Chapter 6
I sit there on his couch, tears dripping off my chin like a malfunctioning faucet, and I'm furious at myself.
Not at him.
At me.
For crying. For breaking. For letting some Irish stranger with good bone structure and a savior complex crack me open like a fortune cookie and judge the message inside.
I'm better than this. I'm smarter than this.
I have a degree. Well—most of one. I read Foucault for fun before my life imploded. I can recite Maya Angelou and analyze power dynamics in Victorian literature and I absolutely, one hundred percent, do not need this man's philosophical TED Talk about my life choices.
Except.
Except the tears won't stop, and my throat's closing up, and I can feel myself spiraling into that thing I do when emotions get too big and words are the only life raft.
Fine.
Fine.
If he wants words, I'll give him words.
"You want to know what happened?" My voice comes out low.
Barely above a whisper. I don't look at him.
Just stare at the ugly upholstered fabric of the couch between my legs.
"You want the full Lifetime Original Movie breakdown of how Emmaleen Rourke ended up naked and collared in a mob boss's dungeon? "
I can feel him watching me.
Good.
"My parents died when I was nineteen. Car accident.
Black ice. Very tragic, very sudden, very inconvenient for my sophomore year at college.
" The words taste bitter. "Left me with some money.
Not enough. Never enough. Dropped out to work full-time at a restaurant where I met Tyler—because of course I did, because every terrible rom-com needs the charming guy who isolates you from your friends and slowly convinces you that you're the problem. "
I wipe at my face with the back of my hand.
"Two years of that. Two years of walking on eggshells and apologizing for existing and wearing turtlenecks in July to hide the bruises.
Two years of telling myself he just had a bad day, a rough childhood, too much stress at work—pick your excuse from the Greatest Hits of Women Who Should Know Better. "
My voice is getting faster now. Picking up speed like a train with no brakes.
"He threw me down a flight of stairs. Fourteen steps. I counted them on the way down—which, fun fact, the brain does weird things during trauma. Mine decided to inventory each individual stair like I was conducting a home inspection instead of, you know, dying."
I laugh.
It sounds deranged.
"Hospital. Police report I didn't file because I was terrified. Ran away to Riverview. Moved into New Beginnings Women's Shelter with literally nothing except the clothes I was wearing and my parents' death benefits gone because Tyler convinced me to put his name on my accounts for 'emergencies.'"
I'm not crying anymore.
I'm just... empty.
"Sister Margaret gave me three months. Tops.
Before my bed went to some family who needed it more than a single girl with no dependents and a history of making spectacularly bad decisions.
I worked at Sweet Dreams Bakery for a woman who hated me, lived in a room with Diane who snored like a dying lawnmower, and had exactly twenty-three days before I'd be homeless. "
I finally look up at him.
"Then a two-thousand-dollar wedding cake got destroyed, I got the blame, and Giovanni Bavga appeared like—I don't know, like the devil in Italian menswear—and offered me a job."
Lorcan's expression hasn't changed.
I keep going.
"Fifty-two thousand dollars a year to be his personal assistant.
Except the interview was a disaster because I was late—but not actually late because he locked all the doors and made me find the secret entrance like some demented escape room—and when I finally got upstairs he told me I failed and the job was gone. "
I'm picking up speed again.
The Gilmore-Girl spiral fully engaged now.
"So naturally I had a complete meltdown and started rambling about Mercury retrograde affecting Starbucks seasonal menus and the etymology of 'the early bird gets the worm' because apparently when I'm nervous I become a walking Wikipedia page of useless information—which, sidebar, did you know that phrase is actually a cautionary tale about worms getting eaten, not a motivational poster about success? "
Lorcan's mouth twitches.
Almost a smile.
I don't care. I'm on a roll.
"He gave me the job anyway. Obviously. Because the whole thing was a test I didn't know I was taking. Then he made me work in these—" I stop. Actually laugh. "Oh my god. The shoes."
Now I'm genuinely smiling through my tears like a complete psychopath.
"He stole these red Louboutin stilettos from his ex-girlfriend Lucia.
So Kates. Four-point-seven-two inches of fuck-you-and-your-podiatrist. Except they were like two sizes too big for me so I'm shuffling around his apartment in designer heels that cost more than my entire monthly salary, trying to alphabetize a thousand invoices while my feet are screaming and I'm wearing this ridiculous yellow cardigan that looked like Big Bird had a nervous breakdown. "
I look up.
