Chapter 12
I'm lying on Lorcan's bedroom floor in the Display position—back slightly arched, legs spread wide balanced on my pointed toes, arms above my head—staring at his ceiling and wondering if this is how people lose their minds.
Welcome to "Whose Breakdown Is It Anyway?"—the show where the rules are made up and my sanity doesn't matter! Today's prize: uncontrollable crying and a pussy that won't stop throbbing!
I can hear Lorcan downstairs, his voice low and urgent as he talks to someone on the phone. Probably Giovanni. Definitely Giovanni. My entire body aches toward that voice even though I can't make out the words, every nerve ending screaming King King King like some deranged chant I can't turn off.
My thighs are trembling from holding this position. My core is screaming. But I can't move because the Doctrine says I hold Display until dismissed, and Lorcan told me to wait here, and my brain has apparently decided that "wait here" means "perform advanced yoga until your muscles give out."
I want to touch myself so badly I could cry.
Wait. I am crying.
Why am I crying?
No seriously, why are there tears running down my temples into my hair? Is this grief? Withdrawal? Am I having a nervous breakdown?
I force myself to stop. Just—stop.
Stop trembling. Stop crying. Stop performing the world's saddest interpretive dance routine on a stranger's floor.
I pull my arms down and close my legs, then roll onto my side and curl into a ball, pressing my cheek against the cold floor.
Breathe.
In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.
The Navy SEAL technique I read about in some self-help article when I was trying to survive Tyler. Back when I thought breathing exercises could fix a man who threw you down the stairs.
In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.
My heart rate slows. The white noise in my head starts to quiet.
OK.
I need to have an actual conversation with myself. A real one. Not the spiral-brain disaster movie I've been starring in for the past—Jesus, what time is it? How long have I been here?
I push myself up to sitting, cross my legs, and stare at the bedroom wall.
Fact: I am currently in Boston.
Fact: I got here by being kidnapped by a very attractive Irish mobster who thought he was rescuing me.
Fact: The moment he uncuffed me, I threw myself at him and begged for my "Master and King" like some sort of feral sex-cult escapee.
Fact: Then I arranged myself in a position specifically designed to make men want to fuck me.
I bring my hands up to my face.
What. The actual. Fuck. Am I doing?
Because here's the thing that's making my brain short-circuit. Lorcan didn't kidnap me because he's a predator. He kidnapped me because he saw a naked woman wearing a collar, covered in bruises, emerging from a mobster's library on a Sunday night.
He saw evidence of abuse.
He made a decision to intervene.
My heroic kidnapper.
And my response to being rescued was to beg to go back.
I stand up. Pace the length of Lorcan's bedroom.
"OK, Emmaleen. Focus. Be cool. Let's get that big brain of yours warmed up because we've got—"
"There ya are."
I turn, startled. Lorcan is standing in the bedroom doorway. "I didn't hear you come up." I say this as a way to explain away the fact that I was talking to myself, but also because he's staring at me and it's… weird.
"Are ya feelin' better then?"
"No," I whisper. "I'm not. I'm… I don't know."
"Were ya cryin'?"
My fingertips reach up, wiping away the tears. "Yes."
"Am I scarin' ya?"
I actually scoff. And it comes out filled with contempt and scorn. Which is such a relief because it feels like the first real sound I've made in... weeks. The kind of scoff Emmaleen pre-dark-mafia-romance would use on the regular.
"Is that a yeah?"
"Well..." I scoff again. And I can feel the spiral coming. Not the fun, self-deprecating kind that live in my head, but the sharp, pointy kind that can fly out of my mouth.
"Is it you specifically that scares me, Lorcan?
No. Not really. You're very polite for a kidnapper.
Ten out of ten customer service. Would recommend to a friend.
What scares me is that I have somehow become the kind of person who gets kidnapped by an Irish mobster who thinks he's rescuing me from an Italian mobster who may or may not have started a mob war by killing the son of New York's most powerful crime family—and my first instinct wasn't to run screaming for the nearest police station. It was to get back in the cage."
I'm pacing now. Can't stop moving.
