Chapter 5
Harlow
What is time, really?
A ticking clock?
The rise and fall of the sun?
A gentle reminder that life trudges inexorably forward?
Here, in this basement where the walls seem to weep and the air festers with decay, time ceases to exist. It is no longer linear. It stretches, distorts, collapses in on itself until I can no longer discern whether I’ve been entombed here for a day… or an eternity.
Day dissolves into night.
Night curdles into nightmare.
And then, nothing.
I’ve lost any true sense of time within these walls.
At some point, I stopped trying to keep track.
Since my arrival in this purgatory, the pain has been unrelenting.
And yet, I no longer feel it.
Not in any meaningful way.
The physical torment he inflicts upon me registers only in theory, not in sensation. I believe I’ve transcended that threshold. My body has resigned, numbed by repetition and fatigue.
At least to that kind of pain.
It’s the other kind that devastates. The psychological warfare. The one where he plays with my mind. The one that burrows into the psyche, silent, ravenous, insidious.
That’s the agony that ruins me.
That continues to ruin me.
I would welcome a thousand fractured ribs over one more day of his mental abuse.
Sometimes, in the hush before he descends those stairs, I find myself hoping that today is the day he loses control. That he falls so deeply into his own madness he forgets to stop. That his hands, slip.
That he kills me.
At last.
But he always stops.
He always pulls back from the brink.
He resurrects me from the precipice of unconsciousness, only to begin again. A ritual. A cycle. A performance choreographed in madness.
Just as he will now.
His boot collides with my ribs, and there’s a sound, faint and hollow, a muted crack that vibrates somewhere deep within. Something has broken, undoubtedly. A bone, perhaps several.
It doesn’t matter.
I don’t feel it.
My body skids across the unforgiving stone floor, an involuntary spasm of motion dulled by shock. I curl into myself from instinct, an ancient reflex, the last vestige of self-preservation.
It’s the only shield I have left.
My skin is slick, coated in sweat, dried blood, and filth, a grotesque veneer of suffering. My hair clings to my face in thick, matted strands. I must smell like something long deceased, feral, rotting, forgotten.
Above me, he paces, his breath ragged, disjointed. The air around him thrums with a volatile energy, thick and oppressive, vibrating with unspent violence.
Another blow lands, his closed fist slamming into my shoulder. Then lower, to my thigh. Each strike is calculated, rehearsed. Not frantic. Not wild.
Intentional.
Like he’s drawing a map into my skin, carving a future only he can see.
“I told you,”
he snarls, breath ragged, spit flecking his lips.
“It didn’t have to be like this. You could’ve had everything. Me. I would’ve given you the fucking world.”
His voice wavers, torn between fury and something perversely tender. He crouches, brushing knuckles across my cheek with the same hand that bruised me seconds before.
“I’m so sorry, my love,”
he whispers, as if the apology holds any weight.
“I didn’t want to hurt you. I hate when I hurt you.”
Then his hand snaps back. Another strike, sharper.
“But you made me,”
he breathes, eyes glassy, unfocused.
“You made me when you chose him.”
He stands and paces, erratic, muttering under his breath like he’s talking to ghosts.
“You chose him. That piece of shit Dante. You let him touch you. You married him.”
His hands twitch at his sides.
“You were supposed to choose me. I waited. I was patient. I saw you first. I loved you first.”
He whirls toward me again, eyes wild.
“You think he loves you? He doesn’t see you. Not like I do.”
I don’t move. But my mind, it’s running. Always running. If this is what he calls love, then I don’t want to know what his hatred would feel like.
“I have a surprise for you,”
he says, voice lighter now, cruel in its theatricality.
“It is your birthday, after all. Or did you think I’d forgotten?”
So. It’s July, then.
July twenty-second.
My birthday.
I would laugh, if I could remember how.
Birthdays are meant to be commemorations of life, celebration, family, a soft morning light and the scent of something sweet in the air.
Instead, I’m lying half dead on a stone floor, ribs splintered, skin split, body slick with rot and regret, counting the fractures in the ceiling and idly wondering beneath which one I’ll bleed out.
“I think it’s time for a story. A love story. Our love story.”
His voice lilts upward, disturbingly light, as though we’re exchanging secrets instead of surviving hell.
“I remember the first time I saw you,”
he says, voice softening into something nostalgic.
“You were just a baby.”
I blink, disoriented. My lips part, but the words dissolve on my tongue.
He smiles, fond and frightening.
“Mom always told me I could have you one day. Said you were meant for me. But she never gave you to me. She lied!”
“Mom?”
I echo, my breath catching.
“Yes. Mom. Our mom.”
Time halts. My blood turns cold, motionless. He can’t mean it. This must be one of his delusions. It has to be. My stomach twists violently. I retch, bile splattering beside me. I can’t lift myself, not after what he’s already done to me, but my body doesn’t care.
His expression contorts with rage. The kick lands hard, vicious, forcing the air from my lungs.
“I don’t understand,”
I whisper, once I’ve calmed the spasms long enough to speak.
