CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Adrian
“They broke your fingers,” I said, my voice echoing in the damp alleyway. The first words I ever spoke to her.
The rain pounded against the cobblestones, washing away the blood. She was huddled against the brick wall, trembling, her golden hair plastered to her face like a second skin.
So broken. So defeated.
Her face was streaked with dirt and tears as she clutched her mangled hand to her chest. The stench of garbage and desperation filled my nostrils.
She looked up at me with wide, terrified eyes that had seen too much pain, too much cruelty. The kind of eyes that haunted you long after they’ve closed.
“Who are you?” Her voice was barely a whisper, a fragile thing that could shatter with the wrong word.
I knelt before her, ignoring the cold water seeping through my pants. “I can help you,” I said instead of introducing myself.
She didn’t need to know who I was. Not yet, at least.
She shook her head. “I don’t know you.”
“You will,” I said, matter-of-factly.
I reached for her hand, and she flinched away, shrinking further against the wall. The moonlight caught the silver tracks of tears cutting through the grime on her cheeks. I reached for her hand, and she flinched again but didn’t pull away completely.
Her fingers were bent at unnatural angles, swollen and purple. The work of someone who took pleasure in destroying beautiful things. The hand of a painter, once graceful, was now destroyed.
I clicked my tongue. “That doesn’t look very good.”
“Please,” she whispered. “Don’t hurt me.”
I unwrapped her tattered shawl from her shoulders and carefully wrapped it around her broken hand. “You’re going to need medical attention.”
“I can’t...” Her voice cracked as she swallowed hard. “I don’t have the money.”
“I know.”
“Who are you?” she asked again, more insistent this time, her eyes searching my face.
My head tilted to the side. “Nobody.”
Fear flashed across her face at my answer. She pulled her hand back, cradling it protectively against her chest like a wounded bird. “Leave me alone.”
“I can protect you if you come with me,” I said, watching her shiver in the rain as pain and despair coursed through her weak, worn-down body. “I can take you away from here, from the people who hurt you.”
“You can protect me?” There was hope in her voice now, fragile and desperate. So young, so broken.
“I can protect you,” I promised.
“Why would you do that?” she asked, suspicion mingling with desperation.
“I have my reasons,” I said, extending my hand toward her again. “But you don’t need to know them, except that I can change your life. Give you a roof over your head. Warm bed. Food.”
She hesitated, her gaze darting between my face and my outstretched hand as she searched my face for deception. For cruelty.
I didn’t know what she saw, what made her trust me.
Her good hand was cold when it finally slipped into mine. My fingers closed around hers, exchanging my warmth with her.
“What’s your name?” I asked her, though I already knew the answer. I knew everything about her.
“Elizabeth.” Her chest shuddered with a trembling breath. “But everyone calls me Beth.”
“Hello, Beth. I’m Adrian.”
I woke up with a start, my heart hammering against my ribs. My blanket was tangled around my legs like restraints, the bedsheets soaked with my sweat.
The darkness of my bedroom pressed in on me, suffocating.
“Fuck,” I muttered, rubbing my face with both hands, frustration bubbling up inside me like acid.
That dream again. Always the same. Another reminder of failure.
Sleep was a luxury I couldn’t afford. Two hours of sleep that was all I ever got before the nightmares dragged me back to consciousness, forcing me to face the ghosts that haunted me.
I threw the covers aside and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. Anger burned through me, hot and consuming. Rage was a real living thing inside me, a true monster clawing at my insides, demanding release, demanding retribution.
I shouldn’t be haunted by the past. It made men like me weak and vulnerable. Yet here I was… drowning in my sordid past. The reminders of her and the future that I could have had.
The dream lingered—her broken fingers, her tears, the trust I’d betrayed. I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t save either of them.
My bare feet hit the cold hardwood floor as I stood, my body tense, the muscles clenching with my movement. I needed to move, to do something, anything to escape the memories. I paced the length of my dark bedroom, my fists clenched at my sides.
Fucking Matteo took everything from me and walked away unscathed, while I drowned in blood and unanswered questions.
I had been powerless to stop him.
I was weak.
Fuck.
FUCK.
I wanted to break something. To destroy something. To make someone feel the pain that I couldn’t seem to escape.
