Chapter 20 - Faith
As the elevator doors shut just before the close of business, my mind is still reeling from following Luca to the community center.
I had planned to wean myself off him completely by discovering some nasty secret, showing the depths of his depravity, only to find him…
helping. Teaching kids how to defend themselves.
Giving back to people who have nothing. I walked in to find him kneeling beside a traumatized eight-year-old girl.
Those same hands that left fingerprints on my thighs counting mats with her, voice impossibly gentle: “One, two, three… you’re safe now, you’re at the center.
” Teaching broken children to escape the very violence he creates.
The contradiction makes my chest tight, makes me press against a bruise just to ground myself in something real.
The elevator dings. Thirty-second floor.
Something's wrong the moment the doors open. The reception area feels too quiet, air too still. Cheryl, Neumann's assistant, is shoving files into her bag with barely controlled panic, her usual professional smile nowhere to be found.
"Mr. Neumann is ready for you," she says, already backing toward the elevator, refusing to meet my eyes. "He said to go right in."
"Aren't you staying?" My voice sounds normal despite the alarm bells shrieking in my head. "For the notes?"
"He dismissed me early." She practically jumps into the elevator. "Said you two needed privacy to discuss… sensitive matters."
The elevator doors close on her frightened face, and suddenly I understand. She knows something. Maybe not what, but enough to run.
Through the glass doors, I can see Neumann at his desk, watching me with an expression that makes my skin crawl. Not the patronizing businessman who tolerates the helpful librarian. Something else. Something that reminds me of all those years ago, of watching through that gap under the couch.
My hand finds my phone, needing the anchor. One text to Luca and he'd come. He'd paint these walls with Neumann's blood before I could even scream. The thought shouldn't make me hot, but my body doesn't care about shouldn't anymore.
I force my shoulders back, paste on my harmless librarian smile, and push through the doors.
The lock clicks behind me. Deliberate. Final. Trapped.
I spin, hand testing the handle. Locked from inside. "The door…"
"Privacy." Neumann doesn't look up from whatever he's studying. "We need to discuss something rather delicate, Faith."
My heart pounds so hard I'm sure he can hear it. Each beat seems to echo: he knows, he knows, he knows.
"Please, sit." He gestures to the chair across from his desk, but every instinct screams to stay by the door, to keep my escape route in sight.
"I should mention, I have library duties this afternoon. Story time at three." The lie burns my tongue, copper mixed with fear and the phantom memory of Luca's tongue in my mouth.
"Story time." He finally looks up, and his eyes are bright with something that makes bile rise in my throat. "How dedicated you are. How much time you spend with children. With families. With my family."
He stands, moving around the desk with deliberate slowness. My body remembers this feeling from Saturday night, but different. Where Luca's hunting made me burn, Neumann's makes my skin try to crawl off my bones.
"My wife thinks you're wonderful. My children adore you." He's coming closer, each step measured. "The library board thinks highly of you too. Did you know I'm their biggest donor?"
"You've been very generous to the library." My voice sounds thin, reedy.
"Have I?" He's close now, supposedly reaching for a file from the cabinet beside me, but his body cages me against the door.
His cologne fills my lungs until I can't breathe.
"Twenty million last year alone. That funded your entire children's wing renovation.
Your salary, technically, comes from my foundation. "
His hand comes up. I flinch hard, my body remembering other hands, but he just touches my face with devastating gentleness, thumb tracing the curve near my eye.
"You're very beautiful, Faith. Too beautiful to be hiding behind library desks."
"Mr. Neumann, I should go—"
"I could make things happen for you." His thumb moves to my lower lip. "Head librarian position opens up next year. With my recommendation, you'd be the youngest head librarian in the city's history."
"I'm happy where I am."
"Are you?" He leans closer, his other hand finding my waist. "Or are you just afraid of taking what you want? I see how you look at me during board meetings. How you find excuses to attend every fundraiser."
I try to step sideways but he moves with me, keeping me trapped. "I attend for the library—"
"The library." His laugh is soft, knowing. "Let's discuss the library then. Did you know funding reviews are next month? The board tends to follow my recommendations. Shame if the children's program budget got… reallocated."
The threat is clear. Submit or watch everything I've built disappear.
