Chapter Nine
Teresa
Three months?
What the hell did that mean?
The words hit me a second late, like my mind is still trying to catch up to the rest of the conversation and keeps slipping on the same impossible fact over and over again.
Three months.
Not a week.
Not until he calms down.
Not until he comes to his senses.
Three months, said in that same flat, controlled tone, like he is talking about a business timeline or a construction project instead of a human being he dragged out of her own life.
My fear comes back full force.
It is not the first hot, panicked terror from when I first saw him step out onto the deck. It is colder than that. Heavier. It settles lower in my body and spreads from there, a sick pressure under my ribs.
Three months.
Why three months?
What happens after three months?
What was going to happen if whatever he wanted from me was not done by then?
I stare at him across the kitchen, my skin going cold even in the warm room.
“What does that mean?” I ask, and I hear the break in my own voice this time. “Why three months?”
For the first time since I stepped into this kitchen, I think I see the real outline of danger here—not just that I’m trapped, not just that he took me, but that he has a schedule for this.
A plan. Boundaries. A beginning, middle, and end I have not been allowed to see.
His expression does not change much.
Nothing about him changes much, and I am starting to understand that this may be one of the most unsettling things about him.
He does not get animated.
He does not ramble.
He does not justify himself like a frantic man trying to convince me he isn’t crazy.
He simply looks at me and says, calmly, “Nothing is going to happen after three months. That’s just how long I have to dedicate to this.”
I stare at him.
That answer should make me feel better.
It does not.
It only makes this feel more deliberate. More organized. Less like a loss of control and more like a horrifying decision he has examined from every angle and then chosen anyway.
“Dedicate,” I repeat.
He does not seem offended by the disbelief in my tone. “Yes.”
Like this is all reasonable. Like we are discussing some intense executive retreat he booked for self-improvement.
I almost laugh, but it would come out sounding like hysteria, and I am fighting hard against that.
He glances at the oven. “If you want to get that shower in,” he says, “you have about twenty minutes.”
For a second, I can only stare at him.
He has to be joking.
He has to understand how insane that sounds.
But there is no humor anywhere on his face.
The lasagna is warming in the oven. The salad sits on the counter.
The kitchen lights glow softly over polished stone, beautiful cabinets, and expensive fixtures. The whole scene is obscene in its normalcy.
And I have been kidnapped by Vito Conti for… psychiatric help?
He goes on before I can answer.
“You have privacy in your room,” he says. “The cameras in there were on. They’ll be off from now on.”
A fresh chill runs through me.
The cameras.
Of course, there were cameras.
I should have assumed it. I should have assumed every inch of this place was being watched the second I found the bedroom door unlocked, and no one appeared to stop me.
That false freedom. That eerie silence. It was never unobserved.
It was permitted.
The realization makes my stomach turn.
“There are cameras in the bedroom,” I say.
It comes out flat, and I hate that too. Hate that my voice sounds thinned out instead of furious.
“Of course.”
Oh, of course.
“You’re free to move around the main house and the island itself,” he says. “Don’t attempt to go anywhere that’s locked to you. You’re free to use anything in the kitchen. All of the clothes in the room are for you to wear.”
I look at him, then toward the hallway, then back at him again.
The house. The island. The drawers and closet filled with things in my size, things chosen for this climate, for this place. The bathroom stocked. The bed turned down. The whole setup waiting for me.
He planned all of it.
Not just the taking.
The keeping.
That thought swirls around in my head.
My throat tightens.
“I don’t want your clothes,” I say.
He gives the smallest shrug. “I brought some of yours. Or you could continue wearing that, if you want to make this more difficult than it has to be.”
My face heats immediately at the glance his eyes give the broken strap and then the rest of me.
I hate that I am suddenly conscious of everything at once—my bare feet dirty from the sand, my hair a mess, makeup long ruined, dress wrinkled and half torn, a neckline that no longer sits where it should.
I hate that he can make me feel exposed and humiliated while I am trying to stay afraid, because fear feels easier and purer than this.
He keeps talking in that same steady voice.
“There’s no one else on the island,” he says.
I freeze on that.
No one else.
