Chapter 5
The phone is vibrating in my pocket as Rihanna's voice cuts through the cabin—she's friends with the monster under her bed—and I already know who's callin' without lookin'.
Except I do look, don't I, because apparently I'm a glutton for psychological torture.
The Monster.
The name glows on the screen like an accusation.
Right. So. Here's the thing about timin'—there's operational timin', which is what you plan for, the choreography of breakin' and enterin' and asset extraction.
Then there's philosophical timin', which is that Aristotelian concept about the right moment for action bein' determined by context and consequence rather than chronology.
And then there's Giovanni timin', which is when the universe decides to take a perfectly manageable clusterfuck and light it on fire just to see how you handle the flames.
I silence the ringer.
Then I silence Giovanni's number entirely.
Father Patrick's voice materializes immediately in my head: Lorcan, mah boy, yacan't avoid yer problems by ignorin' them.
Can't I though, Father? Because ignorin' this particular problem for approximately the next eight to ten hours while I work out what the actual fuck I'm doin' seems like the definition of operational prudence rather than cowardice.
This woman is a problem.
A very big problem.
And I need to think this whole thing through very carefully.
Now is not the time for mistakes.
I stand up from the couch—ostensibly to pace, but really to adjust my cock in my jeans because it's not hard exactly, but it was definitely headin' in that direction and I'm not havin' that conversation with myself right now.
There's a sex slave sittin' on my couch with perky tits and she's givin' off how-can-I-please-you-sir energy like it's her default factory settin', so yeah, my body's reactin' like any functional male mammal's would.
It's biology. Pavlov. Dopamine receptors respond to visual stimuli regardless of moral context.
I'm not goin' to overthink it.
Except—Christ, here we go—here's the philosophical rabbit hole I'm tumblin' down at nine-twenty-fuckin'-eight on a Sunday night while holdin' a naked woman hostage in a cabin.
Dominance is a feature, not a bug.
Men are made to dominate women. Full stop.
That's not misogyny, that's evolutionary biology wrapped in ten thousand years of social organization.
The capacity for dominance—the impulse toward it—exists in every man with a properly functionin' amygdala and enough testosterone to grow facial hair.
Alpha behavior isn't pathological. It's the natural state for any man worth a shit.
I'm not apologizin' for masterin' the art of control.
Not in business negotiations with Russian mob captains who respect strength and despise weakness.
Not in physical confrontations where dominance means survival.
And certainly not in sexual encounters with women who—let's be honest—are biologically wired to respond to confident authority the same way men are wired to provide it.
The difference—the critical difference that separates civilization from barbarism—is choice.
I give women the option to walk away. Always have. Always will.
Giovanni, apparently, prefers the collar-and-dungeon approach.
Which brings me back to the problem at hand.
"Emmaleen."
She doesn't move. Doesn't even flinch. Just sits there with her chin tilted up and her hands resting on her thighs like she's waitin' for me to tell her what shape the air should take when she breathes it.
"That's a nice Irish name. I'm Lorcan, also Irish. Ya have family in Ireland?"
Because here's an idea—maybe I could send her to Ireland.
County Clare, maybe. Or Galway. Somewhere with decent pubs and people who mind their own business.
Get her away from Giovanni's Gothic mansion of sexual dysfunction, away from the LaRiccia mob family lookin' for revenge against whoever killed their heir, away from—
Well. Away from me.
Not that she needs to get away from me specifically.
I'm entirely capable of controllin' myself. Even around a woman like this.
A woman who's been systematically conditioned to kneel, and obey, and treat male authority figures like they're dispensin' both punishment and salvation from the same hands.
A woman sittin' naked in my cabin wearin' nothin' but a collar and the kind of trained compliance that makes my cock twitch against my zipper despite every intellectual and moral objection I should be havin' right now.
She shakes her head no to my question.
Grand.
This is grand.
The phone buzzes again.
Unknown number this time.
I silence it.
Emmaleen doesn't react. Doesn't ask who's callin'. Doesn't fidget or shift or do any of the normal human things a kidnapped woman should be doin' when her captor's phone blows up.
Just waits.
Patient. Silent. Perfect.
Like she's been trained.
Fuck.
I shift tactics.
Because here's the thing about rescue operations—sometimes, in certain scenarios such as this, the person you're rescuin' needs to understand exactly what they're bein' rescued from.
