Chapter 19 Violet
VIOLET
The green dress is draped over a chair when I wake. Blood-spotted silk catching the morning light, dark stains blooming on emerald where the guard’s blood sprayed last night. Evidence of what happened. What I watched. What I felt while watching.
I should be horrified.
Instead my mind replays the crack of bone. The absolute certainty in Elio’s voice. She is mine. The efficient brutality of his hands, beautiful in their violence. Heat pools low in my belly.
Jesus Christ, Murphy. Get it together.
I push myself upright, rubbing sleep from my eyes, and that’s when something new catches my attention.
A full-length mirror. Floor to ceiling, gilt frame, positioned against the wall where nothing stood yesterday.
It wasn’t there before.
He had it brought in overnight while I slept. Another gift. Another cage. Another way of saying I’m watching, always watching, and I want you to watch yourself too.
I slide out of bed and approach it slowly. The black silk nightgown whispers against my thighs. In the reflection I look like a stranger. Hair mussed, the hickey on my neck fading to yellow-green at the edges, eyes too bright for someone who should be traumatized.
My brain wakes up enough to realize that a mirror equals glass equals weapon.
I could break it. Use a shard. Sharp enough to cut, to stab, to kill.
Heavy enough that a decent piece could do real damage.
This is better than the caliper he took.
Better than anything I’ve found since I woke up in this place.
My hand reaches toward the glass, fingers hovering inches from the surface. Only cool air between my skin and the reflection. One good strike to the corner and I’d have a dozen options for violence.
I drop my hand, unable to follow through.
Not because I’m afraid or I’ve given up. But because some part of me wants to see where this goes more than I want a weapon I probably won’t use anyway.
Who is this woman?
The reflection stares back—black silk clinging where it has no business clinging, the fading bruise on my neck like a shadow that won’t fade—and I can’t look away.
This is the woman who just stood there contemplating a broken mirror as a weapon…
and then chose not to break it. The woman who replayed the crack of bone last night like it was something intimate, something that made sense instead of bile rise.
The woman whose body lit up at the sight of blood on stone, at the sound of a scream that wasn’t hers.
I don’t recognize her.
The shower helps. Hot water sluicing over skin that still remembers his touch. Steam fills my lungs as I lean against the marble wall and try no to think about him except my brain keeps serving up—
His fingers inside me. Curling. Finding spots that made me scream.
Stop it.
But my hand is already sliding down. Just washing. That’s all. Except my fingers brush my clit and the response is immediate, heat flooding through me, body lighting up like a trained animal recognizing its cue.
Fuck it.
I give in.
Close my eyes and let memory take over. His hand between my thighs. The way he circled my clit, precise, patient, like he was learning me. The pressure when he slid inside. The devastating rhythm.
I repeat his patterns. Circle. Press. Slide.
Christ, you’re drenched.
His voice in my head.
This cunt wants me, even if you won’t admit it.
My hips buck against my own hand, shameful and desperate.
I hate myself for thinking about it. Still feel violated in some way, even though I never said stop—the one word that would have ended it.
I can admit that to myself now. My mouth said ‘no’ while my body screamed yes, and he read the truth better than I did.
The orgasm builds fast. Too fast. Like my body’s been waiting for permission.
I come with his name on my lips, legs shaking, water running down my body like absolution it can’t provide. The pleasure erases thought for a few blessed seconds. Then the shame crashes back.
At least he wasn’t here to see this. Didn’t hear me moan his name as I came.
At least he doesn’t know you’re slowly going insane.
I finish washing with mechanical efficiency. Step out. Towel off. Pretend none of it happened.
You’re so fucked up, Murphy.
A new dress hangs on the wardrobe door. Midnight blue silk. Lower cut than the green. More provocative. The neckline plunges between my breasts, and the back… well, there isn’t one. Just bare skin to the base of my spine.
He chose this. Hung it here while I was in the shower, making myself come to the memory of his fingers.
I put the dress on.
The mirror shows me a different woman than it did before the shower. I’m no longer the wild-haired creature who stood in black silk contemplating weapons. This woman looks expensive. Claimed. Like she belongs in Elio Marchetti’s world.
Elio arrives fifteen minutes later.
