Chapter 8
I wake up disoriented, my neck cramped, muscles stiff, awareness flooding back in fragmented pieces like a Netflix show resuming mid-episode after someone pressed pause three weeks ago and you have absolutely no idea what's happening, or who these people are, or why everyone's crying.
Where the hell am I?
Panic claws up my throat. The surface beneath me is moving. Engine rumbling. Windows dark. Someone else's clothes on my body. A collar around my throat—
A hand touches my shoulder.
I gasp, jerk away hard, my spine slamming against the car door.
"Easy, easy—it's just me."
Irish accent. Gray eyes. Blond hair.
Oh.
Relief floods through me so fast I actually smile. "Lorcan."
"Yeah. You're alright. Just wakin' ya up. We're nearly home."
I blink at him.
Process that word.
Home.
His home. Not mine. Because mine is—
Giovanni's dungeon. Jino's training mat. The throne where I kneel. Position Three with my forehead pressed to stone. The punishment bench. The notebooks. The rules I broke by taking the key. The library I wasn't supposed to enter. The book I wasn't supposed to touch.
The sads hit me like a freight train driven by a nihilist who doesn't believe in brakes.
I turn away from Lorcan, staring out the window as my throat tightens and my eyes burn. Don't cry. Do not fucking cry in front of the hot Irish kidnapper who thinks you're a victim. Prove him wrong by not being pathetic.
"Hey." His voice gentles. "You alright?"
"Yeah. Fine. Just—tired."
Liar.
I sit up properly, forcing myself to look around, to notice things like a functioning human with working observational skills instead of a broken wind-up toy that only knows three positions and how to count to thirty.
We're driving through what looks like someone tried to build a utopian future city but also wanted to keep it tasteful.
Sleek glass buildings. Exposed brick. String lights everywhere like the neighborhood hired an Instagram influencer as urban planning consultant.
Waterfront views. Trendy restaurants with names like "Salt & Ash" or "The Butcher's Daughter" that definitely serve twelve-dollar toast.
"South Boston Waterfront," Lorcan says, watching me take it in. "Seaport District. Don't judge me."
I snort despite myself. "For what?"
"For livin' somewhere this fuckin' trendy."
And just like that, my brain kicks back online. Oh good. We're doing banter. I know how to do banter. Banter is safe.
"Wait, hold on. You kidnapped me. Shoved me in a trunk.
Drove me across state lines. Lectured me about Sartre, and Foucault, and Giovanni's psychological damage while I was naked—and now you're worried I'll think less of you because your neighborhood has…
what, artisanal coffee shops? Overpriced juice bars?
A farmer's market on Sundays where people buy seven-dollar heirloom tomatoes? "
He almost smiles. "There's a ramen place on the corner that does a twenty-three-dollar bowl with a single soft-boiled egg like it's a Fabergé artifact."
"Unforgivable. I take it all back. You're the monster. Giovanni who?"
That gets a real laugh out of him.
But then his face shifts—something darker crossing it—and I realize I fucked up by saying Giovanni's name. Reminded us both why I'm here. What I'm running from.
Or not running from.
I don't even know anymore.
Lorcan eases the car onto a quieter street, and I realize with a jolt that we're heading straight toward the water.
The pavement narrows, industrial buildings giving way to open sky, and suddenly we're not just near the waterfront—we're on it.
A private pier stretches out ahead of us, sleek and modern, lined with bollards and railings that gleam under the streetlights.
He pulls up to what looks like a converted brick warehouse. It's massive, industrial, gorgeous in that gentrified-former-factory way that screams I have money and taste but I want you to think I'm too cool to care about either.
A huge glass garage door begins to rise.
"Oh, fancy," I say, because sarcasm is my emotional support animal and I will ride it into the ground.
"Wait for it." He drives inside—not into a garage but into some kind of vestibule. The glass door closes behind us with a heavy, airtight thunk. We sit there. Waiting.
Then another door—this one solid steel—opens in front of us.
"Jesus Christ," I mutter. "What is this, a bank vault? A supervillain lair? Are we about to enter the Batcave?"
"Just my private home," Lorcan says, pulling into what I can now see is an actual garage.
Concrete floors polished to a mirror shine.
Perfect lighting. A collection of cars that makes Giovanni's Lamborghini look like a participation trophy.
"But my grown-up job is corporate security.
