Chapter 23
The door slams above me. Footsteps hammer down the stairs—heavy, deliberate, each one a countdown to impact.
I don’t stop writing.
The dungeon door crashes open, slamming against stone with enough force to rattle the mirror. I can hear his fury in the way he breathes—sharp inhales through the nose, exhales that sound like contained violence.
My hand trembles. The pen scratches a jagged line across the page.
Then I breathe out, forcing the fear down where it belongs. Locked away. Controlled.
I did this. I made him angry. I begged Jino to touch me, and when he did, I made sure Giovanni knew exactly how good it felt.
I acted like I wanted it.
Because I did.
I knew he'd see the footage—but honestly? Even if the cameras weren't there, I wouldn't have kept it a secret. Secrets are what Tyler demanded. Giovanni gets the truth, whether he likes it or not.
He's my King.
He is entitled to every ugly, desperate, humiliating truth now.
The fountain pen keeps moving across the page. I found the notebook on the floor near the throne where he threw me off his lap and stormed out two nights ago.
They left me down here. Alone, no commands. Nothing to work on.
So what else was I supposed to do? Cry? Wait like a good little victim?
Nope. I wrote it all down. Every thought since I met this beautiful disaster of a man. Every desire, every want, every need, every moment I should have run but didn't.
And then—because that only took me like fifteen minutes and I've been down here all damn day with nothing but my thoughts and a growing collection of bruises—I wrote him a poem.
Well. A poem is an understatement.
It's more like a never-ending epic metered out in terza rima. Longer than Dante's Inferno, dirtier than the comment section on a spicy BookTok rec, and significantly more unhinged.
"Get over here, slave." Giovanni's voice cuts through the room like a blade. "Present yourself to your King."
I set the pen down with deliberate care. Slide off the chair. Sink to my hands and knees. Crawl across the cold stone floor, feeling the weight of his gaze on every inch of my naked body.
When I reach him, I settle into first position—knees together, back straight, hands on thighs, chin down, eyes lowered.
A good little slave.
Jino would be so proud.
"Did you think I wouldn't find out?"
I don't answer. A slave does not speak unless given explicit permission, even when asked a direct question.
The silence stretches. My pulse hammers against my ribs.
"Answer me!"
His roar makes me flinch, but I force my spine straight before I open my mouth. "No, my King. I knew you'd see us. I wanted you to see—"
Before I can finish the sentence, he's behind me. One hand wrapped around my throat, the other fisting my hair. He wrenches my head back so far, my spine screams, my neck stretched taut, until I'm staring up into his eyes.
Not Giovanni's eyes.
The monster's.
"You wanted me to watch another man finger you into orgasm?"
I try to swallow. Can't. The skin across my throat is pulled too tight, my windpipe flattening under the pressure of his palm.
My vision blurs at the edges.
But I don't struggle. Don't fight.
Because some fucked-up part of me wants this. Wants him to see exactly what he does to me. Wants him to know that even when he's choking me, even when he's furious, even when he's the monster—
I'm still here.
Still his.
His grip tightens. My lungs burn.
Then, abruptly, "What were you writing?"
The question catches me off guard. My brain scrambles for an answer, but all I can manage is a choked sound that's half-gasp, half-whimper.
He releases my throat but keeps his hand fisted in my hair, holding me in place. "I asked you a question, slave."
I suck in air, coughing. "A poem."
Silence.
Complete, absolute silence.
His hand is still twisted in my hair. My neck is still bent at an unnatural angle. My windpipe is still screaming.
But Giovanni has gone utterly, terrifyingly still.
Then he lets go.
I collapse forward onto my hands, gasping, my hair falling around my face in a tangled curtain.
Behind me, I hear his footsteps cross to the desk. The scrape of the chair. The rustle of pages.
I don't move. Don't look up.
Just kneel there, trying to remember how to breathe like a normal person instead of someone who just got choked by a mob boss in his sex dungeon.
"I didn't finish." My voice comes out hoarse, wrecked. I clear my throat and try again. "That poem I was writing you the first night. You stopped me before I was finished, so..." I blow out a long breath. "I kept writing."
More silence.
Then the sound of pages turning. Faster. Faster. Flipping through the notebook like he's searching for something.
I risk a glance over my shoulder.
Giovanni stands at the desk, the notebook open in his hands, his expression unreadable. He turns another page. Another. Another.
Then he stops. Looks up.
Stares at me.
"What the fuck is this?"
