Chapter 7 #2
"Why?" The question comes out as barely more than a whisper. "Why me?"
This is the moment. The moment I make her understand.
I close the distance between us slowly. Each step is deliberate.
Predatory. She presses harder against the wall but she doesn't run, doesn't use the pepper spray still clutched in her hand.
I can see it in her eyes, the way her breath catches, the way she doesn't pull away.
She wants this. She just won't admit it yet.
I stop when I'm close enough to feel her breath. Close enough to smell the lavender in her hair and the fear on her skin. Close enough to see her pupils dilate.
"You saved my life without asking questions," I say, my voice low.
Dark. "You're kind in a world full of cruelty.
When I look at you, I feel human instead of like the weapon I've become.
" I reach up slowly and tuck a curl behind her ear.
The left one. Always the left. "You're mine, Francesca.
You were mine from the moment you touched me, and every day since has just been me waiting for you to realize it. "
"This isn't love," she whispers. "This is—"
"Does it matter what we call it?" I let my hand slide down to cup her jaw. She's trembling. "Love. Obsession. Possession. Madness. Call it whatever you want. The result is the same. You're mine, and I'm yours, and nothing changes that now."
"I'm not—" But her hands won't steady, and not entirely from fear. I can smell it on her. The unwanted arousal. The confusion. The way her body wants what her mind is screaming at her to reject.
"You are," I say quietly. "And you know it. That's why you didn't call the police before I got here. That's why you opened the door. That's why you're still standing here."
"I have pepper spray."
"You do." I don't move. I don't blink. "Are you going to use it?"
She looks down at the canister in her hand. She looks back up at me. And slowly, so slowly, her grip loosens.
"I should."
Her breath catches. "I should call the police."
"Should you?" I tilt my head. "What would you tell them?"
"I should hate you."
"Maybe." I smile. Just a little. Just enough to show teeth. "Do you?"
She doesn't answer. She should hate me. But she doesn't. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
I step back and give her space to breathe. She sags against the wall. The fight hasn't left her entirely, but she's starting to understand the reality of her situation.
She has no good options. Just me.
"I can't—" She stops. She starts again. Her voice is smaller now. "What do you want from me?"
"Everything." I don't soften it. I don't make it easier to swallow. "Your body. Your mind. Your time. Your attention. Your submission. I want you in my home, in my bed, in my life. I want to own every part of you until you can't remember what it was like before me."
"That's—"
"What's going to happen." I cut her off. "Tonight, you come with me. To my home. Where you belong."
"I don't belong to you."
"You will." I watch the moment she realizes I mean every word. "You'll come to understand it. You'll learn to accept it. Eventually, you'll even crave it. Because I'm going to give you everything you need, Francesca. Everything you've been missing. Everything you've been too afraid to ask for."
She pushes off the wall and wraps her arms around herself. "You're out of your mind."
"We've established that." I tilt my head. "Are you done fighting the inevitable?"
"What are you?" she whispers.
"What I am," I say quietly, "is the man who's been watching you for months. The man who knows how you take your coffee and that you cry during Grey's Anatomy. The man who's killed people and won't hesitate to kill anyone who touches what's mine."
She goes very still. "You kill people."
"I do."
No apology. No softening. Just the truth.
"How many?" she asks.
"Too many." I watch her processing it. "I don’t count… not because I'm a monster who forgets, but because I'm a monster who remembers."
She makes a sound—something between a laugh and a sob. "Jesus Christ."
"He's not listening, piccola. He stopped listening to men like me a long time ago."
She opens her eyes and looks at me like she's seeing me for the first time. She should see what I am. She should understand what she's dealing with.
"You're a hitman."
"Enforcer. But yes, essentially. I solve problems. Permanently."
Her breathing is unsteady now. I want to pull her against me, warm her, soothe her. But not yet. She needs to understand first. She needs to accept what I am before I can give her what she needs.
"And you think I'm just going to... what? Come with you? Live with a murderer?"
"Yes."
"Why would I do that?"
I step closer again. I'm close enough to feel her heat. Close enough to see fear and fury war in her eyes.
"Because you don't have another choice. Because I've made sure of it.
" I don't blink. I don't look away. "Your apartment is compromised.
Your life is compromised. I know where you are every second of every day.
I know your schedule, your habits, your weaknesses.
Running won't work—I'll find you. Fighting won't work—I'm stronger, faster, more ruthless than you can imagine.
Calling the police won't work—I have no record, and you have no proof of anything illegal. "
I pause. I let it sink in.
"The only safe place for you now is with me. Under my control."
"I was fine before I met you."
"Were you?" I lean in close. Too close. "Or were you just lucky?
Walking home alone at night through one of the most dangerous cities in the world.
Working late shifts in an ER where anyone could grab you.
Living in a fourth-floor walkup with a lock I can pick in seconds.
No security. No protection. Just you and hope. "
"That's insane. I can—"
"Can what? Run? I'll find you. Fight? You'll lose. Scream? No one's coming. You don't have a choice, Francesca. You just haven't accepted it yet."
