Chapter 8
I'm past broken. I started this twisted game with such confidence—giving in to win—but I don't feel like a winner right now. I feel like something that crawled out of a dumpster fire and got hit by a truck. A very expensive, very Italian truck.
Hot. Sweaty. Shaking like a chihuahua in a thunderstorm. And crying. Because apparently my tear ducts have decided this is their moment to shine.
"Stand up."
Oh good. More commands. Because what this day really needed was another round of Simon Says: Dungeon Edition.
I try to push myself up from the mat, but my legs have apparently declared independence from my brain. They're cramping, protesting, staging their own little rebellion.
Master circles me like a predator evaluating its wounded prey. “Are you going to obey? Or should we get that demerit mark up one more tick to a solid thirty-four?”
I can’t believe he would give me a demerit for collapsing. Like I can control gravity when put through the Cirque du Soleil boot camp without the circus family background.
I sigh. Against the rules. But he doesn’t demerit me. Maybe he’s tired too? I mean, sitting on a throne making notes and circling a broken woman like a wolf—it’s exhausting just thinking about it.
“Get up, Emmaleen.”
You’ve come this far, my inner pep talk starts. Don’t be a stupid quitter now. Surely the first day is almost over? It’s hard to tell. I feel like I’ve been down in this dungeon for months.
I groan, crying—I’ve been crying for hours now. It’s just who I am, apparently—as I roll over one final time, get up on all fours, and force myself to stand up.
Once up on my feet, he doesn't praise me.
Doesn't acknowledge that I've been leaking saltwater like a broken faucet for the last however-many circuits through Position Hell.
Just flashes that crop in front of my face, barking commands.
"Go sit at your school desk. Hands flat on the table.
Look straight ahead. Best posture until your King arrives for consequences. "
Your King. Like I'm living in some demented fairy tale where the prince is a sociopath and the castle is a basement torture chamber.
But bright side—consequences? Not only might it turn into an erotic spanking, it means the day really is over. Punishments comes at the end, right?
They do, I console myself, as I stumble over to the desk like someone who's been drinking for three days straight but the only thing I'm drunk on is humiliation and whatever hormone cocktail my brain keeps dumping into my bloodstream every time leather touches skin.
I practically collapse into the tiny chair, and for one blessed moment, the relief of sitting down almost makes me break again.
Jesus. Get it together, Rourke. You signed up for this. Literally. With a Mont Blanc pen and everything.
"Remember, slave. You're being watched every moment of the day."
Of course I am. Because privacy is apparently another luxury I forfeited along with my dignity and my ability to walk in a straight line.
A pathetic little hiccup of sound escapes me. It echoes in this stone chamber like an admission of defeat.
Master comes over, crouches down. “Look at me.” His eyes behind that ski mask are unreadable, but there's something almost... gentle? No. Not gentle. Professional. Like a doctor delivering a diagnosis. "The key to the door is hanging on the wall."
My eyes slide over to it. That brass skeleton key, hanging there like the world's most obvious metaphor. Door number one. Freedom. Dignity. The chance to walk away from this insanity before it swallows me whole.
"Your little case of money and freedom are still waiting for you on the other side."
Thirty-one thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars times two.
A signing bonus, apparently. Double or nothing money, Giovanni’s version of me losing.
A new passport. A fresh start. Everything I thought I wanted when I first walked into Giovanni's restaurant apartment and started this journey to sex-slave enlightenment with a pair of stolen So Kate’s.
"There is no shame in quitting, Emmaleen. Not everyone deserves a King."
And with that devastating little truth bomb, he leaves.
Not everyone deserves a King.
The words hang in the air like incense, heavy and suffocating. I sit in this ridiculous child's chair, hands flat on the desk like a good little soldier, and think about the key. My escape route. My get-out-of-jail-free card.
All I have to do is stand up. Walk over. Take it. Leave.
Simple.
So why does the thought of walking away feel like dying?
The tears continue. Big, fat drops that plop onto the desk like period marks at the end of sentences I never got to finish. Each one feels like a small surrender, and I hate myself for it.
Is this really all it takes? One day of naked Simon Says with a side of psychological warfare? Circuit training for masochists with the promise of... what exactly? Sex as a reward for good behavior? A gold star sticker that says "Congratulations, you've successfully debased yourself"?
