Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 102375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Because here’s this man—this honestly terrifying, occasionally magnetic, morally-bankrupt man—who poured his heart out to me in notebooks while I was in the hospital. Literal me—hair greasy, face gray, gown exposing everything in the worst possible fluorescent lighting. And still, he stayed. He wrote. He gave me words.
Me. The Word Collector.
It was a gift. And like an absolute idiot, I missed it.
So, no, this isn’t some Hallmark channel fantasy where we kiss under Christmas lights and adopt a golden retriever. This isn’t “happily ever after.” Forget that.
This is about trust.
He trusted me. Me, of all people. I’m the witness to his greatest crime. And sure, I’d bet every penny of this sixty-three grand that Rico LaRiccia wasn’t his first kill. But I’m also sure—in that dark, gut-deep way women just know things—that Giovanni has never left a witness like me. Not someone outside the fold. Not someone who wasn’t already his blood.
That means something.
No—I mean something. To him.
I want those moments back.
Didn't I earn it?
Apparently not, because now he wants to discard me like a cigarette stub. And here's why I can't walk away. Here’s the ugly truth: for the rest of forever, I will compare every man I meet, every maybe-he's-the-one boyfriend, every Tinder swipe, against Giovanni Bavga. And they will all, every single one of them, come up short.
So no. It’s not love.
It’s trust.
Which, God help me, might be even worse.
I force myself to look at the masked man, at his gloved hands, at the riding crop that struck with such precision. At the room designed for correction and submission. At the cabinets that undoubtedly hold instruments of pain, or pleasure, or both.
The choice hangs in the air between us, unresolved, my hand suspended in its moment of decision.
The key isn’t freedom into nothing. It’s freedom into everything. I don’t have to reject his offer and go back to the shelter, preserving my dignity.
I could take the pay off.
A new name. A new country. Giovanni’s money cushioning every step. A clean slate he’s practically gift-wrapping for me, all tied in silk and stamped with his signature ability to erase people from existence.
Door number one: safety, anonymity, a life where no one ever calls me by the name Emmaleen Rourke again.
Door number two: Giovanni Bavga. His Doctrine. His rules. His brand of chaos, and cruelty, and notebooks in the dark.
One life where he never touches me again.
One life where every touch belongs to him.
It’s not a choice.
It just isn't.
It never is with men like Giovanni Bavga.
5
I lean forward in my chair, watching Emmaleen's hand hover between the key and the pen. The indecision. The calculation. The sweet fucking torment of choice.
Jino plays his part well. Steady. Silent. Threatening. His breathing barely audible beneath the mask I selected—simple, black, clinical. Not the ornate bullshit amateurs wear to cosplay power. Real dominance doesn't need decoration.
Her fingers twitch. Not toward the key. Not yet. Interesting.
This is the second time I've watched her balance on this knife edge of decision. The first contract was simpler—employment papers with enough legal loopholes to trap an army of Harvard lawyers. Yet she scrutinized every line, sensing the cage beneath the offer.
Now here she sits, wearing that hideous pink blazer with shoulder pads that belong in a 1980s time capsule. The ultimate fuck-you outfit. Deliberate chaos as rebellion.
The first time we did this dance, she surprised me. Most people I've encountered fall into neat categories: the desperate who sign without reading, the cautious who refuse outright, the negotiators who think they can bargain their way into advantage.
Emmaleen was none of these. She read everything. Asked precise questions. Challenged the vague clauses. Then signed anyway, eyes wide open, walking directly into my trap with full awareness of the teeth waiting to close around her.
My chains, my choice. That's what she told me when she threw her pity-win back in my face.
What a move.
I tilt my head, studying her face through the glass. The hesitation isn't fear. It's assessment. Cost-benefit analysis in real time. She's weighing imprisonment against freedom, calculating the value of each.
Her indecision isn't weakness. It's strategy.
Most people would have grabbed the key, bounded up those stairs, and disappeared into whatever life sixty-three thousand dollars could buy them. Anonymous. Safe. Boring.
Not Emmaleen.
She's the first person in years—perhaps ever—to see me. Actually see me. Not just the suit or the money or the power, but the calculations behind my eyes. The cold architecture of my thoughts.
And rather than run, she stepped closer.
No, she didn't just step closer. She walked straight into the dark with me, eyes wide open, curious about what monsters might lurk there.
Why?
I lean back in my chair, watching the monitors with clinical detachment. The woman who handed back a fortune sits with shoulders squared, staring at two mundane objects that somehow hold the weight of her entire future.