She wants to argue. I can see it in her eyes. But she can't. Because she knows I'm right.
"I really don't have a choice, do I?"
"No. You don't."
She stares at me, and I see fury and fear and something else warring in her eyes. Something that looks almost like relief. Like part of her has been waiting for someone to take the choice away.
"If I go with you," she says slowly, "what happens?"
"I keep you. I own you. I make sure nothing in this world touches you except me."
"That sounds like a prison."
"It is." I don't soften it. "A comfortable cage. And I'm the only one with the key."
"And if I try to leave?"
"Then I'll stop you." I step closer. I'm close enough that she has to tilt her head back to meet my eyes. "And I won't be gentle about it."
She's unsteady, but this time when I reach out and cup her face in my hands, she doesn't pull away. She just stares up at me with those terrified eyes.
"I need to pack," she says finally.
"No. We'll get you whatever you need."
"My job—"
"Call in sick."
She opens her mouth to argue, but I shake my head.
"No negotiations, Francesca. Not tonight. Tonight, you come with me. Everything else we can discuss later. When you're ready to listen. When you understand how this works."
She stands frozen. Then she walks past me to the coffee table and picks up her purse and drops the pepper spray in it.
Good. I like her defiant.
"If I do this," she says without looking at me, "if I go with you... I want one thing clear."
"What's that?"
She turns to face me, and the look in her eyes makes heat flood my chest.
"I'm doing this because I don't have a choice. Not because I want to. Not because I'm yours. Because you've backed me into a corner and I'm smart enough to know when I'm outmatched." She takes a step toward me. "But the second I find a way out, I'm taking it."
I smile. I can't help it.
"We'll see, piccola. We'll see how long that lasts once you're in my bed."
She glares at me, and merda, I want to kiss that defiant look right off her face. I want to show her what she's agreed to.
Soon. Not yet, but soon.
"Let's go," I say, and I open the door.
She walks past me into the hallway, and I follow, pulling the door closed behind us. She doesn't look back at her apartment. She doesn't say goodbye. She just walks down the stairs with her head high and her spine straight, like she's going to war.
In a way, I suppose she is.
My SUV is parked at the curb. I open the passenger door and she hesitates for just a moment before climbing in. I close the door behind her, walk around to the driver's side, and slide behind the wheel.
She's already buckled in, her purse clutched in her lap, staring straight ahead.
I start the engine and pull into traffic, heading toward Tribeca. Toward home. Toward the beginning of our real life together.
We drive in silence for several blocks. I can feel the tension radiating off her. The fear. The fury. The arousal she doesn't want to acknowledge.
"I should have called the police months ago," she says finally, her voice quiet. "When you came into the ER. I should have reported the gunshot wound."
"But you didn't."
"No."
"Why not?"
She turns to look at me, and in the passing streetlights, I can see tears on her cheeks. Tears she won't let fall. Tears she's fighting with everything she has.
"I don't know," she whispers.
She's lying. She knows.
I reach over and take her hand. She stiffens but doesn't pull away. I thread my fingers through hers and rest our joined hands on the console between us. Possessive. Claiming.
"Yes, you do," I say softly. "You knew then. The same way you know now."
"Know what?"
I squeeze her hand. Not gentle. Hard enough to remind her who's in control.
"That you belong to me. That you've always belonged to me. That everything else is just you pretending otherwise."
She doesn't answer. She doesn't pull her hand away. She just sits there with tears streaming down her face, staring out the window as I drive us home.
To my home. Our home now.
Whether she likes it or not.
The rest of the drive passes in silence. When we reach Tribeca, I pull into the private garage beneath my building. The engine ticks as it cools. She still hasn't pulled her hand away.
"Last chance," I say, even though we both know there is no chance. "You can walk in on your own feet, or I can carry you. Your choice."
She looks down at our joined hands. At the way her smaller hand fits perfectly in mine. Like it was made to be there.
"I hate you," she says quietly.
"No, you don't." I bring our joined hands to my mouth and kiss her knuckles. "Not yet. Maybe not ever."
"I should."
"But you don't."
She pulls her hand away finally and opens the car door. She steps out into the garage like she's stepping onto a battlefield.
I follow her out, use my key card to call the private elevator, and watch as she steps inside. The doors close behind us, and we rise toward the penthouse in silence.
Toward her new cage. Her new life. Her new reality.
With me.
When the doors open, I gesture for her to step out first. She does, her eyes going wide as she takes in the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city sprawled below us, a thousand lights burning.
"Welcome home, Francesca," I say.
She turns to look at me, and I see the exact moment she realizes the full truth of her situation. The moment she understands that everything has changed. That there's no going back to her old life. That she belongs to me now, whether she likes it or not.
"This isn't my home," she says.
I close the distance between us and cup her face in my hands. She freezes but doesn't pull away. She doesn't fight. She just stares up at me with those terrified eyes.
"It is now." And before she can argue, I take her mouth with mine.
She's home. She just doesn't know it yet.