Chapter 21 #2
“You want her released?” I asked slowly, every word measured. “Propose a punishment that keeps her under my hand and not under the soil.”
Giovanni’s jaw tightened; he swallowed. “Public disgrace. House arrest under watch. Take away whatever comforts you want. But don’t starve her in the dark.”
I studied Giovanni until his silhouette blurred against the ledger of debts and favors I kept in my head.
His apology had teeth.
He’d put himself on the line for her. He’d lied for her. That was disloyalty baked with pity — and I could use it.
Strategy, not mercy, made me speak. Strategy was safer. Strategy kept me alive.
“Very well,” I said finally. The words were flat. “Leave me.”
Giovanni bowed his head once, relief so obvious it was almost obscene. “Don’t take too long, boss,” he said quietly. “She won’t last in that dark.”
Then he turned before I could change my mind.
The study closed in around me.
Her face, the gun, the blood, kept returning like a bad refracted thing at the edge of my vision.
I could devise punishments until dawn and drill them down into law. I had done it before. Rules were tools. Tools could be sharpened, or they could maim the wielder.
But the idea of her dying in that dark room, unseen, unwedged, was a risk I could not accept.
If she bled out and left me with nothing but a corpse and a legend, I would be the fool who’d finally mismanaged my own obsession.
I left the study and walked the corridor alone.
The mansion’s silence pressed against me — quiet as a held breath. Every footstep landed like an argument with myself.
The oak door to the basement loomed, a dark mouth I’d built to swallow people who could be useful later.
Reinforced, cold, smelling of detergent, iron, and the damp leftover of rooms never meant for sunlight — an architecture of control I’d designed for precise purposes.
Tonight its purpose shifted.
The lock clicked under my thumb, and I slid open only the narrow hatch designed for food and brief speech.
The rest of the door remained sealed, a wall of absolute darkness. Through the small slit, I could hear the ragged rasp of her breathing, sharp with panic, carried faintly across the black void.
I called once—low, practiced, the tone I used when I wanted obedience, not answers. “Penelope.”
Silence swallowed the word.
I tried again, sharper now, edge honed into a threat. “Penelope.”
Nothing.
The dark on the other side of the hatch felt like a thing that could swallow people whole. For a heartbeat a ridiculous, cold image flashed through me—her body crumpled on that concrete floor—and something in my chest clenched so hard it hurt.
I forced the sound out of me softer, impossibly softer. “Answer me.” The plea was buried under the command, because I couldn’t afford a plea.
Still nothing.
My patience — my weapon — began to fray. In the quiet I tasted the bluff I’d been practicing: walk away; let the darkness do its work. The idea sat on my tongue like poison.
“Penelope,” I said again, louder, forcing steel through the panic. “This is your last chance. If you don’t respond, I leave today. I’ll walk away.”
The lie tasted metallic.
I wouldn’t leave her to die. I couldn’t. But I needed her to know the shape of my threat. For now, the bluff hung in the air, a thin thing I dared not test too soon.
I held the doorframe until my hands cramped, listening for the faintest movement inside.
The silence answered me, heavy and absolute, and something in me—rage, worry, something pained and older than both—tightened until I thought my chest would split.
“Penelope,” I said again. The sound was softer this time, as if I could coax a life into responding.
Penelope’s voice—soft, fractured, barely a thread—cut through the dark.
“Please...” she gasped, every breath scraping her throat raw. “I won’t—won’t upset you again. I’ll follow... all your rules...”
Another ragged inhale. “I won’t defile you... won’t challenge you. You are my... master.”
My pulse stuttered. Each word was a knife, carving guilt into my ribs.
“Please... I’m sorry...” she sobbed, her voice unraveling into panic. “I don’t... don’t want to die... master...”
The sound tore something loose inside me.
I slammed my hand against the door, yanked the lock, then drove my boot through it when it refused to yield. The crash echoed down the hall, splintering the silence.
“Penelope,” I called, the name catching in my throat.
The darkness inside was absolute—thick, choking, like stepping into blindness.
Her sobs guided me forward.
My boots slid over something slick, and then the metallic tang hit—blood, fresh and thick, laced with the sour edge of urine.
My stomach turned cold.
I crouched, reaching blindly until my hand met skin—fever-hot, trembling, slick with sweat and blood. “Penelope...” I whispered, my voice shaking despite myself.
She flinched beneath my touch. “Please... forgive me,” she murmured, a broken mantra spilling from her lips.
