Chapter 7 Count of Monte Cristo
COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO
The next morning, I woke feeling… lighter.
The air didn’t feel quite as heavy, and for the first time since this whole Vampire saga began, I didn’t feel like I was walking on a tightrope anymore.
Although it was probably na?ve to think of myself as out of danger yet, I still couldn’t help but feel more optimistic.
It was strange. Like last night had been some kind of breakthrough. An unexpected glimpse behind the mask he wore. The way he’d said my name. The gentleness I hadn’t expected from a man like him.
Instead of terror, my mind replayed our conversation again and again, every small nuance of his tone, every subtle shift in his expression when he thought I wouldn’t notice.
The way his eyes had softened for the smallest of moments, before he’d locked it all away again behind that wall of iron control.
I told myself I just wanted to understand him. That was all.
But deep down, I knew it wasn’t just that.
Something about him had taken root inside me.
Something that defied reason and every ounce of self-preservation I had left.
I wanted to hear his story, to know his truth.
To believe that somewhere beneath the violence and the vengeance, there was a reason he’d become what he was.
And as foolish as it might seem, I thought that if I could understand him, really understand him, then I could reach him.
After all, hadn’t I been broken once too? Hadn’t I needed someone to see the pieces and still think I was worth saving?
It felt like there was an unspoken connection between us, something raw and unfamiliar that went beyond the bond of captor and captive.
Maybe it was the trauma. Maybe it was madness.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were two people cut from the same torn fabric.
Both frayed, both haunted, both desperately pretending we weren’t.
Perhaps that’s all he needed. A little understanding.
I could almost hear Stacey’s voice scolding me for being na?ve, but even she had once said that people only needed someone willing to see the good left in them. Maybe that was all I was doing, trying to see the good in him. After all, he was Victor and Tal’s family, wasn’t he?
Blood connected him to them both, even if it now also divided them. Clearly, there was bad blood between them, no pun intended, but perhaps it wasn’t too late to change that. Maybe I could help. Maybe, if I was brave enough, I could save myself and reunite a family in the same breath.
Foolish, maybe. But what else did I have to lose?
It wasn’t as if I could just walk out of here.
The thought lingered as I showered far longer than necessary, letting the water beat down on me like it could wash away the confusion. When I finally braved the mirror, I almost wished I hadn’t.
My reflection stared back at me, and for a moment, I didn’t recognize the girl in the glass. The bruises, ugly shades of purple and blue, were mapped across my skin like reminders of all I’d survived.
I winced, tracing one along my cheekbone. I’d seen bruises before, plenty of them. Growing up, I’d learned the stages of their healing like a twisted kind of science. Blue, purple, green, yellow and then eventually gone to the same place I buried my memories of how they came to be.
But this time, it wasn’t the sight that hurt.
It was what it brought back. Those memories I couldn’t keep locked away anymore.
Flashes of my childhood. The nights I’d hidden behind locked doors.
The moments when pain had been something to endure, not question.
The fear of being too loud, too visible.
It made me realize that what I’d endured now wasn’t entirely new. I’d just learned to survive it better.
I thought of Stacey, always the voice of reason, always telling me therapy would help. If only I could afford it. I’d thought it commendable when she told me she was taking online psychology classes. But now, I understood even more.
She hadn’t just been preparing to help others.
She’d been preparing to help me.
But she wasn’t here now, and instead, I was left with him. Which came with the terrifying thought that maybe, just maybe, he could understand what she had always tried to make me believe.
That I was worthy of being loved after all.
Stacey had wanted to make herself qualified so that I would have someone to talk to. Someone who could help me make sense of the chaos that had shaped me. Sometimes, I wondered if her focus on fixing me had been her way of avoiding fixing herself.
A way to deal with her own grief of losing her parents. It was something she had buried under layers of compassion, as if healing others might heal her too. On some subconscious level, maybe she thought that if she could help me face my ghosts, then she could silence her own.
It was noble.
And it broke my heart a little.
But who was I to judge? How could I tell her to face her past when I’d spent years avoiding mine?
We were both running, hers just looked more productive.
Call it unhealthy, call it denial, call it whatever clinical term fit best. We both knew what we were doing.
Pretending the pain wasn’t there never made it disappear, but it did make it quieter.
And I knew the truth, even when I refused to say it aloud. I knew that what happened to me wasn’t my fault. That the way I was treated growing up hadn’t been something I deserved. I knew I was not the villain of my own story, even if sometimes, I still felt like I was.
Even when it came to my dog, Peter.
That single, terrible memory would never leave me.
The one I had buried so deep that even Stacey didn’t know the full truth.
I knew now that what had happened had been the action of a frightened child, one drowning in grief and pain.
A child who had been taught that love could hurt and that silence was survival.
But I would never forget what Vasileios had said to me that night.
