Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
Carlo
The afternoon light from the projector casts dancing patterns across the ceiling, a gentle forest scene complete with dappled sunlight filtering through leaves.
I’m lying here in a state of lazy contentment, still floating from the massage Ginni gave me earlier.
His hands had worked magic on muscles I didn’t even know were tense, and now I feel more relaxed than I have in months.
Before that, I enjoyed posing for him far more than I thought I would, and I’m far more excited to see the end result than I ever thought possible. Hopefully, he will relent and show me at least the work in progress soon.
Right now he’s perched on the edge of the bed, wearing nothing but silk sleep shorts in deep blue that make his skin look luminous. He’s got my phone in his lap, tongue caught between his teeth in concentration as he works through what appears to be my entire inbox.
This feels like an established routine now.
Sitting here while he goes through my messages like a personal assistant, crafting responses that maintain the illusion of my peaceful retreat from the world.
It should bother me more than it does, but watching him work with such dedicated focus is oddly endearing.
“Your accountant is very persistent,” he murmurs, showing me a string of increasingly urgent emails about quarterly reports. “I’ve told him twice that you’re taking a proper break, but he keeps sending spreadsheets.”
“Ignore him. Martin panics if he doesn’t hear from me for more than forty-eight hours.”
Ginni nods seriously and deletes the emails with decisive swipes. “People really don’t understand the concept of rest, do they? No wonder you were so wound up when you arrived.”
When I arrived. Like I walked in here willingly instead of being drugged and abducted. But there’s something charming about the way he’s rewritten our origin story in his mind, turning kidnapping into a romantic rescue mission.
He’s gotten faster at mimicking my writing style, barely pausing now as he types responses that sound authentically like me.
The attention to detail is remarkable. He’s even picked up on the fact that I use different tones for different people, more formal with business associates, casual with friends, slightly sarcastic with people I don’t particularly like.
“Oh, this one’s interesting,” he says, opening what looks like a group text from some of the other capos. “They’re planning a poker night next week. Should I accept for you?”
“Tell them maybe,” I say automatically. “Depending on how I’m feeling.”
The reply comes so easily. Founded on my stubborn belief that I’ll be back to my normal life soon, that this is all temporary.
Even though with each passing day, the idea of leaving this beautiful basement feels less appealing and more like stepping back into a world that never felt quite right to begin with.
Ginni’s fingers fly over the keyboard, and I find myself admiring the elegant way he moves. Everything he does has this unconscious grace, like he’s performing a dance only he can hear the music for.
“Keith wants to discuss the lighting system installation for the new VIP section,” he continues, scrolling through more messages. “Should I schedule something for when you’re back?”
“Tell him to handle it himself for now. He’s competent enough.”
More typing, more casual management of my life. I watch him work and realize that in some ways, he’s better at this than I am. More patient with people’s anxieties, more diplomatic in his responses. If he weren’t completely insane, he’d make an excellent personal assistant.
“Your gym membership is about to expire,” he informs me. “Should I renew it?”
“Sure, whatever.”
He pauses in his typing, looking at me with those impossibly blue eyes. “You know, you could set up a proper home gym in our new house. Much more convenient than traveling across town every time you want to work out. Plus, I could spot you.”
The casual way he mentions our imaginary future home makes my chest do something complicated. He talks about it like it’s inevitable, like we’ve already picked out curtains and chosen paint colors for the nursery.
A new notification pops up on the screen, and Ginni opens it with the same casual efficiency he’s shown with everything else.
But then his face changes. The color drains from his cheeks, his breathing becomes shallow and rapid, and the phone flies from his hands like it’s burned him, falling onto the blankets like a yeeted scorpion.
I crane my neck to see the screen, catching a glimpse of the contact name before Ginni scrambles to flip the phone face-down.
Crystal.
Fuck.
Crystal. Dancer at my club, all long legs and blonde hair and the kind of practiced sensuality that comes with years of performing for men with money.
Our hookups over the past months have been nothing serious, just convenient stress relief when I needed it.
She’s beautiful, skilled, and completely uncomplicated.
No emotional demands, no expectations beyond what we explicitly agreed to.
Ginni opening that message thread means he has seen everything.
The arrangements to meet after closing. The explicit messages about what we wanted to do to each other.
Months of casual sexting and hookup coordination that would obliterate any illusion that I’m some devoted romantic who’s been pining for him in secret.
It would have smashed any notion that I’m his loving husband.
The look on Ginni’s face is devastating. Like something precious inside him has just shattered beyond repair. He’s wrapped his arms around himself, shoulders hunched, staring at nothing with wide, unseeing eyes.
“Ginni,” I start, though I don’t know what I could possibly say to fix this.
A rational part of me is screaming that I shouldn’t care, that this isn’t my fault. I haven’t cheated, and I’m not responsible for the well-being of a maniac. But it is a small part of me, and easily drowned out by my deep concern.
Ginni shudders, a full-body tremor that seems to start in his bones and ripple outward.
When he looks at me, there’s no manic brightness in his eyes, no carefully constructed joy.
Just raw, devastating awareness. A startling lucidity that is so full of pain that suddenly I’d sell my soul to see that delusional gleam return.