Then came the sound—dull, rhythmic.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
It took me a second to realize what it was.
Not her hand. Her forehead.
She was slamming it into the concrete, again and again, each impact punctuating her desperate plea.
“Forgive me...” Thud.
“Forgive me...” Thud.
“Forgive me...” Thud.
My heart seized—the sound of her skull striking concrete again and again carved through me like a serrated blade.
“Penelope, stop!” I roared, my voice cracking as I lunged forward, hands fumbling through the dark until they found her.
Her skin burned under my palms, her body frail and shaking. She was kneeling, her breath ragged, her voice a whisper torn from hell itself.
“I’ll obey you, master... I’ll do everything you want... please... free me from the dark... I’m dying... save me, master...”
Each word landed like a lash.
Guilt and rage warred inside me, both feeding on each other until I could barely breathe.
I scooped her up, her weight terrifyingly light, her body limp and slick with fever sweat.
I stumbled through the dark, one arm bracing us against the wall, the other cradling her close, her blood smearing across my shirt.
My pulse roared in my ears—the same sound I’d heard the night I found my mother’s body. That same cold panic crawling up my throat.
“Master... don’t punish me again... please...” she whispered, voice slurring, her eyes rolling shut as if the world had finally abandoned her.
The door slammed open beneath my shoulder.
Light exploded across the hall, harsh and sterile.
She flinched against it, and I froze at the sight—her forehead split, blood streaking down her face, her lips cracked and gray, her body shivering despite the heat blazing through her.
God... what have I done?
I’d gone too far. Broken something I could never repair. Hatred and love tangled so deep I couldn’t tell one from the other anymore.
I carried her down the grand staircase, my boots striking marble like gunfire.
At the SUV, I laid her in the backseat, her body curling in on itself, her murmurs fading into nothing.
The guilt clawed up my throat until I needed to hurt something. My fist came down on the hood, metal caving beneath the blow. The sting didn’t matter. The blood on my knuckles didn’t matter. Nothing did but her.
“I went too fucking far,” I breathed, half a confession, half a curse.
I slid into the driver’s seat, slammed the engine alive, and tore down the road.
The phone shook in my hand as I hit the doctor’s number.
“My wife is dying,” I rasped. “Get your nurses ready. Now.”
I didn’t wait for the doctor’s response.
The line went dead as I tore through Lake Como’s streets, ignoring every red light, the tires screaming against wet pavement.
Penelope’s faint murmurs filled the car—“Master... please... forgive me...”—each one cutting deeper, a lash against the conscience I’d buried long ago.
I’d done this.
I’d destroyed the only person who had ever looked at me without fear.
Regret burned so fiercely I could’ve put a bullet through my skull just to silence it. She was my everything—my ruin, my obsession—and I’d broken her beyond recognition.
The hospital’s emergency bay came into view, harsh white light slicing through the night. Nurses were already waiting—faces tight, movements swift.
“Move!” one barked.
“Female, mid-twenties, unresponsive, fever, possible hemorrhage,” another called, hands already checking for a pulse.
They lifted her onto the stretcher, oxygen mask secured, portable monitor beeping in frantic rhythm.
“Get her to trauma bay two—now!” the lead nurse ordered.
And just like that, she was gone—swallowed by white walls and urgency.
I leaned against the car, legs unsteady, breath clawing its way out of me. The same fear—the one that had gutted me the night my mother died—hit like a knife under the ribs.
“No...” I rasped. “Nothing must happen to her. Penelope, you can’t leave me...”
My hands shook.
I’d quit smoking for her—because she couldn’t stand the smell, because her lungs were fragile, because she’d smiled when I said I’d stopped.
Now all I wanted was a cigarette, anything to burn away the ache sitting in my chest. But I didn’t light one. I just stood there, choking on air, feeling every second stretch into punishment.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Giovanni.
I stared at the screen for a heartbeat, then slid it back without answering. Whatever he had to say could wait. The only thing that mattered now was her.
I shoved the phone into my pocket and strode through the hospital with the kind of authority that made doors open before I even touched them.
Nurses moved out of my path, their eyes wide, their bodies instinctively recognizing a threat even if they couldn’t name it.
The corridor glowed under fluorescent lights; everything smelled like antiseptic and time running out. A doctor stepped into my path, face flat with the practice of bad news.
“How is my wife?” I demanded.
The words were papered over panic.