Chapter 32
CHAPTER 32
I watch her fingers dance over the remote, flicking through Netflix options like she's scanning sheet music. Evelyn finally settles on some crime drama—ironic, considering our lives. The show plays but I'm not following the plot. My mind is elsewhere, trapped in concrete cells and hospital rooms.
My chest throbs with every heartbeat. The bullet came too fucking close. Three days of surgery and a hospital bed, and here I am, pretending I'm fine. I'm not. But weakness isn't an option in my world.
"Are you even watching?" Evelyn asks, her head resting against my good shoulder.
"Yeah." The lie comes easy.
She shifts beside me, careful not to jostle my wound. "Liar."
I almost smile. She's learning to read me too well.
The living room is dim, afternoon light filtering through the blinds. We've finally moved from the bedroom where we’ve been all day, tangled in sheets, ordering food, pretending the world outside doesn't exist. It's a fantasy I've never allowed myself before.
My thoughts drift to Ivan's face when I faced him in that cell. The satisfaction in his eyes when he thought he'd won. The sound of gunshots echoing off concrete walls.
"What are you thinking about?" Evelyn's voice pulls me back.
"Nothing." Another lie.
She props herself up on one elbow, studying me. "Your jaw gets tight when you're lying."
I reach up, touch her face. "I'm thinking about how close I came to losing you."
It's not the complete truth but it's not a lie either. When I heard she’d left the apartment, something broke inside me. Something I didn't know could break.
"I shouldn't have gone there," she whispers.
"No, you shouldn't have." I keep my voice even, controlled. No point rehashing it now. "But you're here. Your sister's safe. Ivan's dead."
"And you almost died."
I shrug, immediately regretting it when pain shoots through my chest. "Occupational hazard."
She doesn't laugh. Her eyes drift to the bandage visible above the sheet.
"I'm fine," I tell her.
"You're not." Her fingers hover over the gauze. "But I appreciate you staying in bed today."
I don't tell her it's not entirely by choice. That standing for too long makes my vision blur. That I'm weaker than I've ever allowed myself to be.
Instead I pull her closer, careful not to wince when she settles against me.
"What happens now?" she asks.
"What do you want to happen now?" I respond, watching her face carefully. The question hangs between us, heavier than it should be.
Evelyn's eyes drift away from mine, focusing on some point beyond my shoulder. She's quiet for a long moment, her fingers absently tracing patterns on the sheet.
"I need to see my father," she says, her voice hardening around the edges. "There are things we need to discuss, I need to say."
I raise an eyebrow. "Your father?"
"Yes." Her jaw tightens. "Things that happened... things he made me suffer through for years."
Something cold settles in my stomach. I've watched her for ten months—tracked her movements, memorized her schedule, learned her favorite foods and the way she holds her violin. But this... this is something I don't know.
"What things?" I ask, keeping my voice neutral.
She shakes her head slightly. "It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me."
Evelyn sits up, pulling away from me. The sudden distance feels wrong.
"Why? Because you think you own me now?" Her words have an edge although there's no real heat behind them.
"Because I want to know you," I say simply. "Not just where you go or what you do. Who you are."
She looks at me then, really looks at me, like she's trying to decide whether I'm telling the truth.
"You know everything about my life but nothing about me," she says quietly.
And she's right. I've been so focused on possessing her that I never bothered to understand her. I knew her body before I knew her past.
"Then tell me," I say.
"It's not that simple," I say, looking down at my hands. They're steady now, despite everything. The same hands that have played violin since I was three, that have touched Noah in ways I never imagined touching anyone.
"What's not simple?" Noah asks, his voice gentle. It's strange how quickly he can shift from the man who commands me in bed to this softer version who wants to know me.
"Talking about my past. My family." I tuck my legs beneath me on the couch, putting distance between us. "You say you've been watching me for ten months, but you don't know the first thing about who I really am."
"So tell me." His eyes are intense, focused solely on me. It's that focus that unnerves me—how completely he can see me when he wants to.
I take a deep breath. "My father is what most people would call successful. Wealthy businessman, respected in his community, generous donor to the arts." I laugh but there's no humor in it. "What they don't see is what happens behind closed doors."
Noah waits, patient in a way I wouldn't have expected from him.
"I was three when he put a violin in my hands. Not because I showed interest—because he decided that's what I would do. My mother was a concert pianist before she married him. She gave it all up to be his wife, to raise his children. He wouldn't let the same thing happen to me."
The irony isn't lost on me. My father thought he was saving me from my mother's fate, but he just created a different kind of prison.