I blink. "I told you. My poem. For you."
"It's like..." He flips to the end, then back to the beginning, his brow furrowing. "A hundred fucking pages long, Emmaleen."
"I know, but..." I blow out a breath, suddenly feeling weirdly self-conscious about the whole thing. Which is absurd, considering I'm naked on a dungeon floor with his handprint still burning across my throat. "You're kinda complicated, my King."
For a moment—one that seems to stretch out far longer than it actually is—Giovanni just stands there staring at me, the notebook held loosely in his hands, his expression caught somewhere between disbelief and something I can't quite name.
Then he laughs.
Actually fucking laughs.
Not the cold, mocking sound I've heard him use on me at times. Not the sharp bark of surprise when I do something unhinged.
This is real. Unguarded. The kind of laughter that transforms his entire face, softening the sharp edges, making him look younger.
Almost... human.
"A hundred pages," he repeats, shaking his head. "You've been down here for all day, no instruction, no goals, and you decided to spend your time writing a hundred-page poem about how complicated I am?"
"Technically it's seventy-three pages." I pause. "But who's counting?"
His laughter fades, but the ghost of a smile remains. He closes the notebook carefully, almost reverently, and sets it on the desk. When he turns back to me, the monster is gone from his eyes.
Just Giovanni.
My King.
"You really are insane," he says quietly.
"So I've been told." I lift one shoulder in a shrug, then remember I'm supposed to be in position and quickly snap my gaze back down. "By you. Multiple times. Usually while threatening to fire me or lock me in your basement sex dungeon."
"You're already in my basement sex dungeon."
"Fair point."
He crosses the space between us with slow, measured steps. Each footfall echoes against the stone. When he stops, his polished leather shoes are inches from my knees.
"Look at me."
I raise my eyes, keeping my chin down, the way Jino taught me. It's a strange angle—submission without full surrender. Obedience with a hint of defiance still visible in the set of my jaw.
Giovanni's expression is unreadable as he studies my face. His thumb brushes across my lower lip, gentle enough to make me shiver.
"I watched the footage," he says.
There it is. The reason for his fury, laid bare.
"I know."
"You let him touch you."
"Yes."
"You begged him for more."
My pulse spikes, but I hold his gaze. "Yes."
His thumb presses harder against my lip, not quite painful but definitely possessive. "And you told him you'd convince me to give him full access to you. No restrictions. Complete control over your body and mind."
I swallow hard. "He... he said that was the only way he'd keep training me. The way you wanted."
"The way I wanted?" Giovanni's voice drops to something dangerous. "Or the way you wanted?"
The question hits like a slap.
Because he's right. He's absolutely fucking right.
I didn't beg Jino for more because Giovanni ordered me to. I begged because some broken part of me needed what Jino was offering—structure without chaos, discipline without cruelty, pleasure without punishment.
The exact opposite of what Giovanni gives me.
"Both," I whisper.
The word hangs between us, heavy with implications I'm not sure either of us is ready to unpack.
Giovanni's hand slides from my mouth to cup my jaw, tilting my face up further. His grip is firm but not cruel. Possessive but not painful.
"You want him to fuck you."
It's not a question. But I answer anyway.
"I want..." God, how do I explain this? How do I articulate the fucked-up geometry of my desires? "I want what he can teach me. The way he makes everything make sense. The rules, the structure, the—"
"The control," Giovanni finishes.
"Yes."
His eyes search mine. "And what do you want from me?"
The question steals my breath.
Because the truth is too complicated, too messy, too goddamn raw to put into words. I want his darkness and his poetry. I want the monster and the man. I want him to break me, and hold me, and make me feel like I'm the only thing in his world that matters.
I want everything he won't give me.
And I want everything I already have.
"I put it all in a poem," I finally say. "Seventy-three pages about exactly what I want from you."
His thumb strokes along my jawline. "Read it to me."
My heart stutters. "My King?"
"You heard me, slave. Get on your knees. Crawl to that desk. And read me every single word you wrote about how complicated I am."
Oh fuck.
Oh fuck.
Because I didn't just write about our training sessions or the way he makes my body respond. I didn't hold back on the dark fantasies or the twisted desires or the absolutely unhinged things I imagine when I'm alone in this dungeon.
I wrote it all down.
Every. Single. Thing.
Including the parts where I admitted—in extremely explicit terza rima—exactly what I want him to do to me that he hasn't done yet.
"Now, Emmaleen."