Chapter 19
Chapter nineteen
Carlo
Iwake slowly, consciousness drifting back like fog lifting from still water.
The projector above us is displaying a perfect tropical sunrise, all golden light and gentle waves lapping at pristine sand.
For a moment I’m disoriented, unsure if it’s actually morning or if this is just another of Ginni’s carefully curated atmospheres designed to make captivity feel like paradise.
There are no clocks down here, no natural light to mark the passage of time. Only eternal artificial light punctuated by whatever scenes Ginni chooses to paint across our ceiling. It could be dawn or midnight for all I know. Time has become meaningless in this beautiful basement prison.
Ginni is curled against my side, using my chest as his pillow in the way that’s become our nightly ritual.
His breathing is deep and even, peaceful in a way that makes something twist in my chest. After yesterday’s manic episode, the frantic planning and excited chatter about our future, he looks almost fragile in sleep.
The silk shorts he wore to bed have ridden up slightly, and his crop top has shifted to reveal more skin than it should.
Even unconscious, even after everything he’s put me through, he’s still impossibly beautiful. Dark hair falling across his face, long eyelashes casting shadows on his cheekbones, lips slightly parted in sleep.
He looks so young like this. Too young to have planned and executed something as elaborate as my abduction. Too young to have endured conversion therapy. Too young to carry the kind of trauma that breeds the particular madness I witnessed yesterday.
The memory of his excitement makes my stomach clench with worry.
The way his words tumbled over each other, the manic energy crackling around him like electricity, the brittle edge underneath all that joy.
Something is fundamentally wrong with Ginni, something deeper than obsession or romantic delusion.
I’m contemplating this, trying to make sense of the beautiful, broken boy who’s somehow become my husband, when I hear it.
Footsteps on the stairs.
The sound cuts through the artificial paradise like a knife through silk. Dress shoes on concrete, measured and deliberate, getting closer with each step. My entire body goes rigid, every muscle tensing as pure terror floods my system.
Someone is coming down here. Someone who doesn’t know what they’re about to walk into. Someone who’s about to discover Carlo Benedetti, respected capo of the Ajello family, chained naked to a twenty-one-year-old boy’s bed like some kind of perverted trophy.
The humiliation crashes over me in waves, each one more devastating than the last. This is how they’ll find me.
Not standing tall with dignity intact, not armed and dangerous, but helpless and exposed and utterly without power.
My reputation, carefully built over decades, will be destroyed in an instant.
Every conversation will stop when I walk into a room, every meeting will be preceded by whispered speculation about what really happened in this basement.
My hands clench into fists, muscles straining against the restraints in pure reflex.
In any normal dangerous situation, I’d be reaching for my gun, calculating angles and exit strategies, preparing to fight my way out.
I’ve spent my entire adult life armed and ready, never caught off guard, never vulnerable.
But now all I can do is lie here. Chained and naked, and completely at the mercy of whatever’s about to happen. The utter powerlessness is almost worse than the fear, this complete inability to protect myself or control the situation.
The footsteps are getting closer, echoing in the stairwell like a countdown to my destruction. My heart hammers against my ribs so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t wake Ginni, each beat a violent reminder of how fucked I truly am.
This is it. This is how my life as I know it ends. Not in a hail of bullets or a business deal gone wrong, but in a basement bedroom with my dignity stripped away along with my clothes.
The footsteps pause, and I hear the soft sound of the main door opening. Whoever it is, they’re inside now. In the apartment. Close enough to hear if I make any noise, close enough to investigate if something seems wrong.
Close enough to find me.
“Ginni?”
The voice makes my heart stop beating entirely.
Marco.
Marco Torrini, my oldest friend, is standing just outside the door calling for his little brother. The man who’s trusted me with his life countless times, who considers me family, who has no idea his best friend is chained naked to his brother’s bed.
Ginni sits bolt upright beside me, instantly alert in the way of predators who never truly rest. There’s no gradual awakening for him, no confused transition between sleep and consciousness. One moment he’s peaceful and vulnerable, the next he’s completely focused and utterly dangerous.