"Every day, I practiced. Four hours before school, four hours after. Weekends were eight to ten hours. If I made a mistake—" I stop, remembering the metronome ticking, my father's face growing darker with each error. "If I made a mistake he would lock me in the practice room until I got it right. Sometimes that meant all night."
Noah's jaw tightens but he doesn't interrupt.
"My mother never stopped him. She would bring food, water, slip it through the door sometimes. But she never stood up to him. Not once." The betrayal still stings, even now. "Jessica was the only one who tried to help. She'd tap messages on the wall, bring me candy when I was allowed out."
I curl my fingers through my hair, trying to organize thoughts I've spent years burying.
"By the time I was ten I was playing in competitions against teenagers. By fifteen I was touring internationally. Everyone called me a prodigy." I spit the word out like poison. "What they didn't see was that I never had a choice. Not about the violin, not about the competitions, not about anything."
"And your mother just watched?" Noah asks, his voice careful.
"My mother was—is—a ghost of a person. Whatever fire she had was extinguished long before I was born. She exists in his shadow, perfect posture, perfect smile, perfect emptiness." I shake my head. "The only time I ever saw her come alive was when she played piano but that was rare. He didn't like the competition."
"Did he hit you?" Noah's question is direct, his eyes darkening.
"No. Not physically. My father is too sophisticated for that." I meet his gaze. "His methods were more... refined. Psychological. Emotional. He would tell me I was worthless if I couldn't play perfectly. That I was nothing without the violin. That no one would ever love me except for my music."
I look down at my hands again, these hands that have been both my prison and my freedom.
"And I believed him. For a very long time I believed every word."
Noah's expression shifts, something fierce replacing the gentleness from moments before.
"You're not worthless," he says, his voice low and absolute. "You never were."
I look up, surprised by the conviction in his tone.
"I love hearing you play—it's what drew me to you in the first place. But if it makes you sad, if it reminds you of him, then stop. Just stop playing."
I shake my head, a small smile forming despite myself. "That's the thing, Noah. I love the violin. That's the cruel paradox of it all." I reach for my case where it sits nearby, running my fingers along its familiar contours. "My father made it my cage, but inside that cage I found something that was truly mine."
Noah watches me, saying nothing as I continue.
"My violin was my captor when I was young, forcing me to bend to its will, demanding perfection. But over time, it became the only thing I could trust. The only constant." I meet his eyes directly. "I care about it the way I care about you."
His eyebrows raise slightly.
"You were my captor too, for a while. You took me against my will, kept me here, controlled my movements." I take a breath. "But somehow, in that captivity I found something I wasn't expecting."
"And what was that?" Noah asks, his voice barely audible.
"Freedom," I say. "When I play for you, when I'm with you—I'm making the choice. For the first time, I'm choosing my cage instead of having it forced upon me." I laugh softly. "That probably sounds insane."
"No," Noah says, reaching for my hand. "It makes perfect sense."
I study Noah's face, the way his eyes hold mine, unflinching yet somehow vulnerable after hearing my story. Something shifts between us in this moment—a balance tipping.
"Now it's your turn," I say softly. "I want to know about you too."
Noah's body stiffens immediately. The openness I glimpsed moments ago disappears behind a carefully constructed wall. His jaw clenches, shoulders squaring as if preparing for combat rather than conversation.
I stare at Evelyn, feeling the walls I've built around myself start to crack. Her story about her father, the practice room, the psychological torture disguised as discipline—it hits too close. The way she found freedom inside her cage... fuck, I understand that more than she knows.
Her eyes are on me now, waiting. Expectant. I've never talked about my past. Not to anyone. Not even Matteo knows the full story.
"Noah?" Her voice is soft, patient. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
That's the thing—I do want to. For the first time in my life I want someone to know me. Really know me.
I take a deep breath, pain shooting through my chest where the bullet tore through. "My mother played violin too."
The words hang between us. I can't look at Evelyn as I continue.
"Every night after my father left she'd play for me. Lullabies, classical pieces—whatever made me smile." I close my eyes, remembering. "It was the only time our apartment felt like a home."
I shift on the couch, the pain medication is wearing off. "I was ten when my father shot her."
Evelyn's sharp intake of breath cuts through the silence.
"I woke up to the gunshot. Found her on the floor, violin shattered beside her." My voice doesn't even sound like my own. "My father just looked at me and said, 'You don't cry. You don't feel. You learn.'"
I finally look at Evelyn. Her eyes are wet but she doesn't interrupt.
"At fourteen he handed me a gun and made me kill a man. By eighteen, they called me Il Fantasma - The Phantom." I laugh, with more bitterness than humor..
Evelyn reaches for my hand. I let her take it.
