Chapter Fifteen
Teresa
After the session, I go straight back to my room.
I need quiet. I need to write my notes, my thoughts.
Vito closed up the second he said he was not fit to be Don. After that, he shut down so completely it was jarring.
His face changed. His posture changed. Hell, the whole room changed. He just clamped up and walked out before I could press any farther.
And I haven’t seen him since.
Which, considering the way the conversation ended, is probably for the best.
Still, I can’t stop turning it over.
By the time I sit down at the desk in the bedroom with my notebook open and a glass of water sweating onto a coaster beside it, my head is already halfway back in the sitting room.
The cooling air from the vent brushes my bare arms, but the heat of the day is still in me. It’s in everything on this island by noon.
The walls. The windows. My skin. Even inside the air-conditioned house, the brightness outside seems to press inward.
I start writing.
Not because I want a formal record of any of this. God knows none of these notes are making it off this island. But because writing has always been how I sort thought from noise. It gives shape to what would otherwise keep circling in raw pieces.
I stop when I get to the catalyst, and stare at the page.
For a moment all I hear is a gull cry, and the hush of waves through the windows.
He is not what he thinks he is.
Or maybe more accurately, he is not only what he thinks he is.
The distinction is important.
He came to me—well, no, not came to me, obviously, but that is still the framework his mind insists on using—believing his problem was impulse.
A flaw of speed. Heat. Reaction. Lack of control. Something he could train down or discipline out or conquer through force of will if he only found the right expert to aim at it.
But what if the worse truth is that he did not fail to think?
What if he thought exactly as much as he wanted to in that moment, decided he was right, and kept going?
That is not a simpler problem.
That is not even a more treatable one.
It is deeper. Bound up in values and identity and how much authority he believes his judgment should carry.
It’s tied to family systems, birth order, power, violence, role expectation, and the kind of environment where being wrong can get people hurt, but being hesitant can also get people hurt.
The whole thing is a nest of contradictions, and today, for the first time, I got him to look directly at one.
No wonder he shut down afterward.
I write for another twenty minutes, maybe thirty. Time is odd here. Everything feels both overly defined and shapeless.
Sessions, meals, sun, sea, sleep. All of it has an artificial rhythm now, but no real clock attached to my life the way it used to be.
When I finally put the notebook down, my hand aches faintly and the room feels smaller with the heat through the windows pressing in on me.
I stand and go to the closet.
It’s partly avoidance and I know it. A break. A way to stop thinking about Vito Conti’s damaged certainty and his family and whether I just cracked open the exact wrong thing too fast.
But it’s also practical.
It is already so hot today, and it’s still only April. I’ll be dead by July.
I slide the closet doors wider and step into the huge closet to really look at the rows of clothing in there.
Light fabrics. Soft colors. Bright colors. Tropical ease arranged by someone with excellent taste and deeply invasive access.
Dresses that would move beautifully in the island breeze. Gauzy tops. Shorts. Wrap skirts. Sandals. Swimwear. The whole closet still looks more like a luxury vacation wardrobe than anything I would ever assemble for myself, especially not all at once.
I stand there longer than I mean to.
This is not a vacation.
Obviously.
It is not some strange sabbatical. Not a retreat. Not an opportunity.
And yet it has been years since I’ve been on one.
Since I’ve spent time on a beach. Since I’ve stood in warm sea water without my mind already racing three steps ahead to work, email, a patient file, a court date, a report that needs finishing.
My gaze moves over the hangers, slower now. Actually considering.
There are pieces in here I would never buy for myself even under normal circumstances.
Things that are softer, lighter, prettier. Things that would probably get me arrested with my more… generous assets. Tiny tops that would be even smaller with my boobs in them. Dresses that cut lower from the top and higher from below than I usually wear.
Cute bikinis that would look right at home on a woman who had chosen to spend the month on an island and had packed accordingly. And who was two bra sizes smaller than me.
It’s possible that he just didn’t know how to size properly. I wouldn’t be surprised, as a lot of women don’t even know how to properly size their busts, but seeing how accurate Vito’s sizing was with everything else, I’m a bit skeptical.
I do not reach for those.
Absolutely not.