“I know you don’t love me,” he says quietly, his voice stripped of all its usual music. “Nobody does.”
All the oxygen whooshes out of my lungs. Ginni sounds so lost. So utterly alone. So broken.
I didn’t know he was capable of moments of clarity, and it’s a shock to discover how much I hate it.
“But the fantasy was so alluring, I... I couldn’t resist it. I’m so sorry.”
The words are crushing. They fill me with ice and pain. This isn’t the Ginni who’s been planning our future with manic enthusiasm. This is a broken boy who’s just had his dreams destroyed by the harsh weight of reality.
It’s awful. I can’t stand it. I want happy Ginni back.
He climbs off the bed with movements that seem to take enormous effort, like he’s fighting gravity itself. There’s something defeated in his posture, something that makes alarm bells start clanging in my head.
“Where are you going?” I demand, pulling against the restraints.
“I need to...” He trails off, shaking his head like he’s trying to clear it. “I need to… to make this stop.”
The way he says it, with that flat, hopeless tone, makes my blood run cold. This isn’t someone going to make a cup of tea and have a good cry. This is someone who’s decided they’re too much trouble, too broken to exist.
He’s moving toward the door with that same defeated shuffle, and panic floods my system like ice water.
“Get your fucking ass back here this instant or I swear to God I’ll spank you so hard you won’t sit down for a week!” I roar, lunging against the chains with enough force to make the metal bite into my wrists.
The words tear out of me with desperate fury, part command and part plea. There’s nothing calculated about it, nothing thought through. Just pure, animalistic terror at the thought of losing him.
Ginni stops in the doorway, turning back to look at me with wide, startled eyes. Like he can’t quite believe what he just heard.
“Come here,” I growl, my voice rough with emotion I don’t want to examine too closely.
He blinks at me, confusion replacing some of the devastating emptiness in his expression. But he obeys, moving toward the bed with the instinctive compliance of someone who’s spent his entire life following orders from people who claim to care about him.
The chains have just enough slack for me to reach him when he gets close enough. I cup his face in my hands, forcing him to meet my eyes, feeling the delicate bone structure beneath skin that’s far too pale.
“You are wonderful,” I tell him fiercely. “Amazing. You’re clever and caring and passionate and beautiful. One day some lucky bastard is going to be so in love with you he won’t know what hit him.”
Ginni’s expression is skeptical. “No, they won’t.”
I shake him gently, just enough to make sure he’s listening. “Ginni, you are perfect. Dangerous and sexy and brilliant. There is no one like you in the entire world. Who wouldn’t want that? Who wouldn’t want someone so devoted, so creative, so completely themselves?”
“You.”
The single word is delivered with such quiet brutality that it stops my heart for several beats and tilts the very universe.
“You don’t want me,” he continues when I don’t respond.
We stare at each other across the small distance between us, and I can see years of rejection and disappointment in his eyes. Every cruel word from his family, every person who treated him like something shameful, every moment of being told he was too different, too impossible to love.
“I don’t blame you,” he adds softly. “I’m too much. I’m trouble and I’m crazy and I kidnapped you. Of course you don’t want me. No one in their right mind would.”
Something breaks open in my chest at the resigned acceptance in his voice. This beautiful, brilliant boy who thinks he’s unlovable because everyone who was supposed to protect him told him so.
“One day,” I say gently, stroking my thumb across his cheekbone, “someone is going to see you and their heart will just... stop. And they’ll think, ‘That one. That boy is the one. He’s absolutely insane, but he’s mine.’”
Ginni’s eyes fill with tears, but he shakes his head. “No they won’t. They’ll be scared, and they’ll run away. Just like you would if you weren’t chained to this bed.”
“Then they’re fucking stupid,” I snarl, sudden fury blazing through me at the thought of anyone not seeing Ginni’s worth. “Blind, idiotic cowards who don’t deserve you anyway.”
“Are you stupid?” he asks softly, gently.
As if he knows I am, and he is resigning himself to a lifetime of unrequited yearning while I blunder around wasting my life and being an idiot.
The question hangs in the air between us, simple and devastating and absolutely loaded with everything I’m not sure I can face.
Am I stupid? Stupid for not wanting this beautiful, dangerous boy who’s turned my life upside down? Stupid for not seeing his worth like I just raged about?
A funny feeling spreads through my chest, warm and terrifying and undeniable. Recognition, maybe. Or acceptance of something I’ve been fighting against forever.
“I think I might be,” I admit quietly, and the words feel like jumping off a cliff. “I think I might be very stupid.”
Ginni’s eyes widen, searching my face like he’s trying to determine if I’m lying or just being kind. What he sees there makes his breath catch, makes him lean into my touch like a flower turning toward sunlight.
“Really?” he whispers.
“Really,” I say.
The smile that breaks across his face is like sunrise after the longest night, radiant and beautiful.
My heart thumps in my chest, a hollow feeling, deep and heavy. As if it is settling into a new rhythm. A new reason to beat.
Is it possible to stop being stupid?
I don’t know. All I do know is that in this raw, honest and vulnerable moment… I want to try.