"I never wanted anything outside of power and control. Never thought I deserved it." I squeeze her fingers. "Until I heard you play at Damiano's wedding."
"Why me?" she asks.
"Because you reminded me of something I thought was gone forever." I brush my thumb across her knuckles. "Something beautiful. Something worth protecting."
I've never been this fucking vulnerable in my life. It terrifies me more than any bullet.
"I'm not a good man, Evelyn. I've killed people. I'll kill again. The world I live in—our world now—it doesn't allow for weakness." I look directly into her eyes. "But with you I feel things I thought my father beat out of me years ago."
The confession hangs between us. I've never spoken these words to anyone. Never admitted that beneath the monster everyone fears there might still be something human left.
I wait for Evelyn's disgust, her judgment. I've just laid myself bare—told her I'm a killer, that I've spent my life becoming the monster my father created. But instead of pulling away, she moves closer.
"I never imagined being part of a mafia world," she says quietly, her fingers still intertwined with mine. "Not once in my life did I think I'd end up here."
I brace myself for what comes next. The fear, the rejection.
"But you're a better human than anyone else I've met."
The words hit me like another bullet. I stare at her, searching for the lie, the manipulation. There isn't any.
"Better?" I let out a harsh laugh. "I kidnapped you. I killed people in front of you. I?—"
"You saved me," she interrupts. "From Ivan. From myself, maybe."
She shifts closer, wincing slightly as she notices my pain.
"My father controlled me through fear. Ivan tried to own me through contracts and threats." Her eyes meet mine, unwavering. "You're the first person who saw me as something more than what I could do for them."
"That's not true," I argue, needing her to understand what I am. "I watched you for months. I wanted you. I took you."
"Yes." She nods. "But you also listened to me play. You gave me choices when you could have forced me. You risked your life to save my sister—someone you've never even met."
Her hand reaches up to stroke my face and I fight the urge to lean into it like some desperate, touch-starved animal.
"I'm not saying you're a saint, Noah. I know what you are. What you do." Her thumb traces my jawline. "But in this world of monsters, you're the only one who's shown me any real humanity."
I close my eyes, unable to look at the forgiveness I don't deserve.
"Don't," I whisper. "Don't make me something I'm not."
"I'm not," she says firmly. "I'm seeing you exactly as you are."
I can't fucking handle this. The way she looks at me, like I'm something worth saving. Like I'm not the monster I know I am. Her forgiveness is worse than any torture.
My chest constricts—from the bullet wound or something deeper, I don't know. But I need to shut this down. This... vulnerability. It's dangerous. Fatal in my world.
I reach down, gripping her chin between my fingers, tilting her face up to mine.
"Take off your clothes," I command, my voice rough. "Go back to the bedroom. Lie on the bed with your legs spread open for me."
Her eyes widen slightly but I see something else there too. Understanding. She knows what I'm doing—trying to push away this moment of connection, retreating to the physical where I feel safe.
For a moment I think she'll refuse. Tell me to fuck off. But then she stands, her eyes never leaving mine.
"Running away, Noah?" she asks softly, and the question hits harder than any bullet.
I don't answer. Can't answer.
She walks toward the bedroom, pulling her shirt over her head as she goes. I follow, watching as she sheds each piece of clothing, revealing the body I've memorized. The body that somehow matters more to me than any other ever has.
When she lies back on the bed, legs parted just as I commanded, I feel a surge of power. This is what I know. This is where I'm in control.
But as I look at her I realize it's not working. The emotions don't fade. They intensify, twisting inside me until I can barely breathe.
"Is this what you want?" she asks, her voice steady despite her vulnerable position. "Or is this just easier than talking?"
I exhale slowly, my chest aching from more than just the bullet wound.
"Fuck," I mutter, running a hand through my hair. "You're right."
Her eyes widen slightly, like she didn't expect me to admit it.
"This is easier," I continue, moving toward the bed. "Fucking you senseless is easier than talking about my mother. About my father. About all the shit I've done."
I sit on the edge of the bed, my eyes traveling over her naked body. Even now, with my past laid bare between us, I want her more than my next breath.
"But that doesn't mean I don't want this too," I say, my voice dropping lower as I place my hand on her thigh. "Because eating your pussy is always a better idea than talking about my feelings. Is better than doing anything else in this fucking world."
A small smile plays at her lips. "Is that so?"
"Absolutely." I move between her legs, careful of my stitches.
I lower my head, pressing a kiss to her inner thigh. Her breath catches and I feel a surge of satisfaction. This—her pleasure, her response to my touch—this is something I understand. Something I can control when everything else feels like it's slipping through my fingers.
"We can talk more later," I murmur against her skin. "But right now, I need this. I need you."