No help. No accidental witness.
No staff member I can find and appeal to.
No family guest in one of the other houses.
No woman wandering down from another room asking if dinner is almost ready.
Just him.
And me.
I know he sees something shift in my face because his gaze sharpens slightly.
“There’s security surrounding the island,” he says. “And every inch of it is covered by cameras and microphones. Not all of them visible.”
He does not list details. He does not need to. The house itself already told me enough—wealth, privacy, reach.
A man like Vito does not bring someone to a place like this without sealing every obvious exit first.
He knows I won’t get out. He’s only telling me so I don’t bother trying.
Still, hearing it said out loud makes the beach outside feel smaller in my head. The air thinner.
He continues, “You’ll keep the freedom to move around as long as you don’t try anything.”
The phrase is simple. Almost polite.
As long as you don’t try anything.
The cold in me deepens.
“If you do,” he says, “I’ll be forced to confine you to your room.”
There it is.
No matter how he tries to paint it, I’m still his captive.
He’s still in control of all of this, and he has assigned rules, privileges, penalties.
A system he expects me to live inside. And he could decide to change those rules whenever he wants to.
Something hot flares through the fear.
“You say that as if it’s generous. Like this island isn’t some prison.”
“I’m being clear.”
“No,” I say, my voice sharper now. “You’re trying to make this sound reasonable.”
His expression doesn’t move much. “I’m trying to make it workable.”
I stare at him.
Workable.
For him, maybe.
For me, this is a nightmare with polished countertops.
He glances toward the counter where the candle still sits between us. “There are knives in the kitchen. You are free to use them.”
The words make my pulse jump.
I do not give him that satisfaction.
But the fact that he brings it up at all tells me he knows exactly where my mind has already gone.
Not just to the candle.
To the room. To the exits.
To what I would need if I decided to stop talking and start acting.
“On food,” he clarifies. “If by some chance you manage to hurt me long enough to try to escape, you won’t get far.”
The calmness of it is almost worse than anger.
He says it like he’s talking about the weather.
Like a simple consequence.
I say nothing, because I don’t trust myself to speak without either shouting or shaking.
“As I said, security surrounds the entire island,” he says.
The island itself seems to rearrange in my mind as he speaks.
The sand no longer open. The water no longer beautiful.
Everything closing inward.
“And if by some miracle, you manage to make it past the security, the only boat on the island doesn’t have enough gas to get you to the nearest mainland.
If you can somehow figure out where it is, that is, because we’re not on any maps.”
Which means there’s no chance of a rescue.
“And if you’re not lost at sea forever, I will find you and bring you back, and I promise your accommodations will be far less pleasant. Don’t make me do that.”
A shiver runs through me at that.
I look at him then.
He has thought through every attempt already.
Every obvious one, anyway.
That should not surprise me.
I know what kind of men build systems like this. I know what kind of minds create controlled environments and then move people through them.
But knowing that professionally is not the same thing as standing in a kitchen and hearing it applied to you.
I fold my arms across my chest to hold myself together. “You really thought all of this through.”
It is not a question.
“It’s important,” he says after a beat.
That answer throws me off in a way I didn’t expect.
It’s important. This obviously isn’t some whim he’s running on. He’s planned every detail. He brought me here to help him with his psychological issues.
It should comfort me that this really is what he says it is.
But I can’t be too sure about that yet. Maybe he’s just a master manipulator. So good that even I can’t see it, and his real motive is… what exactly?
At the moment, I am too tired, too off-balance, too disoriented from waking up drugged in a strange bed on a private island under surveillance.
And though I won’t admit it, too hungry as well.
For one stupid second, I want to sit down on the kitchen floor and put my head in my hands.
Instead, I stay standing.
The room suddenly feels very bright.
The house is silent except for the soft hum of the oven and the faint crash of the waves.
I hear myself say, “You cannot expect me to just accept this.”
“You don’t have a choice,” he says.
That makes me hate him a little more.
Maybe he sees that too, because his face remains unreadable, but something in the set of his shoulders tells me he knows exactly where we are now.
Past disbelief. Past confusion. Into the colder ground beneath.