No knock. Just the door opening and his presence filling the space. His eyes find me immediately, tracking the midnight blue, the exposed skin, the way the fabric clings. The hunger in his gaze is controlled but visible.
“You wore it.”
“You left it.”
“I did.” He gestures toward the door. “Breakfast on the terrace today. If you’re amenable.”
Amenable. Like I’m a guest. Like any of this is my choice.
I follow him anyway.
The terrace overlooks the gardens we walked last night.
Morning light gilds everything gold. The stone balustrade, the distant orange grove, the maze rising dark against the bright sky.
A table waits, laden with fruit and pastries and strong Italian coffee.
Two chairs positioned close together rather than across from each other.
Intimate.
I sit, and he sits beside me. Close enough that I catch his scent, maddeningly familiar by now.
The tension between us is different today. Less hostile. Something changed in the garden last night. The violence stripped away pretense. Now we’re circling each other without the masks, and I’m not sure that’s better.
Halfway through a pastry I don’t taste, he sets down his fork.
“I want to take you out today.”
I stop chewing. Swallow carefully.
“Out?”
“Into Palermo. Outside these walls.”
My heart hammers. Outside. The real world. Streets I know, buildings I worked in, cafés where people would help me if I—
“Not just the grounds,” he continues. “Not the terrace or the gardens. But the actual city. We could have lunch. Or go shopping. Both, if you’d like.” His eyes hold mine. “I want to show you what our life could be.”
Our life.
“You’re delusional.”
“Probably.” No defensiveness. Just agreement. “I know what this is, Violet. I know I took you. Know you’re here because I gave you no choice. But after last night—” He pauses. “You’re strong enough for my world. I’ve known it from the beginning, but now you know it too.”
I stare at him.
“You broke a man’s arm over an insult. And your takeaway is that we could work?”
“My takeaway is that you didn’t run screaming. Didn’t look at me with disgust. You looked at me like—” He stops. Struggles with words. “Like you were seeing me. Actually seeing me. And you stayed.”
Because I’m sick. Because the violence woke something feral in me that my brain can’t forgive.
But I don’t say that.
“This is fucked up,” I say instead. “You know that, right? Taking me shopping doesn’t make you any less of a kidnapper.”
“I know,” he answers quietly. “I know exactly what I am. I’m not asking you to forget. I’m asking you to see what else is here.”
What else is here.
The same thing I chose this morning. Mirror over weapon. Dress over defiance. See what else is here instead of fighting.
“Fine.” The word comes out before I decide to say it. “Take me to Palermo. Show me your delusion.”
The car is a black Mercedes with tinted windows.
Guards follow at a distance. Two vehicles, discreet but visible if you know to look. Most freedom I’ve had in a month, and every inch of it is supervised.
Elio sits beside me in the back seat. His hand rests on the leather between us. Not touching mine. But close. Close enough that I could take it if I wanted.
I don’t.
Instead, I watch Palermo through the window.
My old life sliding past in fragments. The corner where I bought a pastry every morning.
The street that led to my apartment—former apartment, emptied and erased like I never existed.
The churches I photographed for reference.
All of it within reach. All of it impossibly far.
The American consulate is fifteen minutes north. Police stations scattered throughout the centro storico. The airport, an hour away. Embassies that would have to help a kidnapped citizen. All of it reachable, if I wanted to reach it.
But, the darker side of me focuses on something else entirely. His profile in the morning light. The way his hands rest on his thighs, relaxed. The memory of those hands between my legs. The sound of bone cracking because a man looked at me wrong.
You could run.
I could. Right now. Tell the driver I need air. Step onto the street. Scream for help. A dozen scenarios playing out in my head, each one ending with freedom.
You’re not going to.
No.
Because I want to test his obsession. Want to feel it focused on me again. Want to push and see how far he’ll go before he snaps.
We pass the cathedral.
My cathedral. The one I was restoring before he drugged me in a café and stole my life. Scaffolding still covers the east wall. Someone else is up there now, doing my job, documenting damage I’ll never fix.
The sight should hurt.
It does hurt. But distantly. Like looking at a photograph of someone else’s life.
You’re choosing this.
The mirror this morning proves it. I chose to see what else was there over arming myself. Now I’m choosing his company over escape.
The realization is shocking, and I don’t know what to do with it.
We stop right outside a boutique.