He reaches under the bed with smooth, practiced movements and produces a dagger. The blade gleams in the artificial sunrise, and I realize there must be a sheath attached to the bedframe. Of course there is. Giovanni Torrini-possibly-now-Benedetti doesn’t leave anything to chance.
The knife is beautiful and deadly, and my blood turns to ice as I realize what he’s capable of, what he might be planning to do to his own brother.
Ginni presses a single finger to my lips, the gesture gentle but absolutely firm.
“Shhh, my love,” he whispers, his voice soft and sweet and completely at odds with the weapon in his hand.
Then he’s moving, sliding off the bed with feline grace, hiding the dagger behind his back as he pads toward the bedroom door on silent feet. He moves like a dancer, like death in silk shorts, and I watch in growing horror as he disappears into the hallway.
I’m alone, chained to the bed, listening to my best friend call for his little brother while said little brother approaches him with a concealed weapon.
All I have to do is call out. One shout, one word, and Marco will know exactly where I am. He’ll find me, free me, put an end to this insane situation. He’ll see my utter humiliation, but my nightmare will be over.
The temptation is overwhelming. Marco is right there, so close I could probably whisper his name and he’d hear me. One moment of courage, one word, and I’d be saved from this beautiful madness.
But the memory of Ginni’s nightmare crashes over me with devastating clarity. Ginni shaking in my arms, telling me about conversion therapy, about being sent away for the crime of having feelings. About waking up alone from nightmares with no one to comfort him.
My heart aches thinking about it. Sixteen years old and shipped off to be tortured for being different. For being gay. For being exactly who he is.
And Marco knew. Marco knew his little brother was being destroyed and said nothing. Did nothing. Let it happen.
That’s not who I want to call out to.
But what’s the alternative? Staying quiet means staying here. Participating in my own abduction. Accepting whatever twisted relationship Ginni has built in his broken mind.
As deranged as that seems, it might not be a stupid choice, because I heard the way he spoke about Marco the other day, the casual way he discussed what he might do if his brother tried to interfere.
Ginni has a dagger and years of carefully suppressed rage.
Shouting could get Marco killed and Ginni locked away forever.
The thought lands like a punch to the jaw, the pain sudden and all-consuming, and I’m alarmed to discover which possibility terrifies me more. Marco dead would be devastating, the loss of my oldest friend, but Marco dead would also be final. Clean. Over.
But Ginni behind bars? Ginni in prison?
The image forms in my mind with horrifying clarity.
This beautiful, delicate boy locked in a cage with the worst men society has to offer.
Without his knives, without his meticulous planning, without the safe haven of this basement or his cattle prod.
Just a tiny, gorgeous waif surrounded by frustrated monsters who would see his feminine beauty as an invitation.
Ginni wouldn’t last a week. Maybe not even a day. He’s small, he’s pretty, and he’s exactly the kind of vulnerable target that predators circle like sharks smelling blood. All that blazing intelligence, all that fierce spirit, crushed under the weight of casual brutality.
He’d be destroyed. Completely crushed by men who would take pride in claiming something so beautiful. And there wouldn’t be a damn thing I could do to protect him.
The realization makes me sick to my stomach. When did protecting Ginni become more important to me than my own freedom? When did the thought of harm coming to him become worse than the thought of staying trapped here?
I should be more concerned about Marco’s safety. Even though I have already vowed that the man is dead to me. He is still a living breathing human being. He was my friend, my brother in all but blood.
But all I can think about is the way Ginni trembled when he told me about conversion therapy. The way his voice broke, the way he clung to me like I was his only anchor in a world that wanted to destroy him for existing.
Ginni is not evil. He’s not a monster. He’s just broken in ways that make him dangerous, and he deserves better than to be fed to the wolves in some concrete cage.
The thought of anyone hurting him makes something violent and protective rise in my chest, something that feels dangerously close to love.
Cristo. What the hell is wrong with me?
I strain to listen, catching fragments of conversation from the main living area.
“You look ridiculous.” Marco’s voice carries down the hallway, flat and disapproving. There’s no warmth in it, no brotherly concern. Just tired resignation, like he’s inspecting something distasteful that he’s obligated to deal with.