Chapter 7 Violet
VIOLET
Eight o’clock comes and goes.
I know because there’s an antique clock on the wall, of course it’s antique, marking each second with a tick that makes me want to rip it down and smash it against the marble floor.
I don’t.
Instead, I lie on the silk sheets fully clothed in dirty jeans and yesterday’s henley, the boots I’d found kicked beneath the bed now back on by choice, grinding Palermo mud into five-hundred-thread-count Egyptian cotton like a small, stubborn, act of war.
Fuck you and your sheets.
My stomach growls a loud, angry sound that echoes in the silent room. I haven’t eaten since that ricotta pastry at Rosa’s café twenty-four hours ago, at least. Maybe longer. The drugs made time slippery.
I stare at the frescoed ceiling. Angels and clouds and gold leaf, mocking me with their serenity. I’d rather starve than eat with you. The words felt powerful when I said them. Now they just feel stupid.
But I meant them.
He wants me to change. To put on whatever silk and lace nightmare he’s picked out, sit across from him like a good little captive, and pretend this is normal. Pretend he’s normal.
I’d rather chew off my own arm.
The clock ticks. Nine. Ten. My stomach cramps, a sharp twist that makes me curl onto my side. I press my palm against my abdomen and count backward from a hundred.
Danny survived two years in Walpole. You can survive one night without dinner.
Somewhere around sixty-three, exhaustion drags me under.
My eyes snap open when I hear the lock on the door click. Gray light filters through the windows, the pale wash of early morning. I don’t move. Don’t breathe. Just lie there with my heart hammering against my ribs, listening.
No footsteps. No door opening. Just that single, mechanical click.
Exactly as he said it would.
I wait. Five minutes. Ten. The silence stretches, thick and suspicious. Finally, I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and walk toward the door on bare feet. My boots are still on the silk sheets where I kicked them off sometime in the night.
The handle turns.
The door opens.
I stand there for a long moment, staring into the hallway like it might bite me. Carrara marble stretches in both directions, white veined with gray, cold against my bare soles. The walls are the same ancient stone as my room, but the sconces are modern. Surgical steel. Motion-activated, probably.
I step out.
The marble is freezing. It seeps up through the balls of my feet, into my ankles, a chill that crawls up my body. Real. This is real. You’re here.
To my left, the corridor ends at a window. To my right, it stretches toward what looks like a staircase. I turn right.
The guard materializes at the end of the hallway before I’ve taken three steps.
Not a thug. That’s the first thing I notice.
No rough edges, no prison tattoos, no cheap suit straining over steroid-swollen muscles.
This man is carved from ice. Tailored black suit, white shirt, earpiece curling around his left ear.
His posture is parade-ground perfect, shoulders back, chin level, hands clasped in front of him.
Military. Has to be. The kind of man who knows seventeen ways to kill someone with a ballpoint pen.
The gun is visible under his jacket. Not hidden. Not threatening. Just there, a matter of fact statement of reality.
You’re not getting past me.
I hold his gaze for a moment. He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t shift. Just watches me with the blank, professional attention of someone who’s been paid very well to do exactly this.
I turn and walk the other direction.
The window at the end of the corridor looks out over a courtyard. I press my palm against the cold glass and scan the grounds below.
More guards. Three that I can see, patrolling in what looks like a deliberate pattern. They move like the man in the hallway, that same controlled economy of motion. Professional. Trained. Armed.
Beyond them, walls. Ancient stone, probably medieval, rising fifteen feet at least. But the cameras mounted on top are not medieval.
Cutting-edge tech, the kind that tracks movement and heat signatures and probably has facial recognition built in.
The contrast is jarring. Old world architecture married to new world surveillance.
This isn’t just a house. It’s a fortress.
Who the fuck is he?
Not just rich. Not just obsessed. This is infrastructure. This is organization. The kind of security that costs millions to build and maintain, that requires connections I can’t even imagine.
The beauty is a lie. Every frescoed ceiling, every marble floor, every antique fixture… all of it is camouflage. A pretty mask over something far more dangerous.
Fear spikes through me, hot and sharp. I force it down. Shove it into the same box where I keep every other useless emotion.
I know the drill by now. Find the weakness.
The studio door is open.
I stare at it from the hallway, my pulse thudding in my ears, because he promised me this, the hallway during the day, the studio, limited freedom in exchange for good behavior, like I’m a dog being trained with treats.
I step inside anyway.
The north-facing windows flood the room with perfect natural light, the kind of illumination I’ve spent years chasing across restoration sites.
My worktables are arranged exactly as I kept them in Palermo.
The German graphite pencils ranked by hardness.
The acid-free paper stacked by weight. The magnifying glasses and calipers and fine brushes I use for detail work.
He’s been in my apartment. Touched my things. Studied the way I organize my workspace with the same attention I give to crumbling stonework.
He studied me like I was a structural problem to be solved.
The violation of it makes my stomach turn. I swallow hard, forcing the nausea back, and start searching.
Not for escape. Not anymore. For something I can use.
The pencils are wood and graphite, too soft to do real damage. The brushes are worthless. The magnifying glasses have rounded edges, designed for detail work, not defense.
But the calipers...
I pick one up, testing its weight. Metal. Sharp pointed ends designed for precise measurement. Not a knife, but close enough. There’s potential there. In the right situation it could do damage.
I slide it up my sleeve, casual. Like I’m just examining my supplies, reacquainting myself with my tools. The cameras are watching. I know they are. But I keep my face blank, my movements unhurried.
First rule of survival. Never let them see you coming.
Back in the bedroom, I slip the caliper under my pillow. The metal is cold against my palm for a moment before I release it.
One weapon. One small advantage he doesn’t know about.
First small victory.
Satisfied, I sit on the bed just as my stomach growls again.
I press my hand against my abdomen, trying to quiet the noise, but the hunger has moved past growling into something sharper. Cramps and a hollow ache that makes it hard to think about anything else.
Holy fuck. The blood oranges.
The memory surfaces like a life raft. The bowl in the studio, the one I threw at his head yesterday. The oranges rolling across the floor when I picked it up.
Is it possible they could still be there? Scattered across the studio floor.
I’m on my feet before I finish the thought.
The hallway is empty except for the guard at the far end. He tracks my movement but doesn’t stop me. Doesn’t speak. Just watches as I walk back into the studio.
The oranges are in a pretty ceramic bowl on the far worktable. Different than the one I hurled at his head.
I grab one. Dig my thumbnail into the skin and peel it in rough strips, the citrus scent sharp and bright in the cold morning air. The first segment bursts against my tongue, sweet and bloody and perfect.
I finish the first orange standing there, juice running down my chin, grinning like a mad woman, then reach for a second. The taste is heaven. Pure, uncomplicated pleasure after a day of nothing but fear and rage and hunger.
I eat two more, then grab three others and hide them under my bed, tucked against the wall where they won’t roll. Emergency rations. Insurance.
He thinks he controls everything. But I found food he didn’t offer. I found a weapon he doesn’t know about.
Small victories. They’re all I have right now.
I don’t change clothes. Don’t shower, even though I can smell myself after hours of fear-sweat and unwashed skin. The henley is wrinkled, the jeans stiff with dirt, but they’re mine. The last pieces of my old life, clinging to my body like armor.
Tomorrow, I think, climbing back into the silk-sheeted bed with orange juice still sticky on my fingers. Tomorrow I’ll figure out more.
My hand slides under the pillow. The caliper is still there, cold and sharp against my palm.
One day down.
I haven’t broken.