How I could not be blamed. The way he’d spoken it, low and certain, as if daring me to believe it. It had been the first time anyone had ever told me that out loud.
Not even Stacey had managed to reach that part of me. She’d tried…God, she’d tried…but she’d only ever seen the edges, the hints of what I’d carried.
He had seen the whole thing.
And he hadn’t flinched.
Even if his motives were twisted. Even if he had said it while trying to break me, to use me, it had still meant something. Because in that moment, he had wanted me to understand. He’d wanted me to face it. To stop blaming the terrified little girl I had been for the monsters that had shaped her.
I had sealed that part of my life away years ago. Locked it in a steel vault in my mind, thrown away the key. But he had forced it open. He had dragged it into the light, and I’d hated him for it.
Until now.
Because this morning, for the first time in years, I felt lighter. Like the weight had been quietly lifted by the most unlikely of hands.
My tormentor.
My captor.
The man whose shadows had once terrified me.
And yet last night, those same shadows hadn’t felt like monsters at all. They had felt… protective.
When I saw them in my dream, twisting and reaching for me, I had been scared, yes, but that was until I understood their motives better.
I’d felt as though they were fighting to reach me, to shield me.
As if they had been trying to pull me out of the darkness, not deeper into it. It was so much clearer to me now.
It made me wonder, were they really his curse, or were they his heart, the part of him that couldn’t speak the truth aloud? It felt as if they were an extension of him. His power. His pain. His unspoken apology. And that thought terrified me more than any nightmare ever could.
Because if that was true, then what did it mean that they had tried to protect me? I thought about the way he had looked at me before leaving my room last night. The softness in his voice when he’d said I could call him Vas. A name only his family had ever used.
And I couldn’t help but think that maybe it meant something.
Maybe it was a sign.
I remembered Victor in the restaurant, before I knew what he truly was, telling me about how his mother was no longer with them.
He’d said it so simply, only hinting at it, as if grief were something he had learned to wear rather than feel.
But had that been the cause? The fracture that split them apart?
The first drop of poison that had grown into all this hatred?
The thought lingered as I dressed, the morning light filtering through the curtains. For the first time, I saw parts of the house from the outside properly, its vast walls bathed in a muted grey glow.
It was hauntingly beautiful.
Like something pulled straight from a dark fairy tale. The kind with locked doors and whispered curses, where even the dust dared not settle for too long. From what I had seen, it was enormous, far too large for one person to live in alone.
And I couldn’t help but wonder… how lonely must he be here?
When was the last time Vasileios, or should I say, Vas… had spoken to someone, not as a monster or a captor, but simply as a man? When was the last time he’d shared a meal, a conversation, a laugh that wasn’t buried under bitterness?
It felt impossible to imagine.
Still, the thought stayed with me as I brushed out my hair and dressed in the simple clothes he had provided. Jeans. A soft black T-shirt. Plain white sneakers. Nothing remarkable, yet I lingered over every small detail as though my choices mattered to him somehow.
By the time I finally went to the door, I half expected him to be standing there. But instead, a tray sat neatly on the floor. Steam rose from a plate of food, and beside it rested a book with a folded note on top.
My heart stuttered as I carried it inside and set it on the table. The handwriting was elegant and deliberate, with each letter carved into the paper as though written with purpose, not carelessness.
I went to the liberty of ordering you breakfast. I would prefer you spend the day in your room, and so, to give you no reason to go searching for that knife.
I request that you join me for dinner.
Be ready at six.
V
P.S…I hope you enjoy the book.
A smile tugged at my lips. He hadn’t forgotten our little exchange in the kitchen. But when I looked closer at the book, my amusement faded.
“The Count of Monte Cristo,” I murmured aloud.
The title alone sent a shiver down my spine.
I had never read it, yet I knew the outline of the story. One based on betrayal and revenge. Of a man wrongfully imprisoned, destroyed by those he trusted, only to return reborn as something darker, sharper, a creature of vengeance cloaked in elegance.
I stared at the cover for a long moment, running my fingers over the embossed title, wondering if this was deliberate. Was it a warning? A message? Or something far more personal, like a glimpse into who he used to be?
I looked at his note again. It was old-fashioned. Romantic, even. Yet the way the ink pressed into the paper felt almost possessive. Like the book, I traced it with the pad of my thumb before setting it down.
The food was still warm when I took my first bite, though I barely tasted the eggs and toast. My eyes kept flicking to the book beside me, the weight of its meaning growing heavier by the minute.
It wasn’t just a story of vengeance. It was about the price of it. About how justice could twist into obsession until there was nothing human left to save.
Was that what he was trying to tell me, or was he trying to remind himself?
Either way, the message was clear.
Vengeance was what mattered to him. Making me now wonder, would there be room for anything else?
Or should I say…
Anyone.