"And you know what's really fun? The cherry on top of this absolutely deranged sundae of terrible life choices?
I can't even tell if I actually want to be in that cage, or if Giovanni Bavga has successfully Stockholm Syndrome'd me so hard that I think kneeling on cold basement floors while a masked man trains me like a show pony is my idea of a good time. "
Lorcan opens his mouth but I'm not done.
"Oh, and let's not forget—let's really catalog this disaster—that my body is so fundamentally rewired at this point that the second you grabbed my throat in Giovanni's hallway, my brain filed you under 'Safe Authority Figure' instead of 'Strange Man Attacking Me.
' Do you understand how fucked up that is?
How completely unhinged? I should be terrified of you.
I should be planning my escape. But instead I'm standing here fighting the urge to kneel because some part of my brain that Giovanni and Jino have apparently hijacked thinks that's what I'm supposed to do when a dominant man enters the room. "
I laugh. It sounds unhinged even to my own ears.
"And speaking of Jino—let's talk about that particular layer of insanity, shall we?
Because not only did I sign a contract to become Giovanni's personal assistant slash submissive, I also agreed to be trained by his cousin, who bathes me, and edges me, and teaches me proper kneeling positions like it's a graduate-level course I'm desperately trying not to fail.
And the worst part? I like it. I crave Jino's structure like it's oxygen.
I crave Giovanni's attention like it's heroin.
When he feeds me steak at his knee, I am safe.
When Jino makes me hold Position Three for forty-five minutes until my thighs are screaming, I feel accomplished. "
My voice cracks.
"I've read all the books, Lorcan. You were right about that.
I know the tropes. The dark romance books where the morally gray mob boss falls for the innocent girl and they have all this intense power-exchange sex but it's okay because he's different with her, he changes for her, he'd burn the world down to keep her safe.
And I thought—I genuinely thought—I was smart enough to know the difference between fiction and reality.
But here I am, living out some deranged BookTalk fantasy except it's not a fantasy anymore, is it?
It's my actual life. And I can't tell if I chose this or if I've been manipulated into thinking I chose it, and that ambiguity is eating me alive. "
I stop pacing. Turn to face him.
"So no, Lorcan. You don't scare me. What scares me is that I've lost all sense of objectivity.
What scares me is that when you uncuffed me, I begged for my King like some sort of religious convert.
What scares me is that every cell in my body wants to go back to that dungeon even though I know—I intellectually understand—that wanting to return to captivity is textbook trauma bonding.
But knowing it doesn't change how I feel.
It doesn't stop my body from aching for Giovanni's voice, or Jino's firm instructions, or the clarity of rules I can follow to earn rewards and avoid punishments. "
Tears are streaming down my face again.
"What scares me is that I don't know who I am anymore. I don't know if I'm Emmaleen Rourke, college dropout and domestic violence survivor who's making empowered choices about her sexuality—or if I'm just another broken girl Giovanni collected and reprogrammed to polish her own chains."
I stop talking. Just—stop. The words run out like I've finally hit empty on whatever fuel tank powers my anxiety spirals.
Lorcan sucks in one of those big, long breaths you see in memes.
You know that guy. The Elf guy, except he's not Elf.
He's some… whoever. Holding his beer, exhaling like his day was one for the books.
The kind of long exhale where you can practically see his soul leaving his body through his nostrils.
Except Lorcan's not holding a beer. He's holding his phone, standing in his bedroom doorway staring at a naked crying woman who just delivered a three-minute monologue about trauma bonding and mob bosses.
He scrubs a hand down his face. Drags it through his hair. The blond strands stick up at odd angles.
"Right," he says finally. His accent thickens when he's stressed, I'm noticing. "So… that was... comprehensive."
I wrap my arms around myself. Suddenly very aware that I'm still naked. That I've been standing here naked this entire time having a complete breakdown while he just... listened.
"Well, if it makes ya feel any better, Emmaleen, yer not the only crazy person in the room."
I… don't think that does make me feel better, actually.
Lorcan laughs, like he's reading my mind. "Nah," he says. "Bad example. The point is, you're… not that far off normal."