Chapter 21
The second she mutes me, it’s as though the entire screen goes dark, even though her image is still there.
My blood pressure spikes so high I think my veins might burst. My fists clench until my bones ache, my jaw locked so tight it feels like I’m grinding stone between my teeth.
Something shatters inside my chest at being shut out so effortlessly.
I stare at the glowing feed, at the girl I’ve tried to convince myself I can live without, and the fury that surges through me feels like being skinned alive.
Muted.
In front of everyone.
She muted me.
Humiliated me.
I slam the laptop shut and shove it off the desk, and the crash of metal and glass shattering against the floor echoes through the room.
It bounces open, a hairline crack zigzagging across the screen but I barely notice.
My pulse pounds in my ears, my breath coming in ragged bursts as though I’ve just run ten miles through enemy fire.
Who the fuck does she think she is?
One night, she’s moaning my name around a toy made to match my cock, and the next, I’m just another faceless nobody in a chat full of strangers, my name drowned out by a sea of usernames and filthy emojis.
I rake my nails down my face, desperate for pain, for something, anything, to anchor me in my body before I combust from the inside out.
And the worst part is, I can’t even pretend she’s wrong.
Because I am the pathetic asshole who folded under pressure.
The bastard who let them shove her into exile and barely lifted a finger.
And now I’m reduced to creeping through digital shadows, sneaking glimpses of her like some goddamn voyeur instead of the man who’s supposed to protect her, all while desperately looking for some shred of evidence of her innocence.
My hair catches between my fingers, my scalp burning as I tug hard enough to feel the sting. My nerves feel like live wires sparking beneath my skin, an electrical current of rage and guilt and need twisting together.
I should have held my temper better, but instead, I snapped. Just like Da would have.
But Christ, watching her with those other assholes—those fucking pretenders typing filth like they deserve her, like they’ve ever touched her skin, like they won’t always come second to me—makes me want to rip the world apart sometimes.
Thinking of her smile after she muted me has me slamming my fist into the wall, knuckles splitting on impact. Bright blossoms of blood spill in delicate rivulets over white paint, staining my silver rings red. I don’t even feel it. All I can feel is her.
The way she looked right into the camera—right at me—and said, “Maybe next time.”
I stagger into the bathroom, turning the tap until water scalds my skin. Blood swirls pink and red down the drain, curling like smoke. My reflection stares back at me, wild-eyed and feral, cheeks flushed, jaw clamped so tight I’m sure I’ll crack a tooth.
I hate her.
I love her.
I want to ruin her.
I want to ruin myself for her.
I want to drag her into my arms and fuck every ounce of defiance and resentment out of her until we’re both trembling, sobbing, clawing at each other like animals.
Instead, I bind my bleeding hand with gauze, pour two fingers of vodka, take a hit of my weed pen, and stare out at the Italian countryside that stretches beneath the balcony, pretending I belong here, pretending I’m not rotting from the inside out.
“I… I don’t understand,” she’d whispered, voice barely holding together. “What emails? Photos? Photos of… who? My birth certificate—it’s blank. There’s nothing…”
Her voice cuts through my thoughts like a blade, echoing from the night she was cast out, her eyes shining, tears threatening but refusing to fall. She always was too strong to let anyone see her fall apart or ask for help when she needed it.
The more I think back on that night, the more I watch her, and the more I look into Jen and Benedict’s fucked up connections, the less sense things make.
But even if I could prove her innocence, where do we go from here?
How the hell do we even begin to fix the bridges that have been burnt and heal the wounds sharp tongues have left behind?
All I have left is the ghost of her, flickering between pixels and login screens. Her laugh, her breathless moans, her stubborn tilt of the chin, all reduced to data I have to buy access to, like any other stranger. And tonight I don’t even get that.
We were supposed to be more than this.
We were supposed to be endgame.
Instead, she’s performing for faceless men, like what we had never mattered, like I was just another spectator instead of the man who once worshipped her body with my mouth, my hands, my goddamn soul, like it was my soul purpose.
And I’m trapped by this fucking contract, iron shackles dressed up as tradition, binding me to a life—and a wife—I never wanted.
The image burns behind my eyes—Gianna in white, hanging off Nico’s arm while Antonio watches from the front row like a king admiring his prize.
The thought of both our freedoms vanishing just like that splinters something inside me, my last shreds of hope.
My fist hits the wall again before I even register moving. Blood blooms bright and hot, streaking down pale plaster. The smell of copper fills my nose, and pain ricochets up my arm, buzzing behind my eyes until my vision blurs.
