Chapter 11
ELENA
Eight days had crawled by.
Not in the way time usually passes—quiet, unnoticed, slipping through your fingers—but in slow, deliberate increments that forced you to feel every single second.
Eight days since he had decided that my nights belonged to him.
The routine had become something I could measure my life by.
The door closing behind me at night.
The silence.
His presence.
Eight days of waking up tangled in sheets that smelled like him.
I stood beneath one of the towering obsidian pillars that lined the corridor of the Crimson Chamber within the Black Veil Society Academy.
Arms crossed. Back straight.
Watching.
The academy stretched out before me in its full, intimidating design.
According to the academy’s one-year training syllabus, the first month was meant to be theory.
Codes. Hierarchies. Loyalty. Tradecraft.
Endless rules designed to strip you down and rebuild you into something useful.
But the remaining eleven months—that was where the academy showed its true face.
Everyone knew it.
By winter, half of us would be broken.
Limping.
Barely holding on.
But I refused to be one of them.
I wouldn’t break.
I would endure—outlast every one of them—and when this year ended, I would stand among the survivors.
And Vincenzo would see it.
He would see exactly how strong I am.
My gaze drifted across the field.
Trainees moved in groups.
Laughter echoed faintly between the buildings.
Conversations carried.
They moved in clusters—three, four, sometimes more—like packs forming inside a structure that would eventually turn on itself.
I didn’t join any of them.
Not because I didn’t want to—but because I couldn’t.
The whispers followed me everywhere.
Soft at first. Then louder.
Then impossible to ignore.
That’s her.
The boss’s wife.
The one who stole Violet Alvarez’s wedding.
The words clung to me like smoke.
I ignored them.
Or tried to.
Because the truth was—none of this mattered to me right now.
Not the academy. Not the training.
Not the whispers.
My mind was fixed on something else entirely.
Renzo.
Eight days.
That’s how long he’d been locked in the dark cell.
No light. No day.
No sound.
No sense of time—only breath, hunger, silence, and isolation.
And the consequences of a single mistake.
Because of me.
Because I had pushed. Because I had insisted on coming—and now he was paying for it.
A weight settled heavily in my chest.
Guilt.
Sharp. Persistent.
Vincenzo had ordered him locked away for seven days.
Yesterday marked the end of that sentence.
Which meant today—Renzo should have been standing at the front of the classroom, leading his session from 10:00 to 11:00.
Close-quarters knife work.
Yet when the hour came... it wasn’t him who stepped up to the podium.
It was a replacement. A senior soldier.
I had been replaying the moment Ciro dragged Renzo away in my mind over and over again—his grip iron-tight, almost malicious, clamped around Renzo’s arm.
The way Renzo didn’t resist.
Didn’t fight. Didn’t say a single word.
The guilt in my chest pressed heavier with every passing second.
I had tried—carefully—to ask Ciro how Renzo had been during the week.
But he refused to comment on anything involving Renzo.
Lately, though... I noticed him watching me more often than necessary.
A fleeting glance at first, then longer, deliberate stares.
I wondered if it was part of some new task Vincenzo had given him.
My eyes met his more than once—while cooking, while arranging the supply room, while carrying water from the well, while cleaning the training weapons—and each time, he did not look away.
Not once.
The fact that no one would tell me about Renzo gnawed at me.
It was frustrating.
Painful.
I could only hope he was still alive in that cell.
That he had not been broken completely.
Because if anything had happened to him... I don’t think I would ever forgive myself.
A lifetime of guilt would consume me.
I exhaled slowly, forcing my lungs to cooperate, forcing my mind to slow, to steady.
I tried not to think too much.
Tried to push the fear and despair to the edges of my mind.
But before I could fully pull myself back into the present, a flicker of movement caught my eye.
At the far corner of the Crimson Chamber corridor.
Two trainees.
Early twenties.
Built like they had spent their entire lives training for violence—broad shoulders, dense muscle.
They had someone cornered.
Pressed against the wall.
Moving herdeliberately.
Step by step.
Guiding her toward the blind spot.
The one beyond the reach of the nearest CCTV dome.
My body reacted before my mind did.
I moved.
Fast.
Boots barely making a sound against the polished stone as I cut across the corridor at an angle.
Closing distance.
Fast enough to intercept.
Close enough now, I could see clearly who they had surrounded.
The only other woman in the academy.
There were forty-two men here, and only the Spanish girl and I stood apart from them.
The Spanish girl was smaller than me, her frame more delicate, almost fragile against the hard, predatory presence of the men closing in around her.
