Chapter 20 #3
"I'll give her suggestions," Giovanni says. His smile is sharp, edged with something I can't name. "For her punishments. She'll choose again, but I'll guide the selection. Make sure she picks implements that—"
"That's a violation." The words escape before I can stop them.
Giovanni stops pacing. Turns. "What?"
"Suggesting punishments. Influencing her choices." I keep my voice level, clinical. "It undermines the agency that makes this consensual. She needs to select freely, without coercion."
For a moment—just one—something flickers in his eyes. Recognition, maybe. Shame.
Then it's gone.
"She'll still choose," he says, his voice quieter now. "I'm just... helping her understand her options."
Another violation. Another manipulation dressed as guidance.
I don't respond. What's the point? Giovanni will do what Giovanni does. He's the one with power here—the mansion, the money, the name that carries weight in this town and beyond.
I'm just the cousin. The contractor. The one who trains other men's property.
Giovanni runs a hand through his hair. The manic energy is fading now, draining out of him like water from a cracked vessel. Exhaustion takes its place—deep, bone-weary, the kind that comes from prolonged adrenaline crashes.
"I'm going to sleep." His voice has gone flat. Empty. "For a while."
He turns toward the door. No goodbye, no acknowledgment of the conversation we just had, no recognition that anything about tonight was wrong.
Just footsteps. The door opening. Closing.
Gone.
I sit in the silence he leaves behind.
The monitors glow—Emmaleen still curled up on the vinyl bed, unconscious or asleep, I can't tell which. The dungeon empty, except for scattered implements, abandoned restraints, evidence of what happened.
My watch reads 12:17 a.m.
Which means her day officially belongs to me now.
Giovanni's house. Giovanni's town. Giovanni's woman—that's how he sees it. How he'll always see it. The Bavga name carries weight that the Moretti name never will. We're related, yes, but I'm not one of them. Not really.
We run the Three Rivers docks. It's not nothing, but it's not Bavga.
The Bavgas were born into power. We had to build ours from scratch, and it only extends as far as the contracts I sign.
But Emmaleen's mornings are mine. That's been decided. Written in blood.
And right now, she needs someone who remembers what this lifestyle is supposed to be. Not a weapon. Not a vessel for unprocessed trauma. Not a mirror for self-hatred.
A dance between control and surrender that requires trust, communication, boundaries.
All the things Giovanni just shattered.
I stand. My body protests—bruised ribs, split knuckles, the ache in my jaw where Giovanni's fist connected. But I move anyway, exiting the control room, descending the narrow stairwell back into the dungeon.
The temperature drops as I go down. Stone walls on either side, holding cold like a promise.
At the bottom, I pause.
The main chamber stretches before me—throne, mirror, training platform, all the architecture of dominance. But it's the small door to the right that holds my attention. The bedroom where Emmaleen sleeps.
Or doesn't sleep. Hard to tell with someone that deep in subspace aftermath.
I cross the floor. My footsteps echo against stone, leather, silence.
At her door, I stop. Press my palm against the wood.
She didn't choose this. Not really. This is not consent. It's coercion wearing consent's clothes.
But she's here. And now, she's mine to guide.
Not to break. Not to destroy. Not to use as a repository for damage.
To rebuild.
If Giovanni is going to fracture her each night, then my job is to put her back together each morning. Piece by piece. Teaching her the difference between pain that serves and pain that only harms.
She needs to learn her body can experience pleasure without punishment attached. That submission doesn't require self-erasure. That choosing to kneel is different from being forced to the ground.
Giovanni won't teach her that. He doesn't know it himself.
But I do.
I push open the door.
The room is dark except for the faint glow from the dungeon's candlelight bleeding through. Emmaleen lies motionless on the vinyl mattress, the transparent nightgown riding up slightly, exposing the marks on her thighs—red welts from the riding crop, already purpling at the edges.
My chest tightens.
She is shaking from the cold, but doesn't stir as I approach. Deep sleep, then. Her body's way of protecting her mind from processing too much at once.
I kneel beside the bed. Not touching. Just observing.
Her face is tear-streaked, dried salt tracks visible even in low light. Her breathing is steady but shallow—each inhale careful, as if deeper breaths might wake the pain sleeping in her muscles.
The bruises will darken overnight. The welts will ache tomorrow. Sitting will hurt. Standing might hurt more.
But that's just the physical damage.
It's the psychological fractures that concern me. The way she's learning to accept violence as affection. The way Giovanni is teaching her that love looks like a riding crop and sounds like apologies whispered to someone too submerged to hear them.