"One drink," he continues, his hand sliding from my waist to my hip. "Tonight. The Ritz Carlton, their bar is very discrete. We can discuss your future properly."
"I can't—"
"Can't?" His hand on my hip tightens painfully. "Faith, you're an intelligent woman. Surely you understand how things work. I've invested millions in that library. In you, specifically. I selected you for that position two years ago."
My stomach drops. "Selected me?"
"Your interview was just formality. I wanted you there. Close. Available." His breath is hot on my neck. "You reminded me of someone I knew once. Someone who also thought she was too good for what I offered."
His hand moves to my throat, not squeezing, just resting there. Possessive. "She learned otherwise. They always do."
"Please, I need to go. The children are waiting."
"The children." His fingers flex against my throat. "Yes, you love those children. It would be tragic if budget cuts eliminated story time. If you had to tell all those little faces that Miss Faith couldn't read to them anymore because the library couldn't afford it."
"You wouldn't—"
"I would." He steps back suddenly, but his eyes hold me in place. "Eight o'clock, Faith. The Ritz Carlton bar. Wear something that shows you understand your position. Or Monday morning, you'll be explaining to your director why the Neumann Foundation is withdrawing all funding."
He returns to his desk, dismissing me. "Oh, and Faith? I prefer my women wearing blue."
The lock clicks open.
"Run along to your story time," he says without looking up. "And think about your choices. Career-ending poverty, or one drink with a generous man who could change your life. The smart choice seems obvious."
My hand finds the door handle behind me, fingers slipping on the metal from sweat. I'm going to be sick. Going to vomit right here on his expensive carpet. But I force it down, force myself to smile. "I'll do whatever you ask, Mr. Neumann. But please let me get to the children now."
He stares at me a moment longer. "Good girl," he finally says, then presses a button to release the lock. I turn the handle with trembling fingers, and it takes everything I have to open the door and walk, not run, to the elevator.
The elevator doors close and I make it exactly three floors before the sobbing begins.
I barely get the doors open in time, stumbling into the parking garage where I collapse behind a concrete pillar, body heaving until there's nothing left but acid and tears.
Bile burns my throat, mixing with the phantom taste of Luca's mouth, and I sob harder at the corruption of that memory.
My phone shakes so badly in my hands that it takes three tries to type:
"He hit on me."
The response is instant: "Where are you?"
I fumble over my phone, fingers like ice blocks, and when it rings, I almost drop it.
"Where are you?" Luc's voice is cold and calm.
"Leaving Neumann's building. He said he’ll cut the funding to the library if… if I don’t…."
One beat of silence, then: "Come to this address." A location appears with a pin. "Now."
"What's there?"
"Neumann's private compound."
My heart ratchets up. "No, I can't go there, never…"
"You need to see what I've done so you feel safe."
"Safe? You're insane. The man just threatened me, I can't go to his house. Anyway, his security is extensive. Military-trained. You can't just…"
"Not anymore."
Two words that make my blood turn to ice. Oh God. Oh God, what has he done?
I should go home. Call my father. Call the police.
Do anything except drive toward whatever horror Luca has created.
But I've already put my phone back in my bag, I'm already starting my car with shaking hands, already pulling into traffic, already choosing the psycho who marks me over the man who strangled my mother.
The forty-minute drive feels like seconds and years simultaneously. The sunset paints everything red: the windshield, the buildings, my hands gripping the wheel. Like the world is already bleeding, preparing me for what's coming.
The compound gates stand open. Wrong. These gates should never be open, require codes, guards, verification. Neumann pays millions for his privacy, his protection. I know, I've checked.
The security booth is empty. Worse.
My headlights sweep across expensive cars in their usual spots, everything normal except for the absolute stillness. No movement. No guards walking perimeter. No dogs barking.
The front door is ajar.
"Luca?" My voice echoes in the marble entrance. No answer, but I hear something deeper in the house. A soft, rhythmic sound. Metal on fabric.
The first body stops me cold.
A security guard lies by the stairs, his throat cut so precisely there's barely any blood. His eyes stare at nothing, hand still reaching for a weapon he never drew.