Find Lorcan actually smiling now.
Soft. Almost fond.
"Classic Giovanni," he says quietly.
And something about the way he says it—with familiarity and exasperation and this bone-deep understanding—makes my chest hurt.
"Yeah." I swipe at my eyes again. "Classic Giovanni.
Making me parade around in stolen shoes because—I don't know.
Because he could. Because he wanted to see if I'd break.
Because somewhere in that beautiful, fucked-up brain of his, making me suffer was the same thing as seeing if I was worth keeping. "
Lorcan leans back against the wall.
His whole posture's different now.
Less interrogator, more... listener.
"He does that," Lorcan says. His accent softens the consonants, makes the words almost gentle. "Tests people in the most elaborate, theatrical ways possible. Like everythin's a performance and he's the only one with the script."
"Yes." I practically exhale the word. "Exactly that."
"It's because he doesn't trust easy things." Lorcan's watching me now with those sharp gray eyes. "If somethin' comes too simple, he assumes it's a trap. So he sets his own traps first—controlled variables where he decides the outcome."
I nod.
Because yes.
God, yes.
"He offered me money I desperately needed," I continue, "with contracts full of vague language about 'demerits' and 'corrective measures' that could've meant anything. I signed it anyway because—" I stop. Swallow hard. "Because I had twenty-three days, and no other options, and he saw me."
"He's good at that." Lorcan's voice has gone quieter. "Seein' people. Really seein' them—past the masks and the performance and the lies they tell themselves. He looks at you and knows exactly what you need and exactly what you're afraid of losin'."
"And then he uses it," I finish.
"And then he uses it," Lorcan agrees.
But he doesn't say it like an accusation.
More like... fact.
Just the way things are when you're in Giovanni Bavga's orbit.
"Everyone gravitates to him," Lorcan continues.
His eyes go distant. Remembering something.
"It's not just the money or the power—though Christ knows that doesn't hurt.
It's the attention. The way he makes you feel like you're the only person in the room who matters.
Like he's chosen you specifically, out of everyone, because you're worth his time. "
My throat tightens.
"He's charismatic in this brutal, efficient way," Lorcan says. "Doesn't waste words. Doesn't perform emotion. Just... sees you. And once Giovanni Bavga decides you're interestin'? You're fucked. Because you'll do anythin' to keep that attention. To stay in his sight line."
I'm leaning forward now.
Hanging on every word.
Wanting more.
Wanting Lorcan to keep talking about Giovanni in that accent that makes every consonant sound like a caress, with those word choices that feel literary, and strange, and right.
"I understand how you fell for him," Lorcan says softly. "I really do. Because I know exactly how magnetic he is. How he makes you feel seen, and chosen, and necessary. How he builds this world where you're the center of his universe—as long as you play by his rules."
He shifts.
His expression gentler now.
Almost sympathetic.
"The shoes were just the beginnin', weren't they?"
I nod.
Unable to speak.
Because if I open my mouth, I'll start crying again.
And I'm so tired of crying.
I wilt.
That's the only word for what happens to my posture as I sit on this stranger's couch with my hands folded in my lap like some demented finishing school dropout who forgot the most important rule: wear clothes to kidnappings.
I'm naked.
Fully, completely, spectacularly naked in a cabin somewhere in rural Pennsylvania with a man I don't know who's been giving me the philosophical breakdown of my life choices like he's guest-lecturing at a university I didn't apply to.
And the worst part—the absolute worst part—is that I stopped noticing I was naked about twenty minutes ago because apparently my brain has decided that emotional vulnerability is more mortifying than physical nudity, which says something deeply disturbing about my current mental state that I absolutely do not have time to unpack right now.
My shoulders curve inward, making myself smaller. A habit I thought I'd broken after Tyler but apparently it's still living in my muscle memory right next to "kneel when a man tells you to" and "count the strikes while you're being whipped."
Christ.
I really am a walking disaster, aren't I?
A case study in spectacularly bad decisions wrapped in a body that's been conditioned to respond to dominance with arousal instead of—I don't know—running.
Lorcan moves.
I freeze.
He crosses the small space between us and crouches down in front of me, his knees cracking slightly because apparently even hot Irish kidnappers with good bone structure can't escape the reality of joint deterioration, which is somehow comforting in a completely absurd way.
He takes both my hands in his.