He crouches beside me, head tilted slightly, as if observing something precious.
“You’ve always been mine, Harlow. From the first moment I saw you. You were perfect. I knew you belonged to me.”
“But you’re saying I’m your sister,”
I manage to choke out, each word scraping its way out of me.
“Half-sister!”
He roars. Then his voice softens, almost intimate, as though he’s explaining a tragic inevitability.
“That was fate’s cruelty. I didn’t choose it. But I’d rather live in sin than live without you. What we have, it’s real. It’s pure.”
I retch again. There's nothing left to give, yet my body convulses, desperate to expel something, anything. I gag, trembling, as my mind fractures beneath the weight of his words. He cannot be telling the truth. It’s unthinkable. This man—this thing, cannot be my brother. We share no resemblance. I had never laid eyes on the man before Dante forced him into my orbit. And now he dares to claim he’s been watching me since the day I was born. It breaks something in me I don’t know how to recover.
“I always wanted you,”
he continues, detached.
“Mother had me when she was veery young. I never knew who my father was, she told me he died before I was born. I was her shame, hidden, tucked away. She sent me to Italy, to be raised by strangers. She visited occasionally, but never stayed. I was never acknowledged. To the world I didn’t exist.”
He begins pacing again, voice growing bitter.
“She promised me a home. A family. A future. Then she had you. And she was meant to cast you aside too. That was the agreement. She would send you to me. We would be together.”
“But she kept you. She broke her promise. I started demanding what I was owed, growing more forceful. She said I could have you when you were grown. That she would send you away the same as she did me. That we would finally be together. She said soon. Always soon. But years passed. Nothing!”
He pauses, eyes narrowing.
“So I threatened her. I reminded her of our arrangement. I had power now, I was working for Dante, building something of my own. I thought that would matter. But she lied to me. Again. Twisted everything.”
He laughs, erratic, laced with madness, before continuing.
“You were grown by then. So beautiful. So perfect. And she still refused to let me have you.”
His expression distorts, sick with obsession.
“I knew I had to act. So I told Dante there was a family emergency. He didn’t ask questions. I returned to Chicago for you. I began leaving you little notes. Gifts. Preparing you for me.”
His voice takes on an unsettling devotion.
“And then you ran to Italy,”
he says.
“To my home. Our home. You didn’t even know it. It was as though fate had finally aligned, had finally delivered you to me. But then…”
His jaw tightens.
“You met him. Your father. Those brothers.”
His tone laced with venom.
“You belonged to me. You were finally mine. And they tried to steal you.”
The boot crashes into my abdomen, vicious and unrelenting.
“You were always mine,”
he snarls.
“And you went and married him.”
His expression twists, feral.
“I’ve spent my life forced to share you, first with our mother, then with the family she built without me. I waited. I endured. It was supposed to be my turn. You were supposed to be mine alone. But instead, you offered yourself to another. You gave yourself away.”
His breath comes in shallow bursts, barely controlled.
“That betrayal… it demands consequence.”
He’s shaking now, spiralling.
“You were mine. Since you were a baby. Not his. Not theirs. Mine!”
He begins pacing again, fury coiled in every movement, as though his body can no longer contain the storm he’s become. My chest constricts, lungs refusing to expand, bracing for what I know is inevitable. I feel it, pressing down, tightening like invisible hands around my ribcage. I’ve been here before. I’ve lived through this. And I can never stop it.
A small laugh escapes him, light, eerie.
“Everything would have been different if you hadn’t married him. If you hadn’t loved him. But you did. And now you must pay.”
His voice softens again, deceptively gentle.
“You’re here because you need to learn. You gave yourself to another man. That was your choice. This, this is your consequence. But don’t worry, my dove. One day, you’ll give yourself to me. Willingly. Because no one will love you the way I do.”
He crouches. His fingers brush my jaw. I nearly gag but I force it down.
“You just need time.”
I say nothing. I can’t. My throat is raw, my mind fraying at the seams. I feel contaminated. Violated on a level I can’t explain.
“I’ll never stop loving you,”
he murmurs.
“We were meant to be. You feel it too. I know you do.”
He rises without warning, something violent gleaming in his eyes.
“Now then,”
he announces, as though hosting a soirée.
“Time for your surprise. I know you’ll love this one.”
My breath halts. I already know what it is. Or who. And I loathe it with every last fibre of my being.
“Please,”
I whisper, broken and trembling.
“I don’t love Dante. I regret marrying him. It was a mistake. I see you now. You’re the one. I love you.”
The words taste like death. My stomach churns violently, but I hold it back with every last ounce of control I possess.
He looks at me, smiling, like a child being given his favourite toy. And then his boot smashes into my side.
“Stop lying!”
he roars, striking me again. And again.
“You’re not sincere,”
he growls.
“That’s why they all die.”
He stops. His chest rises and falls, erratic. And then, silence.
Without another word, he turns and climbs the stairs. At the top, he pauses. One hand on the door, the other hanging limply by his side. He glances back, expression unreadable.
“You will learn to love me.”
And then he’s gone.