Chapter 38 Renato
The Palazzo Vittoria is exactly what I expected, five-star luxury catering to wealth that masks predatory sickness.
It's after midnight when Matteo and I enter through the service entrance, dressed in hotel uniforms acquired from helpful staff who owe me favors. The penthouse floor is quiet, discreet, designed for guests who value privacy above all else.
Tonight, that privacy works in my favor.
We bypass the security cameras using routes mapped from building schematics, moving silently through service corridors. The bodyguards are in connecting rooms, and we handle them first. Quick, silent, professional. They're down before either can reach for weapons.
Then there's only one door left.
Al-Zahrani's penthouse suite.
I pick the lock with steady hands, Matteo covering me. He's in the sitting room, reviewing something on his laptop over expensive whiskey. Mid-forties, well-groomed, the kind of predator who uses wealth instead of violence to hunt. His eyes widen when he sees us, confusion and fear on his face.
"Who are you? How did you get in here?" His hand moves toward his phone.
Matteo is faster, crushing the phone under his heel.
"I wouldn't." I close the door behind us. "You've been sitting in this suite for three days, waiting for a woman to be delivered to you like a pizza."
"I don't know what you're talking about. This is a mistake. I'll call security."
"Your bodyguards are dead. And this isn't a mistake." I move toward him. "You’re Khalid Al-Zahrani. Dubai businessman. Real estate empire, private compound, collection of European women. You paid five million down for Camilla Colombo."
Understanding and genuine terror flood his face. "You're... you're Renato Vitiello. Torretti said..."
"Torretti's dead. And you're still here, hoping someone else will show up with your purchase." I pull plastic sheeting from my bag, spreading it carefully across the expensive carpet. "Tell me, Khalid. What were you planning to do with her once you owned her?"
"Please, I can pay more. Whatever you want."
"What I want isn't for sale." I remove my jacket, rolling up my sleeves. "But you are. Seventeen million euros, you said? Let's see what that buys in your blood."
Matteo positions himself by the door while I pull out zip ties and my knife. Al-Zahrani's composure shatters completely as I approach.
"Strip," I order. "You paid for merchandise. I want you to understand what it feels like to be evaluated and judged."
"You can't... this is a public hotel..."
"The floor is empty. And this suite is soundproofed for guest privacy. Strip, or I'll cut the clothes off you."
His hands shake as he complies, designer clothes dropping to the floor. When he's completely nude, I force him into one of his expensive chairs.
We secure him with zip ties on wrists and ankles, one around his throat attached to the chair back. He can barely move, can barely breathe. Exactly how Camilla would’ve felt if he’d gotten his hands on her.
"Comfortable?" I ask, pulling out my knife. "Let's discuss your purchase."
"I never received her."
"You paid for her. You made arrangements to own her. You have a compound in Dubai where you keep women." I let the knife catch the lamplight. "What were you planning to do with Camilla Colombo once she was yours?"
"I don't know what you mean."
I drag the knife across his thigh, shallow but painful. Blood wells immediately as he grunts.
"Let's try again." I wait for him to catch his breath. "What were you planning to do with her?"
"She would have been treated well! I provide for my acquisitions! Luxury, security..."
"Your acquisitions." I cut him again, deeper this time. "Is that what you call them? The women you buy and own and use however you want? Everyone knows how the men in Dubai treat women. You’re the most disgusting of all with your parties."
"It's just business! I'm not the monster here."
The knife goes into his shoulder, between bone and muscle. His scream is beautiful, pure agony mixed with genuine terror.
"You paid to own a woman who thought she was going to spend the rest of her life as property." I twist the knife slightly. "And you think you're not a monster?"
"Please..."
"Please?" I lean close enough to smell his fear-sweat. "Did you think she'd say please? When you were raping her in your compound every day? Did you imagine her begging?"
"I would have been gentle."
The laugh that comes out of me is broken. "You were going to gently own another human being. Gently rape her whenever you wanted."
I pull the knife out and drive it into his other shoulder. More screaming, more blood soaking into the plastic sheeting.
"Here's what you need to understand, Khalid. She's not merchandise. She's not property. She's not for sale at any price. Ever." I remove the knife and study his terrified face. "And the fact that you thought you could buy her? That’s unforgivable."
What follows is methodical, brutal, and deeply satisfying. Every cut is for a different crime. Thinking he could own her, paying money to acquire her, making plans for her future, existing in a world where women are commodities.
I work slowly, keeping him conscious through techniques I learned from men who specialized in extracting information through pain. But I'm not extracting information. I'm extracting the price of daring to think Camilla Colombo had a price.
Any price.
This is for her.
By the time I'm finished, Al-Zahrani is a broken, bleeding mess. His luxury suite looks like a war zone, plastic sheeting dark with blood, the smell of copper and fear thick in the air.