I drag my forehead to the wall, inhaling through clenched teeth.
If I focus hard enough, I swear I can still taste her in the back of my mouth.
My pulse is a snare drum, rattling, and relentless.
This is the part I’ll never let her see.
The part where it all capsizes inside me and I’m left bleeding on the inside with no one but myself to blame.
This internal back and forth that threatens to consume me.
A soft knock rattles the door, dragging me back to my shitty reality. Given the soft nature of the knock, I already know who’s on the other side, and I debate ignoring her, but she keeps knocking until I drag my ass over and swing it open.
Gianna stands there, still in her dress from earlier, eyeliner smudged, eyes puffy and red, the ring Antonio had me place on her finger moments before tonight's party noticeably gone. She looks like a porcelain doll someone’s dropped and cracked open.
“What?” I snap, voice edged like a blade. Her flinch has me cursing myself, trying to dredge up some morsel of patience as Cora’s warning filters through my mind.
“Can I come in?”
I hesitate, every nerve in me screaming to tell her no. But one more look at her puffy eyes and years of being raised in the Points has me stepping aside. Jonathan would have my head on a spike if I turned her away when she’s so clearly upset, assuming Donna or Helen didn’t beat him to it.
She offers me a tentative smile as she slips into the room like a ghost, barefoot, moving as though she’s trying not to be seen as she takes a seat on the edge of the sofa, and once again, I’m reminded of the glaring differences between here and home.
Taking the chair opposite her, I let the silence blanket us, too tired to do anything else. For a long moment, there’s just silence between us, just the weight of everything unsaid pressing down like lead and her nervousness bleeding between us.
“I heard them talking. My father and grandfather,” she says eventually, voice trembling as she forces the words out, eyes fixed on the floor between us. “About us. About the wedding. They were in Grandfather’s office, talking about how it’s time to get me ready.”
Her throat bobs. “Father called me a prize.”
I drag a hand down my face, exhaustion settling deep in my bones as my heart cracks for the girl sitting in front of me. She deserves better than this, better than the half-life waiting for her if she marries me.
“Christ,” I mutter. “You know that’s not true, right?”
“All I know is you’re going to be my husband, and you can’t even stand the sight of me.”
Her words slice clean through the quiet tension that’s been hanging between us from the moment she walked in, drawing a shocked scoff from me before I can stop myself.
“Look at me for a second,” I say. I wait until her dark eyes finally lift to mine before I continue. “I don’t hate you, Gianna. But I didn’t ask for this any more than you did.”
She lets out a bitter laugh, raw and fractured. The flash of venom in her eyes, and the curl of her lip might be the realest emotion I’ve seen from anyone in this family.
“And you think that matters?” she snaps. “You’ll still have far more freedom than I ever will.”
“Not always,” I say, my voice barely more than a breath.
Her head tilts, eyes sharp. “Name one choice you lose when you marry me.”
This isn’t for you.
No. It’s not. Not anymore.
And if her reaction to Beg was that visceral, I can’t even imagine what she’d do if she knew it was me behind the login.
Gianna watches me closely but doesn’t press. Instead, she reads me like a book as her dark eyes watch me with resigned understanding, and her whole body deflates as any hope at a happy ending leaves her.
“You won’t love me,” she whispers, but it’s a statement all the same.
“No,” I admit, the truth hitting the air like ice water.
Pain flits across her face, fast and fleeting, before she schools her features into something colder, shoving her feelings behind a mask no eighteen-year-old should have mastered so effortlessly.
“Then don’t lie to me.”
“I won’t. And I’ll never hurt you,” I tell her. “But I can’t save you from this either.”
Silence stretches out between us, heavy as chains. She nods, her dark hair falling like a curtain around her face with the movement, as though she’d already braced herself for this outcome.
“Fine,” she says, her voice low and firm. “As long as we understand each other.”
She turns and slips out the door, her bare feet whispering over the tiles like a secret. The moment the door clicks shut, I sag against the wall, finally exhaling the breath I’ve been holding since Lily vanished from my life.
My laptop still lies on the floor, its cracked screen flickering, and the webcam blinking like it’s mocking me.
I crouch and pick it up, pressing my thumb over the spiderweb of shattered glass.
She wants to play games? Fine. I invented games. I don’t lose. Not in the Pit. Not in the Points. And sure as hell not to the girl who once cried my name into a pillow while I promised her the world.