A pair of hazel eyes flashed in my mind.
The thought came unbidden, cutting through the fog of my rage.
My wife, sleeping peacefully down the hall in her room, the room I’d given her, the sanctuary I’d promised.
My body moved on its own accord, drawn by a need I couldn’t name. The hallway was dark, silent except for the soft ticking of the clock in the foyer.
Her door was unlocked. Surprisingly, it had been every night since she arrived.
She never locked it herself and I never locked her in.
Serafina had chosen to make this room her cage.
I pushed her door open without a sound, slowly, letting the dim light from the hallway spill across her bed.
Moonlight spilled through the window, where the curtain remained open, casting a silver glow across her sleeping form. Serafina was curled on her side, one hand tucked beneath her cheek, her dark hair fanned across the pillow like spilled ink.
In sleep, her face was softer, the carefully constructed mask of composure she wore during the day stripped away. Her lips were slightly parted, her long lashes casting shadows on her cheeks.
I entered her sanctuary and closed the door behind me.
The blanket had slipped down to her waist, revealing the curve of her shoulder, the swell of her breast beneath the thin nightgown.
My mouth went dry as I watched her chest rise and fall with each breath.
My eyes traced the curve of her bare shoulder, her skin looking soft in the half-light, pale and unmarred. My fingers itched, wanting to know how it would feel beneath my touch. Beneath my lips.
Fuck me, she was beautiful. Even in the darkness, even in her sleep.
Her body was made for fucking.
My cock hardened and I growled, palming it through my sweatpants.
I had broken her heart. I had watched the light die in her eyes when I told her the truth about our marriage, shattering her world.
I waited for guilt to wash over me, for remorse to take hold. Except there was nothing but a cold satisfaction that whatever I had done, whatever cruel, twisted game I had played, brought her here. Had kept her here, in my home.
I remembered the taste of her—sweet and desperate. Intoxicating. I could still feel the way she had trembled against me, her body arching beneath mine, the way she had moaned my name.
My tongue salivated at the memory, my cock stiff, aching with a need I had been denying for days.
I wanted to wake her. To push her legs apart and bury myself inside her until she forgot her own name. Until she forgot why she hated me. Until her sweet pussy was begging to be filled with my cum.
I wanted to take what rightfully belonged to me now.
But I held back.
I kept my distance, watching her sleep, knowing that the longer I waited, the sweeter her fury and hatred would taste on my tongue. And I wanted all of it. Every drop.
I wanted to savor it, to let it build until neither of us could deny what was between us.
Her hate, my rage.
Her desperation, my need.
We were toxic together, fucking poison.
I had left her alone for two weeks. Fourteen days of utter silence, of distance, of watching her from afar. I had expected her to break. To come to me begging for attention, for a scrap of affection, for anything to break the monotony of her isolation.
But she hadn’t. She didn’t.
It infuriated me.
She infuriated me with her silence.
Serafina had stayed quiet in her room. She ate the food Elena brought her, but she had not made any attempt to speak or ask questions… or leave her room to explore the estate.
Her isolation was definite. Absolute. Despairing.
But my wife was stronger than I had given her credit for.
And her fire was so very fucking tempting.
I took a step closer to the bed, my shadow falling across her sleeping form. She stirred slightly but didn’t wake. I wondered what she dreamed about. Did she dream of revenge?
Did she dream of him?
A strand of dark hair had fallen across her cheek, and without thinking, I reached out, my fingers hovering just above her cheek. When I brushed it away, her skin was warm beneath my fingertips. Soft.
I pulled away and stepped back from the bed, walking over to the armchair in the corner of her room. Where I had found myself every night for the last week, unknown to my wife, while she slept peacefully.
I watched.
There was something dangerously addictive about watching her sleep, like standing on the edge of a line I wasn’t allowed to cross. A quiet, undeniable allure. A wicked, dangerous kind of temptation. It fed something inside me, the beast that craved blood, now wanted her blood.
It was obsessive.
Serafina would call me a lunatic. A psychopath.
She wouldn’t be wrong.
But she wasn’t afraid of me. Not really. Not yet.
And that was the most dangerous thing about my wife.