"Last question," I say, kneeling beside his ruined body. "If you could go back, would you still pay for her?"
He's too far gone to answer coherently, just sobbing and bleeding and probably praying for death.
"That's what I thought." I stand, looking down at what's left of Khalid Al-Zahrani. "You know what the worst part is? You actually thought you deserved to own her. Thought your money made you worthy."
I raise the knife above my head and stab him straight through his dick, impaling him to the chair.
"It didn't. Burn in hell."
Before we leave, I pull out my phone and take a single photograph.
We clean up quickly. Plastic sheeting rolled and bagged, weapons secured, evidence of our presence eliminated. By 3 AM, we're gone, leaving Khalid Al-Zahrani's body arranged like a message to anyone else who thinks women are for sale.
The drive back to the villa is quiet. Matteo knows better than to comment on what just happened, on how personal I made it, on how much I enjoyed it.
"Boss," he says finally as we approach the gates. "You're covered in blood."
I look down at my suit. The expensive wool now dark with Al-Zahrani's blood. My hands, my shirt, even my face probably has spatter on it.
"I know."
"You want to clean up before going inside?"
"No. I need her to see exactly what I am."
"You sure that's smart?"
"I'm sure it's honest." I get out of the car, my movements heavy with exhaustion and something like satisfaction. "She asked me to stop lying. This is my truth."
The villa is dark except for a few security lights. I find her standing at the top of the stairs, backlit by the hallway light, watching me enter.
She's wearing simple pajamas, her hair loose around her shoulders. For a moment, we just stare at each other. Me covered in another man's blood, her perfectly clean and composed.
"Who did you kill?" she asks, her voice steady and calm.
Not "did you kill someone." Not "is that blood." Just acknowledgment and a simple question.
"Khalid Al-Zahrani. The man from Dubai who was willing to pay seventeen million euros thinking he could own you."
She nods slowly, processing this. Her eyes travel over my blood-soaked suit, taking in every detail of what I've done. I wait for horror, for revulsion, for the inevitable moment when she realizes exactly what kind of monster she's been sharing breakfast with.
Instead, she asks another question.
"Did he suffer?"
I pull out my phone without a word and show her the photograph.
Her face remains perfectly still as she looks at the screen. No flinch, no gasp, no reaction except for a slight tightening around her eyes. When she looks back at me, something dark and satisfied settles in her expression.
“Poetic ending,” she says quietly. “Thank you.”
"He understood. By the end, he understood everything. He’ll never hurt another woman again."
Something shifts in her expression. Not horror, but understanding. Maybe even approval.
"Are you hurt?" she asks finally.
"No. It's not my blood."
"That’s good." She turns and walks back down the hallway toward her room. At the doorway, she pauses. "Goodnight. Sleep well. I know I will."
Then she's gone, disappearing into her room and closing the door with a soft click.
I stand in the foyer for a long moment, trying to process what just happened. She saw me covered in blood from torturing a man to death, and her only questions were who and if I was injured.
Not judgment. Not horror. Just... acceptance.
I head to my room and strip off the ruined suit, standing under a scalding shower until the water runs clear. The blood circles the drain in pink spirals, evidence of violence washing away to leave me clean on the surface.
But I'm not clean. I'll never be clean.
I tortured a man tonight and enjoyed it. Took out every frustration, every moment of powerlessness, every second of not knowing if she'd forgive me. I carved it all into Al-Zahrani's flesh until he was nothing but meat and screaming.
And it felt good.
That should horrify me. Should make me question what I've become.
Instead, I just feel empty. Satisfied but hollow, like I've expended all the violence inside me and have nothing left.
I dry off and pull on clean clothes, then sit on the edge of my bed staring at nothing. Somewhere down the hall, Camilla is lying awake processing what she saw.
Deciding if a man who comes home covered in blood is someone she can live with.
Deciding if the monster who makes her breakfast is still a monster when the breakfast comes with a side of murder.
Does she know that the violence isn't separate from the breakfast and the coffee and the attempts at normalcy? It's all the same man, all woven together into something twisted and dark and completely devoted to her?
I should sleep, but instead I find myself standing in the hallway outside her door, staring at the wood separating us. Does she understand what I did tonight? Does she know I'd do it again, and worse, for anyone who threatened her?
I don't knock. Don't try to explain or justify or make her understand.
I just stand there, separated by six inches of wood and miles of moral distance, hoping she can live with what I am.
Eventually, I return to my room and lie in bed, watching dawn break through the windows. In a few hours, I'll make her coffee. Maybe cook eggs again. Pretend for a little while that I'm not a man who came home covered in blood.
But we both know the truth now.
Both of us lying awake, thinking about blood and breakfast and the impossible question of what love looks like when it's wrapped in violence and soaked in the consequences of who we really are.