Pathetic doesn't even begin to cover it.
The door opens above me, and I hear footsteps on the stone stairs. Heavy. Measured. Familiar.
My spine straightens automatically—muscle memory from hours of crop-assisted posture correction. Even my tear ducts seem to pause, waiting.
Giovanni appears in my peripheral vision like some fever dream of everything I simultaneously want and should run screaming from.
Shirtless. Because of course he is. Because the universe has decided that today is National Kick Emmaleen When She's Down Day, and apparently that includes parading around half-naked men with the kind of bodies that should come with warning labels.
And yes. Yes. That's exactly what it takes to break me.
This man with his impossible green eyes and his stupid perfect torso and his... Christ, is he actually hard right now? Like, visibly, obviously, aggressively erect? Because that's just fantastic. Absolutely stellar timing, Universe. Really outdoing yourself today.
I sigh before I can stop myself. A long, shaky exhale that sounds like a white flag being raised.
The want hits me like a freight train loaded with bad decisions and daddy issues.
It's immediate and devastating and completely inappropriate given that I'm currently sitting naked in a basement dungeon having just spent the better part of the day being systematically humiliated by his leather-clad dungeon master.
But there it is anyway. Want. Pure, and simple, and utterly mortifying.
My heart does this stupid little skip-beat thing as he moves toward me.
He's coming over. Finally. We're going to talk—really talk—like we did in the car during our twisted road trip game of Lie, Lie, Truth with Trauma.
We'll banter and trade insults like intellectual foreplay, and then we'll fuck each other senseless like we did in the pool house.
Giovanni will make this right. He'll crack some dry joke about my performance today, maybe tease me about crying, and then he'll erase every one of those demerits with his hands and his mouth and that ridiculous cock that's currently making its presence very known through his pants.
Giovanni drops a notebook onto the desk with a soft thud that somehow sounds final. Ominous. Like a gavel falling or a coffin lid closing.
A fountain pen appears in his palm—sleight of hand that would be impressive if I weren't currently having a minor emotional breakdown—and he sets it beside the notebook with the precision of a surgeon placing instruments.
He points to the notebook. "Open it up."
That's it. No banter. No clever wordplay. No acknowledgment that I've been sitting here having what can only be described as an extended mental health crisis while wearing exactly zero clothes.
Just, Open it up.
And then he walks past me.
Past me.
Like I'm a piece of furniture. Like I'm the desk instead of the person sitting at it.
I crane my neck, trying to follow his movement, desperate to see where he's going, what he's doing, whether he's still sporting that impressive erection or if it was just my imagination running wild.
"Eyes forward."
The command cuts through the air like a blade, sharp and absolute. My head snaps back to face front so fast I probably give myself whiplash.
Behind me, there's a subtle shift in the lighting. A warm glow creeps into my peripheral vision, chasing away some of the murky darkness that's been pressing against the edges of my sanity all day.
Leather creaks. Not the quick snap of the crop, but something slower. Deeper. Like someone settling into a chair.
And then Giovanni's voice fills the space behind me, cool and measured and absolutely devastating in its clinical detachment.
He begins reading my day back to me like a court reporter. Like a fucking grocery list of my failures:
"8:10 a.m., subject fails to be silent. 8:11 a.m., subject fails to be still. 8:12 a.m., subject fails to lower her chin. 8:13 a.m., stand on command…”
It goes on and on like that. Subject makes unauthorized eye contact. Subject cracks joke. Oh, no! Not a joke! Whatever shall we do with this heathen?
Subject talks out of turn. Subject swears. Subject breathes wrong.
Each word lands like a small slap. Precise. Methodical. Completely devoid of the warmth or humor I've come to associate with Giovanni's voice.
This isn't the man who shared poetry about wisteria in the grotto. This isn't the damaged boy who told me about being kidnapped at eight years old. This is someone else entirely. Something else entirely.
"At 9:15 a.m., subject corrected Position One for excessive trembling. Physical inadequacy noted."
The litany continues: 9:23 a.m., 9:47 a.m., 10:15 a.m. Each timestamp a tiny burial for whatever dignity I thought I had left.