Yes, I’ll wear something lighter. I am not stupid, and I cannot spend three months sweating through denim to make a point no one is awarding me for.
But I can still maintain some professionalism.
Or dignity, maybe. Some structure.
I start looking for something like that.
A light blouse, maybe. Linen trousers. A simple sundress that isn’t too bare. Something airy and suitable for the island but also modest.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t really seem to be an option.
Everything here is made for heat, sea, skin, sun. Even the more understated pieces show more than I would choose in front of a man who is technically my captor, functionally my patient, and increasingly the source of entirely too many of my thoughts.
The fabrics are thin. The cuts are daring. The lengths shorter than ideal. The necklines lower. Even the most practical version of this wardrobe is so far from practical, it’s laughable.
I stand there with two or three possibilities draped over one arm and feel faintly ridiculous.
The problem itself is ridiculous.
Here I am, trying to build an outfit that is airy, suitable for a tropical island, and still modest enough to conduct sessions with my captor.
I do the best I can.
A loose, airy top that’s off-the-shoulder, but at least it has full coverage over my boobs.
It’s a little more cropped than I’d like, but it’ll have to do.
The skirt is longer, which doesn’t seem to be a problem as there are a lot of maxi dresses, but I soon discover that a lot of them have slits.
And it’s finally time to retire the closed-toe shoes that Vito had brought in favor of a cute pair of sandals.
It is not ideal in terms of professionalism, but in this closet, it’s the closest I’m going to get.
That’s when the bra situation occurs to me. I remember seeing a drawer for undergarments somewhere.
Don’t I?
I walk quickly back to the main room and start opening drawers.
I stare, dumbfounded, at what I find the drawer because it sure as hell isn’t bras.
Bralettes.
Fucking bralettes.
Is this some kind of joke? Women with boobs like mine do not wear bralettes. We need support. And the only real bra I have is the strapless one that I was wearing with the dress he brought me here in. I’ve been handwashing it, but I can’t function with one strapless bra for three months.
And it’s black!
I look at the clothes in my hands, at the light and breezy, sandy-colored top that I might as well not wear at all if I’m going to put a black bra under, and then back into the drawer of bralettes.
Irritated, I grab the closest matching color… and find that it’s lacy, adding to my irritation.
There’s not a single chance in hell this isn’t on purpose. No one is that ignorant.
Three months.
The thought comes back again, unwelcome and insistent.
I barely managed to find a good outfit for one day. How the fuck am I supposed to pull this off for three months?
It’s hours later and I’m in the kitchen alone.
I haven’t seen Vito since our session earlier.
The sun is setting now, pouring gold and amber through the windows over the sink, turning the tropical garden outside into something almost unreal.
The leaves glow at the edges. The flowers look too bright to be natural. The whole island gets softer at this hour, less punishing than it is in the middle of the day. The heat is still there, of course, but it loosens its grip just enough to make the evening feel almost bearable.
Almost.
I lean one hip against the counter and look toward the back of the house as if that might somehow produce him.
It doesn’t.
Not that I’ve gone looking for him. I haven’t. I’m not wandering the island in search of the mafia heir who kidnapped me because he got rattled after a session and disappeared for a day.
But the island isn’t that big, and even without actively searching, I’ve become aware of his rhythms. Enough to notice their absence.
He didn’t come back to the house for lunch.
I haven’t seen him walking anywhere on the property.
I haven’t seen him running on the beach or cutting through the water the way he usually does.
No glimpse of him from a window. No sound of him moving through the house. No appearance at the exact wrong moment to make me aware of him all over again.
It has just been me.
And now that evening is settling in, I’m not entirely sure whether he’ll be back for dinner.
That thought is stranger than it should be.
Not because I’m worried. I don’t think I’m worried. More unsettled by the missing pattern than anything else. So far, he’s been the one preparing our meals.
I still remember teasing him in the grocery store about the jars of pasta sauce in his cart.
But the truth is, he really is a good cook.
That surprised me more than it should have.
I’m not bad myself. I can cook well enough.
Better than well enough, actually, when I bother.
But it feels strange standing here now, opening cabinets and checking the refrigerator, because I don’t know if there is some sort of plan for meals I’m about to disrupt.