Chapter 23 #2
I drop to my hands and knees. Crawl across the cold stone floor, feeling his gaze track every movement. When I reach the desk, I rise to my knees and take the notebook with trembling hands.
Giovanni settles into his throne, legs spread, one arm draped across the armrest in a pose of absolute authority.
Waiting.
I open to the first page. Clear my throat. And begin to read.
"The King descended to his dungeon throne
Where shadows danced like demons on the wall
And I, his subject, knelt before him, prone—"
"Louder," Giovanni commands.
I raise my voice, letting it echo through the chamber.
"—And I, his subject, knelt before him, prone
My naked body offered up as thrall
To serve whatever pleasure he would own."
My cheeks burn. But I keep going.
"He watched me with those eyes of verdant ice
That strip away pretense and leave me bare
No armor left against his cold device."
I risk a glance up. Giovanni's expression is intense, focused entirely on me.
"I thought I knew what men like him could share—
Control disguised as love, possession dressed
As care. But this? This is beyond compare."
My voice wavers. Because this is where the poem gets personal. Where I stop describing and start confessing.
"For he is not the monster I assessed
When first I met him in that hotel hall
All swagger, silence, danger in his chest."
Giovanni lets out a small breath.
"He is the poem I could not recall
The rhyme scheme that escaped me in the night
The words I needed when I felt most small."
I turn the page, my hands shaking.
"And yes, he terrifies me. Yes, the sight
Of him unleashed—that creature in his eyes—
Should send me running toward the safety light."
My throat tightens.
"But here's the truth beneath my survivor's lies:
I don't want safety. Don't want soft or kind
I want the man who sees through my disguise."
Giovanni leans forward slightly.
"I want the King who claimed me, body, mind
Who killed to keep me safe from greater harm
Who makes me feel like I am his to find."
The words are coming faster now, tumbling out in a rush of desperate honesty.
"And yes, I let his cousin work his charm
Let Jino touch me, teach me, guide my way
Through pleasure maps he draws with practiced arm."
I force myself to look up, to meet Giovanni's gaze directly.
"But it's your name I whisper when I pray
Your face I see when darkness pulls me down
Your voice that keeps the broken thoughts at bay."
I stop. "There's more. A lot more, obviously. But that's you, Giovanni. That's who you are to me. Your strength is my strength. Everything you are, you give to me. Whether you mean to or not, it happens. Like... osmosis. Like..."
My brain scrambles for the right comparison, something that will make this cosmic-level emotion fit into words that don't sound completely unhinged. But all I've got is unhinged, and somehow I doubt comparing my feelings to Stockholm Syndrome Greatest Hits is going to help my case.
"Like those parasitic fungi that take over ant brains and make them climb to high places before they die? Except less deadly and more...consensual."
Silence.
Complete, absolute silence.
Giovanni doesn't move. Doesn't speak. Just stares at me with an expression I can't decipher.
Then, slowly, he stands.
Crosses the space between us.
Pulls me to my feet by my hair—not cruelly, but firmly enough that I gasp.
"Keep reading," he growls against my ear. "Every. Fucking. Page."
His free hand slides down my body, between my legs, finding me already wet.
"And don't you dare stop, slave. Not until you've read me every word about how I'm the only thing standing between you and the darkness."
Oh god.
His fingers push inside me, and I nearly drop the notebook.
"Read," he commands.
So I do.
I read him seventy-three pages of terza rima while he fingers me, edges me, denies me release over and over again. I read about my darkest fantasies and deepest fears. I read about the way his violence makes me feel alive and his tenderness makes me feel destroyed.
I read until my voice is hoarse and my body is trembling and I can't tell anymore if I'm crying from pleasure or pain or the sheer overwhelming intensity of being seen this completely.
And when I finally reach the last page—the one I was still writing when Giovanni banged open the dungeon door—my voice falters on the final tercet.
"So take me, break me, make me yours to keep
I choose these chains, this King, this dungeon deep
And pray I never wake from this dark sleep."
The notebook slips from my fingers, hitting the floor with a soft thud.
Giovanni's hand is still between my legs, his fingers still inside me, his breath hot against my neck.
