Chapter 6
Harlow
I sit still, my finger tracing the uneven edge of the stone, over and over, as if repetition might anchor me to something real.
The silence hangs like a noose, dense, cloying. It slides into my lungs, making it harder to breathe, harder to think. My chest constricts beneath the pressure of what’s next.
It never takes long.
The footsteps begin overhead, echoing with the weight of what’s coming. A sound that doesn't walk, but hunts.
And then he descends. Slowly. Unhurried. Like he’s savouring the moment.
He isn’t alone. Something drags behind him. Not something.
Someone.
He hauls a girl into the basement by her arm. Young, barely twenty. Long, dark hair. Pale, delicate skin. A fragile, bird boned frame.
Familiar.
Too familiar.
They always are.
He flings her to the floor like discarded baggage. She hits the concrete with a cry, already bleeding. Her lip is split. Crimson stains her chin. She scrambles to her knees, eyes frantic, scanning the room. Panic ripples through her like a current. Every movement is soaked in terror.
And then her gaze locks on mine.
Hope ignites, small, flickering, desperate. “Please,”
she mouths, soundless, trembling.
“Please help me.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, tightly, as if darkness might somehow soften the image seared into my mind. As if closing them could erase the horror unfolding just feet away. But there is no sanctuary in the dark.
The pain doesn’t fade. The guilt doesn’t lift.
And so, with a breath I barely feel, I force my eyes open.
Because I owe her that much.
Because if I cannot save her, the least I can do is remember her.
Witness her.
Carry the weight of what he does in my name.
I always watch.
Even when it splinters what little remains of me. Even when every instinct begs me to avert my gaze, to vanish, to dissolve into the cold stone beneath.
I must remember.
Because all of this…
It began with me.
He brings them here, young women with familiar eyes, familiar bones, that resemble me.
Girls who should’ve lived exquisite, unremarkable lives. He defiles them. Reduces them to echoes. Trophies in a shrine to his madness.
Shatters them.
Murders them.
And he makes me witness it all.
Every scream. Every gasp. Every broken, lifeless body. And always for the same reason...
Because I’m not convincing enough. Not credible. Not sincere. Because I married another man, and because of what I did that day… back when there was still fire in me, back when I still believed I could win.
I’m the one he wants. But he won’t touch me. Not yet. Not like that. He wants devotion. Surrender. Willingness.
At that last word, nausea claws its way up again.
He wants me broken first, and this is how he’s decided it’s easiest. Through them. Through all those innocent women.
I would give anything to make him stop. To keep him from dragging another girl into this.
But no matter how carefully I craft the performance, no matter how flawlessly I mimic what he wants, he never believes me.
So he brings another girl. Every few days. Like clockwork.
Punishment dressed as spectacle. Designed to dismantle whatever fragments of my mind still remain.
I shift onto my knees, my ribs shriek beneath the weight of the movement, sharp and unforgiving. My voice emerges fractured, barely more than breath. “Please,”
I whisper, leaning into the ache.
“Don’t touch her. I can’t stand it. I choose you. You don’t need anyone else.”
His gaze finds mine. And there it is, that flicker. That smile. The smirk that haunts my nights more than any scream ever could.
“You’re a fucking liar,”
he hisses, the words as elegant as they are venomous.
The girl begins to cry harder. And I break again.
Even more than yesterday.
Even more than the day before.
Because I know what’s coming.
And I can’t stop it.
I stare at him now. At his face.
So familiar.
Not just the face. The voice, the mannerisms. The way he stood behind me like a shield. He was supposed to protect me. I once believed he could even become a friend.
Piero.
My bodyguard. My shadow.
The man I once trusted with my life.
And now he’s taken every part of it.
These girls, he kills them because of me.
I should be dead.
Not them.
Not her.
I want to scream it at the ceiling, at the walls. Why the fuck can’t I make him believe me?
I don’t deserve to live.
Not after what I’ve done.
As I watch the scene unfold in front of me I hate myself a little more each time.
The girl is lifeless now.
She lies twisted on the floor, her limbs at unnatural angles, her face half hidden beneath her hair. Eyes wide open. Empty. The blood beneath her is still warm. I can smell it.
She was crying just minutes ago.
Now there’s silence.
As I continue watching her, the stone beneath me bites into my skin.
There’s no mattress.
No blanket.
Not even a scrap of fabric to soften the cold.
I lie where I always do, in the same patch of floor, in the same position.
Curled into myself. Clinging to what’s left.
The tiny dress he made me wear barely covers anything.
Thin. Filthy. Torn.
It rides up no matter how many times I pull it down, offering no warmth, no comfort, no dignity.
Sometimes I shiver so hard my teeth chatter.
Other times I burn from the inside out.
Like my body can’t decide whether it’s dying from heat or cold. The temperature swings with my fever. I know there’s something wrong with me.
I’ve felt it growing for days.
Or weeks.
I don’t know anymore.
He doesn’t feed me. Not really.
A slice of stale bread here, a half rotten apple there. A plastic cup of water if I’m lucky.
I live off crumbs. And still, somehow, I live.
For a man as obsessed as he claims to be, he treats me like a fucking dog.
Worse even.
Sometimes I wonder what he’d do if I really died.
Would he snap completely?
Or would he just find another girl, dress her up like me, and pretend I never existed?
I feel myself getting weaker by the day.
Everything aches. Even breathing is effort.
My lungs rattle now when I inhale too deep, and the last few nights, the coughing’s gotten worse.
It starts again now.
Sharp. Wet.
I press my arm to my mouth to stifle the sound, but it’s too late. The metallic tang hits my tongue before I can swallow it back.
Blood.
Not much.
But enough.
I stare down at the smear on my skin.
Bright red against grey.
My lungs are filling with something that shouldn’t be there.
I think I’m dying.
And I don’t even care.
I’m relieved.
But he can’t know.
Not yet.
He’ll either snap… or save me again.
And I’m not sure which fate is worse.
So I curl tighter. Hide my coughs. Bite the inside of my cheek to stay quiet.
Let him think I’m still surviving.
Let him think he still has control.
But beneath my cracked ribs, behind the bruises and blood, something’s collapsing.
Maybe it’s my lungs.
Maybe it’s my soul.
Maybe it’s both.
Either way, I won’t last much longer. And somehow, finally, that feels like peace.
I only pray my husband will find him, and deliver vengeance for every girl who perished at his hands, because of me. Because I wasn’t strong enough.