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)
Silence. Then—
"Yes."
Her voice is rough. Raw from crying, from screaming, from whatever Giovanni reduced her to tonight.
"Tell me."
She shifts slightly. Not pulling away, just adjusting so she can breathe easier. Her face still against my chest, her hand still gripping my shirt.
"You're..." She pauses. Searching for words. "You're the one who puts me back together."
My chest tightens.
"Every morning," she continues, voice barely above a whisper. "After he... after Giovanni takes me apart. You rebuild me. Piece by piece. You teach me how to be what he needs. What he wants. You show me the rules, the positions, the protocol. You make me perfect for him."
Fuck.
"You're my guide," she says. "My teacher. The bridge between what I am and what I need to become. For Giovanni."
Everything she's saying is true. Technically. By the terms of our arrangement, by the role I agreed to play—she's right.
But hearing it laid out like that. Hearing her reduce herself to raw material that needs shaping, sculpting, fixing so she can be worthy of Giovanni fucking Bavga—
It's wrong.
All of it is wrong.
"Emmaleen—"
"I know what you're going to say." Her fingers tighten on my skin. "And I don't want to hear it."
"You need to hear it."
"No." Firm. Resolute. "I don't."
I pull back slightly, just enough to see her face. Her eyes are open now—pale green reflecting the dim candlelight filtering through the doorway. Clear. Sharp. Not glazed with subspace or clouded with confusion.
She knows exactly what she's saying.
"I need to apologize," I tell her. "For Giovanni. For what he did tonight. That wasn't—"
"Stop."
"Emmaleen—"
"I said stop." She pushes up on one elbow, looking down at me. Her hair falls around her face in dark waves, messy and beautiful and completely at odds with everything that happened tonight. "Don't apologize for him. Don't you dare."
"He hurt you."
"I know." No hesitation. No shame. Just acknowledgment.
"He went too far."
"His game. His rules." She shrugs, wincing slightly as the movement pulls at welted skin. "All I have to do is follow them."
My jaw clenches. "That's not how this works."
"Isn't it?" She settles back down, but doesn't turn away. Stays propped on that elbow, watching me. "He sets the boundaries. I exist within them. That's the deal."
"The deal was supposed to include safety. Sanity. Mutual—"
"I love him."
The words stun me silent.
Three words. Simple. Declarative. Absolute.
I love him.
She says it like it's fact. Like it's inevitable. Like loving Giovanni Bavga is just the natural state of things and questioning it would be absurd.
"Emmaleen." My voice comes out rougher than I intend. "You can't—"
"I can. I do." She shifts closer again, her face inches from mine. "I love him, Jino. I want to be here. With him. For him. Whatever that means."
"Even if it means this?" I gesture vaguely toward her body, the marks, the damage. "Even if it means letting him destroy you?"
"He's not destroying me." Soft. Certain. Terrifying in her conviction. "He's... reshaping me. Into something better. Something worthy of him."
No.
No, no, no.
This is exactly what I was afraid of. She's not in love with him. She's in love with her own erasure. With the idea that suffering equals devotion. That pain is the price of being chosen.
"You're wrong," I tell her.
"Am I?"
"Yes." I sit up, forcing her to adjust, to look at me fully. "You think this is love. You think what he's doing to you is some kind of... transformation. But it's not. It's destruction. Pure and simple. And you're letting it happen because you've confused abuse with affection."
She doesn't flinch. Doesn't look away. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"I know exactly what I'm talking about. I've seen it before. I've trained submissives who—"
"I'm not them." Sharp now. Defensive. "Whatever you've seen before, whatever pattern you think I fit—I don't. This is different."
"It's not different. It's textbook. You've taken your trauma from your ex and—"
"Don't." Her voice cuts like glass. "Don't you dare psychoanalyze me. Don't reduce this to some kind of... repetition compulsion or whatever bullshit term you want to slap on it. I know what I'm doing. I know what I want."
"You want to be beaten until you can't sit? You want to be isolated, controlled, owned like property?"
"If that's what it takes."
"Takes for what?"
"To keep him!" The words explode out of her. Loud. Raw. "To make him see that I'm not like the others. That I won't leave. That I can handle whatever he throws at me and still be standing. Still be his."
Silence crashes down.
She's breathing hard. Chest heaving. Eyes bright with something between tears and fury.
I stare at her.
This is rejection. Pure, absolute rejection.
Not of me, specifically. But of everything I'm trying to offer. Every alternative I'm presenting. Every path that doesn't lead directly into Giovanni's arms—she's refusing it.
Pushing it away.
Choosing him instead.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she's not salvageable. Maybe the damage was already done before she ever walked into this house, and I'm just watching her finish what someone else started.