every step he took.
“What the fuck were you doing?” My voice came out sharp—cracked but filled with something I hadn’t expected.
Fear.
And something close to rage.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, slow and deliberate, as though my touch had somehow dirtied him.
“Checking if you were still breathing,” he said flatly.
His voice carried no warmth.
No emotion.
“Wouldn’t want you dying before we get started.”
My stomach lurched violently.
“Started?”
The word echoed in my mind, twisting into something worse the longer I thought about it.
He stepped closer.
I instinctively moved back—but there was nowhere to go.
My spine hit the wall behind me.
No escape. No space.
“You heard Matteo,” he said, his voice dropping lower—almost conversational, as though we were discussing something trivial.
“You’re here to make up for lost time.”
Chapter 20
ELENA
Vasquez stood a few feet away, chest heaving, a trembling finger pointed straight at me.
Rage twisted his features into something unrecognizable—something feral.
The man in front of me wore my father’s face, but whatever had once lived behind it was long gone.
“You will undress,” he snarled, voice low, guttural, thick with something that made my stomach turn. “Lie the fuck down. And let me have my way.”
For a split second, the room tilted.
From the sheer, suffocating weight of what he’d just said.
Then something inside me snapped back into place.
Cold. Sharp.
