Chapter Fourteen – Lira
Dantès Estate
My heels whisper against the stone as we cross the courtyard. The dress I’m wearing clings lightly to my thighs.
He’s near the fountain, half-shadowed by the garden wall, his hands braced on his knees. Dust clings to his forearms. His chest rises and falls in staccato bursts. And then his head snaps up.
“Lira!”
He runs.
Before I can breathe, he’s in front of me—hands on my shoulders, pulling me into his chest like the world ended and I’m the only thing left. His breath stammers into my hair.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” His hands skim over me, frantic and trembling. “I came back and you were gone—the whole hotel was empty, the sheets were cold—I waited for hours, Lira. Hours. I went to the police. I filed a report, I thought—”
He can’t finish. His voice folds in on itself. He hugs me again, tighter, like I’ll vanish again if he doesn’t.
My chest aches.
He pulls back and catches my hand. His thumb brushes the edge of the gauze.
“What happened?” His voice cracks. “What did he do to you?”
I can’t answer.
He turns, fury building behind his eyes as he faces Severo.
“You took her.” He grabs the front of his shirt. “You took her again. You don’t get to keep her just because you—”
From the colonnade, Severo’s second steps forward.
“Signore Dantès?”
His voice is low, controlled. Formal.
But Severo doesn't look at him. He lifts a hand—faintly curved fingers, more command than gesture.
“Stand down.”
He says it like a man brushing lint from his cuff.
Mico’s knuckles go white.
I step forward. My fingers touch his shoulder, barely.
He turns. His body is rigid, breath sharp.
I raise my hand between us.
The ring catches the light.
He releases Severo without a word. His arms drop to his sides. When he turns to face me, his expression is slow—like he’s watching the room tip sideways.
“…what have you done?”
I blink fast, but it’s useless. The tears come anyway.
“I chose power, Mico.” My voice is thick, wet. “I don’t want to be nothing.”
He flinches, just barely. A ripple of disbelief breaks across his face.
“You took the bond?” he asks.
I nod. Nothing else moves.
He steps forward and wraps his arms around me again, slower, more careful. His voice dips low against my ear.
“I don’t know what he told you,” he says, barely above a whisper. “But he’s lying. I have your passport. I have your plane tickets. We can leave tonight. Come with me, Lira. Please. Let’s leave all this behind.”
His hands tremble where they hold me. I can feel it—every suppressed shake, every broken hope.
I look up into his eyes.
They’re wide. Desperate. Still full of the boy I knew. And I know—if I say yes, he’ll protect me. Wrap me in something soft and familiar and untouched by ritual or war. I could disappear in that.
But I don't want to disappear.
I reach up and gently push my palms to his chest. One bandaged, one bare.
“It’s not about him,” I say. “It’s about me.”
His brows pull together.
“You were my first love,” I continue, my voice shaking. “You were kind. You were safe. I’ll always be grateful for everything you’ve done for me. But I’ve chosen my path.”
A tear slides down my cheek.
He reddens. Bright, immediate—like shame and heartbreak have set fire to his skin.
“But I love you.”
I nod. “I know.”
He stares at me like the world just shifted on its axis.
Then I wrap my arms around him, one last time. I breathe him in. Salt and ash and the last echoes of a life I’m not going back to.
“Have a great life, Mico.”
I step away.
Severo is already at my side. He takes my hand.
Our fingers tangle together as we turn and walk back toward the estate.
Behind me, I hear the sound of knees hitting stone.
****
That night I took a swim to calm my mind. The water glows turquoise beneath the mansion’s rear terrace, lit from below by soft strips embedded along the pool’s floor. It should feel luxurious—serene. But the cold licks at my skin like it knows better.
The black bikini clings to me in the way silk might cling to mourning. It’s quiet out here. Even the cicadas hold their breath.
I lean against the smooth tile edge, arms floating beside me. The night above is full of stars, but none of them seem to matter.
Where is he now?
I think of Mico’s hands—dusty, pleading. The rasp of his voice when he said my name like it was a prayer already lost. The way he dropped to his knees like something inside him had given out.
He’s out there. Somewhere beyond these gates. Alone.
And I told him to leave me.
My lungs tighten. I draw in a shaky breath and slide beneath the surface, letting the water close over my head like a coffin lid. My hair lifts. The chlorine stings my eyes. I stay down long enough for the pressure to build, then longer still.
When I finally rise, I break the surface with a gasp.
And a sob.