"So, Emmaleen." I lean against the wall, cross my arms. "How well d'ya think ya know Giovanni Bavga? After five weeks of... active involvement?"
Her face does somethin' interestin'. Just a flicker—barely there—but I catch it. A slight tightening around her eyes. A micro-expression that suggests my question landed somewhere it shouldn't have.
Then she smooths it over with that trained-submissive calm.
"Well enough to know I love him."
I laugh.
Can't help it. The sound just erupts from my chest—a proper guffaw that echoes off the cabin walls and probably scares the wildlife outside.
"Oh, Christ. Oh, that's brilliant. Five weeks and you're in love with the man.
" I push off the wall, startin' to pace because standstill isn't an option when my brain's racin' like this.
"Right, so let me paint you a picture of what five weeks with Giovanni Bavga actually buys you in terms of knowin' who and what he really is, yeah? "
The words start spillin' out faster than I can organize them—proper Lorcan spiral, full-throttle philosophical rant mode engaged.
"Giovanni Bavga is methodical. Obsessive.
The kind of bloke who'll spend six hours organizin' his spice rack alphabetically in three different languages just because the asymmetry bothers him.
He's got the emotional range of a teaspoon unless he's calculatin' how to manipulate yours.
Brilliant strategist—I'll give him that—but absolutely ruthless about gettin' what he wants, and what he wants is usually power wrapped in the illusion of control disguised as affection. "
I'm gesturin' now, hands movin' through the air like I'm conductin' an orchestra of accusations.
"He's got daddy issues the size of Pittsburgh.
Mummy issues even bigger. His mother killed herself when he was twelve, but it got labeled a 'car accident'.
His father, Salvatore, decided the best way to get Giovanni past this wasn't therapy, it was to teach his son that intimacy was poison.
To never let anyone close enough to hurt you unless you own them completely first. He's charmin' when it serves him—proper Italian prince routine, all tailored suits and expensive wine—but underneath that he's a man who'll smile while he's destroyin' you because he's already three steps ahead plannin' how to rebuild you into whatever shape he needs. "
I stop pacin'. Turn to look at her directly.
"He keeps notebooks. Did you know that? Meticulous fuckin' records of everything—every transaction, every weakness, every piece of leverage.
He catalogs people like they're assets in a portfolio.
And the worst part—the truly terrifyin' part—he's brilliant at it.
At seein' patterns. At predictin' behavior.
At knowin' exactly which buttons to push to make someone dance to his tune while thinkin' it was their idea all along. "
I pause. Let that sit there between us.
"How close am I?"
Emmaleen's face does that thing again—the uncomfortable flicker. For just a second, I see the woman underneath the trainin'. The one who recognizes truth even when it contradicts what she wants to believe.
She shrugs.
It's tiny. Noncommittal. But it's a break—her conditionin' crackin' just enough to let human response slip through instead of perfect submission.
I notice. Of course I notice. I'm engineered to notice things like that.
Then she catches herself. Straightens. Voice level and empty. "Understood, Sir."
And there it is. Back to the script.
But I felt it. That moment where Emmaleen Rourke—the actual woman—surfaced before the slave pulled her back under.
Which means I'm gettin' somewhere.
So I keep goin'. Because apparently I can't leave well enough alone.
"Right. Monsters." I start pacin' again, the lecture buildin' momentum in my head.
"Let's talk about monsters, shall we? Humanity's spent millennia catalogin' them.
Grendel rippin' warriors apart in Heorot.
Dracula seducin' victims with promises of eternal life while drainin’ them dry.
Jekyll and Hyde—that whole Victorian anxiety about the beast lurkin' inside every civilized man.
Frankenstein's creature, who was actually more human than his creator but nobody noticed because they were too busy bein' terrified of how he looked. "
The words are tumblin' faster now, stream-of-consciousness academic ramble meets existential crisis.
"And the Greek myths—Zeus rapin' his way through the pantheon disguised as swans, and bulls, and showers of gold because apparently divine power means consent is optional.
Hades kidnappin' Persephone and everyone decidin' it's a love story instead of Stockholm syndrome with pomegranates.
Medusa gettin' her head cut off after she was the one who got assaulted, because gods forbid we blame the actual monster instead of his victim. "
I stop. Turn to face Emmaleen again.