When I rebuilt this place five years ago, I used all the tech I promote to clients. "
"Corporate security." I stare at him. "You mean like… what, protecting CEOs? Installing fancy alarm systems? Teaching people not to click on phishing emails?"
"Somethin' like that."
The steel door closes behind us with another pneumatic hiss, and I realize we're now locked inside a private fortress that probably has better security than most government buildings.
Perfect. Absolutely fantastic. I've gone from one control freak's dungeon to another control freak's panic room.
Except Lorcan doesn't feel like Giovanni. Doesn't move like him. Doesn't look at me like him.
Which might be worse, actually, because at least with Giovanni I knew the rules.
Lorcan kills the engine and glances over at me. "You're thinkin' very loud right now."
"I'm thinking you have a suspicious number of expensive cars for someone whose job is 'corporate security.
'" I gesture at the sleek lineup—a matte black Corvette, something small and retro that I can't identify, a white Porsche, a vintage motorcycle with the word 'Indian' across the tank, and a monster truck.
"Unless 'corporate security' is code for 'I rob corporations. '"
"Family business," he says simply, popping his door open. "We're in shipping. Import-export. The security firm's a side venture—keeps things legitimate."
Import-export.
Oh, that's adorable. That's like saying the Corleones were in the "olive oil business."
I follow him out of the car, my bare feet cold against the polished concrete. The collar around my throat suddenly feels very visible, very present, a neon sign announcing Hi, I'm someone's property and I don't know whose anymore.
"What's with this thing?" I ask, pointing to the monster truck looming like a mechanical dinosaur in the corner.
The tires are practically at eye level with me.
"How did you even get it in here? Did you build it inside the warehouse?
" I pace around the behemoth, tilting my head back to take in the sheer absurdity of its height.
"Because I'm pretty sure that door isn't tall enough for this to fit through.
Does it just... live here forever now? Like a weird automotive hostage situation? "
I'm aware I'm babbling, but exhaustion and stress have apparently turned off my filter entirely.
"Does it come with the property when you sell? 'South Boston waterfront estate, includes original brick, custom chef's kitchen, and one slightly impractical monster truck permanently entombed in the garage. What a selling point.'"
A laugh bubbles up before I can stop it—high and slightly unhinged, the kind that happens when you've cried too much, and slept too little, and your brain has simply given up on processing things normally.
Lorcan is looking at me now. It's a look I recognize. It says, is she crazy-crazy? Or just crazy?
He jerks his chin toward a sleek metal door. "Come on. For someone who just slept seven hours, you look dead on your feet."
I am. I'm so tired I could sleep another ten hours in Position One if someone commanded it, which—
Stop. Stop thinking like that.
I follow him.
The door opens to a stairwell that looks like it belongs in a luxury hotel—brushed steel, recessed lighting, each step perfectly clean. No creepy basement vibes. No dungeon energy. Just… expensive minimalism.
"How many floors?" I ask, because talking keeps me from spiraling.
"Three, technically. But the ground floor's just the garage and storage. We're goin' to the second floor—main living space. Third floor's my bedroom and office."
We climb in silence, my legs protesting every step. I'm sore everywhere—not just from Jino's training or Giovanni's punishment bench, but from the whole catastrophic disaster that's been the past ten hours.
The stairwell opens into a massive loft space that makes me stop dead.
"Oh, fuck you," I breathe.
Because it's gorgeous. Vaulted ceilings with exposed beams painted matte black. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the harbor, boats bobbing in the darkness, city lights reflecting off the water.
A fireplace you could park a car in, surrounded by stone that looks imported from some Irish castle.
Leather furniture—deep, comfortable, lived-in. Bookshelves lining an entire wall, crammed with actual books, not decorator spines. Persian rugs over polished concrete floors. Art that looks real, not mass-produced.
It's the kind of space that Architectural Digest would beg to photograph.
It's also nothing like Giovanni's mansion—no excess, no dark wood paneling, no rooms designed to intimidate. This place feels… grounded. Masculine but not aggressive. Expensive but not showy.
Livable.
"You hate it," Lorcan says, watching my face.
"I hate that I don't hate it." I drift toward the bookshelves like a magnet, scanning titles. Philosophy. Irish history. Literary fiction. Poetry—Yeats, Heaney, Kavanagh. "You actually read these?"
"Most of 'em, yeah."
I pull out a worn copy of Ulysses, pages dog-eared and annotated in the margins. Actual marginalia. Actual engagement with the text.
Something twists in my chest.
Books.