It comes hard. Loud. My hands cover my face as the tears shake loose, trailing hot down skin already wet. My chest heaves and I fold forward, elbows hitting the pool ledge. My forehead presses to the tile.
Why couldn’t I just go?
Why couldn’t I let myself choose the easy love?
Footsteps. I look up.
He’s there at the pool’s edge—barefoot, bare-chested. His shorts are black. His skin pale in the half-light. A single glass of red wine cradled in his hand. His eyes—clear and still as glass—settle on me like the world hasn’t shifted at all.
He crouches.
Holds the wine out.
I wipe at my face with one trembling hand and walk to him through the water, slow strokes guiding me toward the ledge. I rise halfway, enough to reach.
Our fingers brush as I take the glass.
The wine is full-bodied and cold. It tastes like a dare.
His hand lingers.
Two fingers slide along my cheekbone, light and unhurried. His thumb follows the path of a tear.
His voice is lower than the night.
“Have you been crying?”
I meet his eyes.
“Do you really care?”
He stands and walks to the stairs, descending into the pool with a grace that feels too practiced to be casual. The water welcomes him soundlessly. Even the surface resists the ripple. I don’t move.
But I feel him.
His presence shifts the water around me. Heat radiates from him despite the cool. Every inch between us burns like a line waiting to be crossed.
He stops just beside me. Our shoulders almost align, our skin divided by inches, not intention.
“We are using each other, remember,” he says, voice smooth and laced with control. “I need you in a good state to use you.”
The words should sting. But they don’t.
They ground me.
I nod , the motion small. My throat aches from holding everything in.
“I hate myself,” I whisper. “For not choosing Mico. Even though I know he could have given me something real. A decent life. He would have made space for me.”
The water curls between us like breath.
“I feel like a monster,” I continue, my voice thinner now. “Power-hungry and hollow.”
He tilts his head, eyes narrowing just slightly.
“What’s so bad about being power-hungry?”
I look at him.
His face is carved from stillness, but something flickers beneath it—interest, maybe. Recognition. Or the faint amusement of a predator recognizing another.
My heart pounds . Then again.
“Nothing,” I answer.
The word tastes different when I say it out loud.
He steps in closer. His fingers lift slowly, brushing my collarbone, then trailing upward. His hand cups my neck. The pads of his fingers rest just below my ear. The touch is barely pressure, but my chest hitches all the same.
His lips find the curve of my neck.
Not rushed. Not hungry. Just… claiming.
“You look hungry,” he murmurs.
The heat in me coils low.
He takes the wine glass from my hand without asking, his fingers skimming my knuckles. He sets it neatly on the edge of the pool.
His arms curve beneath my thighs, and he lifts me—easily, steadily—until I’m perched on the edge of the pool.
Water slides down my legs in slow streams. I feel cold where he’s not touching me.
And burning where he is. His fingers drift upward—underwater at first—tracing the inside of my thigh. He reaches my bikini bottoms, and then…
He pushes them to the side.
Just enough.
The drag of the wet fabric over my soaked folds makes my hips jerk.
And then his fingers are there—sliding through the slickness, spreading me open with unholy patience. Two fingers stroke upward, slow, deliberate, until they part my pussy and circle my clit in the warm, open air.
I cry out—quiet at first—then louder as he slides one finger inside me.
My head falls back.
My hands curl against the stone edge behind me. My thighs try to close, but he’s holding me open, watching me squirm with his fingers inside me.
I try to breathe.
I can’t.
He curls his finger just right—just there—and my moan breaks into a helpless sob. I throw my head back farther, hair dripping, mouth open to the sky.
But he pulls me forward.
One hand grips my lower back, dragging me toward him, and his mouth moves to the center of my chest. My bikini bra clings to wet skin. He flicks the clasp open with one hand.
It falls away.
And then he takes my breast in his mouth.
His tongue circles my nipple before he sucks it hard into his mouth, biting down just enough to make me whimper. His fingers never stop moving inside me. He fucks me with them, steady and deep, while his lips devour my breast.
He groans against my skin, his stubble scraping the underside of my breast as he kisses lower, then back up again to suck harder, hungrier, like he’s starving.
And through all of it, he never looks away.
His eyes stay locked on mine—dark, devouring—while his fingers curl deep inside me. Each thrust pushes against that aching spot that makes my thighs tremble, makes my moans hitch into breathless whimpers.
Then he stops.
He slides his fingers out—slow, savoring the way I clench around nothing—and holds them up between us.