My knees hit the floor hard. I crawl to him, some insane part of me checking for a pulse even though his eyes tell the truth. I reach for his wallet and let it fall open. Twin daughters smile up at me from their school photos. Bile rises again, but there's nothing left to throw up.
The second body lies near the study entrance. Johnson, according to his name tag. Clean shot, professional.
The study door hangs open.
Inside, two more guards lie motionless on the expensive Persian rug. Four men total. The silence is absolute, that particular stillness that comes after violence has finished.
Luca stands by the window, calmly wiping his knife with a monogrammed handkerchief. Like he's maintaining tools after a simple task. His white shirt is pristine except for a single drop of blood on the cuff.
These hands, the same ones that made me scream his name on Saturday night, that counted mats with a traumatized child this morning, now methodically clean blood from steel.
"Faith." He looks up, those pale eyes serene. "You came."
My body shakes so violently I have to grab the doorframe. "You killed them."
"Four." No remorse. Just fact. "The rest ran when they realized what was happening. Smart ones."
Nico stands by the window with a rifle, watching the grounds. "Two vehicles left heading south about ten minutes ago. They won't be coming back."
Four men dead. The others fled. Not a massacre, but still four families who'll never know what happened to their fathers, brothers, sons.
"Where's Neumann?" The words scrape out of my throat.
"Not here." Luca's smile is that wrong smile. "But now he has no one protecting him. No guards. No security. Just him, alone and vulnerable."
I'm counting the bodies through tears I didn't realize were falling. I don't know these men, but they were human. And that means something.
"This is murder," I whisper, but even as I say it, that dark satisfaction pulses. These men who shielded my mother's killer are gone.
God help me, I'm grateful.
"This is removing obstacles," Nico says without emotion.
My phone buzzes, making me jump. Dad. Six missed calls and now a text: "Faith, I'm getting reports of a disturbance at Neumann's compound. Where are you? Answer immediately."
I stare at the message while standing among corpses. My father the judge, defender of law and order. His daughter, witnessing slaughter and feeling her pussy clench at the sight of her lover covered in blood.
"Sorry, library emergency. Kid got sick. Handling it," I type with trembling fingers.
Another text from Dad immediately: "Something's wrong. I'm sending a patrol car to check on you."
Panic seizes my chest. "No! I'm fine. With Sarah. Please don't."
"Cleanup arrives in ten minutes," Nico announces. "Decide if you're staying or leaving."
Ten minutes before these bodies disappear. Before these men become nothing, their families never knowing what happened. No justice. No trial. Just absence.
"You destroyed my legal case," I manage. "Their testimony could have been crucial. The security footage they had access to, the records…"
"Would have meant nothing." Luca steps closer, and I smell death on him: copper and gunpowder. My body responds anyway, nipples hardening under my cardigan. "Best lawyers. Bought judges. He'd never see a cell."
He's right. I know he's right. But…
"This is what I am," Luca says softly, and for the first time, I hear something like regret in his voice. "This is what loving me means."
The word 'love' slaps me awake. Is that what this is? This dark, twisted thing between us?
"I have to go." I back toward the door, careful not to look at the bodies too closely. "I can't… I can't be here."
"Faith…" He reaches for me.
"Don't!" I flinch away. Not because I'm afraid. Because I want him to touch me. Want him to hold me while covered in blood, want him to fuck me right here among the bodies, want him to make me forget everything except the safety of being owned by someone scarier than my nightmares.
I'm broken. I can't be here anymore.
"He'll come for you now," Luca says. "But he has no protection. No barriers. Just him."
"And you." The words escape before I can stop them. "He has to get through you."
Something flashes in those pale eyes: possession so absolute it makes me step back.
I run then. Past more bodies, past evidence of systematic elimination, my heels slipping in blood I try not to think about. My car starts immediately, and I drive away from the massacre, away from what Luca has done for me.
The tears come then, hot and bitter, not because I'm horrified but because I'm not horrified enough. The girl I used to be would be calling 911, would be vomiting in disgust, would be running to her father.
Instead, I'm pulling over on a dark side street because my hands won't stop shaking, but I don't think it's from fear. My thighs clench in need.
I'm corrupted. I need help. And the first step to recovery has to be running as far away as possible from Luca Rosetti.