She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall.
Dark hair pulled back into a messy braid that had long since lost its structure.
Her uniform hung on her frame, sleeves rolled up to reveal thin wrists—marked.
Scarred.
Old injuries layered over new ones.
Her back pressed flat against the wall.
Shoulders tense.
Eyes wide. Breathing shallow.
Frozen.
I stepped fully into view.
My voice cut through the corridor.
“What’s going on here?”
The two men who had her cornered turned at once.
The taller one first.
Buzz-cut.
A scar split across one eyebrow, giving his face a permanently irritated look.
His eyes flicked over me—quick, assessing—then shifted past me down the corridor.
Checking for witnesses.
Finding none.
A slow smirk formed on his lips.
“Look who it is,” he said, his voice low, edged with amusement. “Elena Orsini. The woman who stole Violet’s groom on her wedding day.”
The shorter one let out a dry laugh, folding his arms. “You’ve made quite a name for yourself. The Spanish have a bounty on your head—I’m surprised no one’s claimed it yet.”
His gaze slid over me, slow, assessing.
Then he smiled—thin, mocking.
“So what are you doing here?” The shorter one continued. “Looking for allies? That’s unfortunate... because no one here is stupid enough to stand beside you.”
A pause.
“And don’t get any ideas about us,” he added lightly. “We don’t make friends with liabilities.”
I kept my expression neutral.
“You’re the last people I’d ever consider befriending,” I said, my voice unshaken. “And you should learn to speak to Vincenzo Orsini’s wife with respect.”
A beat.
Then the shorter one laughed.
“Respect?” he echoed, amused. “From what we hear, Vincenzo doesn’t even acknowledge you.”
That hit.
Hard.
But I didn’t let it show.
“We’ve heard things,” he went on, tone thick with mockery. “A few days after the wedding, Violet Alvarez shows up at his mansion. Cozy little dinner, just the two of them... and you?” He let out a sharp laugh. “You were the one serving them.”
He shook his head, still grinning.
“They turned you into a servant in your own marriage. Isn’t that embarrassing? Even the staff in that house probably have more value than you.”
The taller one stepped closer, his expression twisting into something colder.
“And that’s not all,” he added, voice laced with cruel satisfaction. “Word is Violet’s carrying his child now... while you’ll be the one taking care of it when it’s born.”
He let out a humorless laugh.
“Honestly... you should hide your face. Everyone already knows what you are. If Vincenzo doesn’t give a damn about you... why should we?”
The rumors about Violet’s pregnancy had been circulating for days—passed between trainees like currency.
But hearing it said out loud—
It cut.
Sharp. Immediate.
A pain I couldn’t control.
Still, I didn’t step back.
Didn’t falter.
Didn’t give them what they wanted.
Instead, I straightened. Just enough.
Then I stepped forward, swallowing the pain, forcing my expression into something cold.
“Why are you pushing her into a blind corner?” I asked, nodding toward the girl without breaking eye contact. “Away from the cameras.”
The shorter one let out a low, mocking smirk. “How’s that your business?”
I held his gaze.
Steady.
“Bullying isn’t allowed here,” I said evenly. “If you’re trying to intimidate her, I’m not going to stand by and watch.”
The taller one shifted slightly—his posture loosening like he had just decided I was no longer a threat worth respecting.
His name patch read ENZO.
He slid one hand into the pocket of his uniform jacket, the movement deliberate—like he was reaching for something he didn’t mind using.
“Since you’re so eager to play savior,” he said, voice laced with quiet amusement, “why don’t you come stand in the corner with us?”
A slow, deliberate step forward.
“Let’s see how tough the boss’s neglected wife really is.”
My jaw tightened—but only for a second.
I let my gaze flick to the girl.
She stood pressed to the wall, shoulders drawn inward, like she was trying to disappear into the stone behind her.
Her eyes were glossy with fear.
Lips trembling.
The kind of fear that wasn’t new—just familiar enough to have worn her down.
Not someone who’d learned to fight it.
Someone who had learned to endure it.
“They’re trying to bully you, aren’t they?” I asked softly, turning my attention to her.
She hesitated.
Then nodded—small, jerky, almost ashamed.
Her voice, when it came, was thin. Fragile.
Like something that had been forced into silence for too long.
“Yes... they are.”
She swallowed hard, her voice unsteady.
“Enzo’s been after me since the first day. Asking me out, over and over. I told him no. I told him I’m not interested in him—or anyone—but he doesn’t listen.”
Her fingers curled tightly at her sides, like she was holding herself together.