For a long moment, he doesn't respond.
The silence stretches.
And stretches.
And stretches.
Until my brain does that thing it always does when confronted with emotionally devastating silence—it starts vomiting words like a broken slot machine spitting out pennies.
"So, here's the thing," I blurt. "And I know this is going to sound completely unhinged, but just... bear with me, okay? Because I've been thinking about this a lot while you were upstairs doing whatever mob bosses do when they're not tormenting their basement slaves, and I think I figured it out."
Giovanni's fingers go still inside me.
I keep talking.
"At first I thought you and Jino were like.
.. I don't know, a good cop/bad cop situation?
But that's not quite right because you're both kind of the bad cop, just in different ways.
Then I thought maybe you were like a Venn diagram, which I already told Jino about, but that's too clean.
Too geometric. This isn't geometry, it's—it's more like one of those fucked-up M.C.
Escher paintings where the staircases go up and down at the same time and nothing makes logical sense but somehow it all works as long as you don't think about it too hard. "
His hand shifts slightly. I take it as permission to continue.
"Or no, wait. Maybe you're like... like a toaster?"
Silence.
"Okay, hear me out. A toaster has settings, right?
Light to dark. And some people like their toast barely warm, just kissed by heat, still soft in the middle.
That's like... I don't know, normal relationship stuff.
Vanilla. Safe. But then there are people—broken people, probably—who crank that dial all the way to Maximum Char.
Who want their toast burnt. Who want it smoking and crispy and so dark it's almost inedible.
And everyone looks at them like they're insane, but that's just how they like their toast, you know? "
I'm spiraling. I can hear myself spiraling. But I can't stop.
"Except that metaphor doesn't work either because you're not a toaster, you're a person.
A terrifying person with a monster inside him and a penchant for riding crops and emotional devastation.
And Jino's not a different setting, he's a whole different appliance.
Maybe he's like... a microwave? Efficient, precise, heats things from the inside out—"
"Emmaleen."
Giovanni's voice is low. Dangerous.
I keep going because I'm on metaphor overload.
"What I'm trying to say—and clearly failing spectacularly at—is that everyone should get what they need.
Right? That's not crazy. That's just... logistics.
If you need to feed your monster, then you should be allowed to feed the monster.
If I need the pain and the pleasure all tangled up together until I can't tell them apart anymore, then I should get that.
And if Jino needs the perfect student who actually listens and learns and doesn't just use submission as self-destruction, then he should get that too. "
I'm breathing too fast now. My words are tumbling out in a rush.
"It's a fucked-up puzzle of porn, okay? I get that.
I get how completely insane this sounds.
But what can I say? No one asked me if I wanted to be submissive.
No one sat me down at age eighteen and said, 'Hey Emmaleen, just so you know, you're going to spend your life craving things that will make therapists weep.
' No one asked if I wanted to enjoy the touch of monsters. "
I pause, sucking in air.
"I just do. And also, it was just a turn of phrase, but one should not discount serendipity when it manifests. But I did say, double or nothing."
He actually chuckles. Then, without warning, Giovanni's fingers curl inside me, hitting that spot that makes my vision blur. I gasp, my knees buckling, but he holds me up with the hand fisted in my hair.
"Double or nothing," he repeats, his voice dark with amusement. "You're doubling down on your own enslavement."
"I'm—oh god—I'm doubling down on my choice.
" The words come out strangled because his fingers are doing something absolutely devastating and I'm trying to have a coherent conversation while my body is staging a full-scale revolution.
"There's a difference. The chains are still mine.
I'm just... adding more chains. Heavier chains.
Chains with like, extra links and—fuck—and better craftsmanship. "
His thumb finds my clit and I nearly collapse.
"You talk too much," he growls.
"Yeah, well, you fuck too little, so here we are. Equal distribution of character flaws."
The words are out before I can stop them. Before my brain catches up with my mouth and reminds me that I'm currently naked in a dungeon with a man who just read seventy-three pages of my most deranged fantasies while fingerbanging me to the edge of sanity.
Giovanni goes completely still.
Oh no.
Oh no.
That was not the right thing to say to a possessive crime lord with control issues and a documented history of shooting people who displease him.