I shouldn't.
Every professional instinct I have screams against it. Every boundary I've ever set, every rule I live by—all of it says don't.
But I climb into the narrow bed anyway.
The vinyl mattress protests under my weight, creaking in the silence. Emmaleen doesn't wake. Doesn't stir. She's that far under—body shut down, mind gone somewhere safe where tonight can't reach her.
I shift carefully, positioning myself behind her. My chest against her back. My arm sliding beneath her neck, the other draping over her waist.
I hold her shivering body.
Not claiming. Not taking. Just... holding.
Her body is warm despite the dungeon's chill. The transparent nightgown does nothing—I feel every curve, every line of her against me. The welts raised on her thighs press against my legs. Evidence of Giovanni's loss of control, written in her skin.
I pull her closer. Slowly. Gently.
She moves in her sleep.
A small shift at first—her shoulders drawing back, seeking more contact. Then her whole body turns, instinctive, unconscious. She burrows into my chest like she's searching for something. Safety, maybe. Or warmth. Or just the promise that someone will hold her without hurting her.
Her face presses against my throat. Her breath ghosts across my skin, soft and rhythmic.
I kiss the top of her head. Once. Twice. My lips barely touching her hair, careful not to wake her but unable to stop myself from offering this small comfort.
My hand moves of its own accord—palm sliding down her spine, over the curve of her lower back, then up again. Caressing. Soothing. The way you'd gentle a frightened animal.
She responds.
Even asleep, even deep in whatever protective fog her mind has wrapped around itself, she responds. Her body arches slightly into the touch. A soft sound escapes her throat—not quite a moan, not quite a sigh. Something between.
Her hand moves. Finds my chest. Fingers curling against my skin, tips digging into me like she's afraid I'll leave.
I won't.
Not yet.
I keep stroking her back, her shoulder, her arm. Slow, deliberate touches that say you're safe without words. That promise I won't hurt you even though we both know that's a lie I'll have to break eventually.
Because Giovanni will require it.
And she'll accept it because she thinks that's what love looks like.
"Emmaleen," I whisper against her hair.
She doesn't wake. Just makes that sound again, pressing closer.
"Emmaleen." A little louder. A little firmer.
Her breathing changes. The steady rhythm stuttering, catching. Rising toward consciousness.
I feel the exact moment she surfaces. Her body goes rigid in my arms. Muscles tensing, awareness flooding back.
"Shh." My hand on her back, grounding. "You're safe."
She doesn't pull away. Doesn't bolt. Just stays frozen, processing.
"Do you know who I am?" I ask quietly.
Silence. Then—
"Yes."
Her voice is rough. Raw from crying, from screaming, from whatever Giovanni reduced her to tonight.
"Tell me."
She shifts slightly. Not pulling away, just adjusting so she can breathe easier. Her face still against my chest, her hand still gripping my shirt.
"You're..." She pauses. Searching for words. "You're the one who puts me back together."
My chest tightens.
"Every morning," she continues, voice barely above a whisper. "After he... after Giovanni takes me apart. You rebuild me. Piece by piece. You teach me how to be what he needs. What he wants. You show me the rules, the positions, the protocol. You make me perfect for him."
Fuck.
"You're my guide," she says. "My teacher. The bridge between what I am and what I need to become. For Giovanni."
Everything she's saying is true. Technically. By the terms of our arrangement, by the role I agreed to play—she's right.
But hearing it laid out like that. Hearing her reduce herself to raw material that needs shaping, sculpting, fixing so she can be worthy of Giovanni fucking Bavga—
It's wrong.
All of it is wrong.
"Emmaleen—"
"I know what you're going to say." Her fingers tighten on my skin. "And I don't want to hear it."
"You need to hear it."
"No." Firm. Resolute. "I don't."
I pull back slightly, just enough to see her face. Her eyes are open now—pale green reflecting the dim candlelight filtering through the doorway. Clear. Sharp. Not glazed with subspace or clouded with confusion.
She knows exactly what she's saying.
"I need to apologize," I tell her. "For Giovanni. For what he did tonight. That wasn't—"
"Stop."
"Emmaleen—"
"I said stop." She pushes up on one elbow, looking down at me. Her hair falls around her face in dark waves, messy and beautiful and completely at odds with everything that happened tonight. "Don't apologize for him. Don't you dare."
"He hurt you."
"I know." No hesitation. No shame. Just acknowledgment.
"He went too far."