Chapter 12 Elio
ELIO
Three in the morning, and I’m standing over her bed like the monster I am.
The room is dark except for the thin blade of moonlight slicing through the curtains. Silver light catches the edge of her cheekbone, the curve of her shoulder, the damp tracks drying on her skin.
She’s been crying in her sleep.
I look at the evidence. The pillow, darker where her face pressed against it. The slight puffiness around her eyes. The tear tracks on her cheeks, catching light like the finest craquelure on an old master.
She searched for the caliper three times tonight.
I watched it all. The first time she reached, casual, automatic.
Her fingers found silk and her whole body went rigid.
The second time, more frantic, tearing at the bedding.
The third, quieter, more devastating. Just her hand sliding under the pillow, finding nothing, and staying there. Curled around empty space.
I took it from her. Her small victory. The illusion of control.
I should feel guilty. I don’t.
What I feel is something closer to satisfaction. The caliper was never going to hurt me. But it was hurting her. Giving her false hope, letting her believe she had options. Removing it was mercy.
The lie tastes smooth. Practiced.
She’s curled on her side now, facing the chair by the window. My chair. The one I sit in every morning while she eats breakfast. Her body has arranged itself toward that space even in sleep, even unconscious, even without knowing I’m here.
She’s starting to seek me.
The thought sends heat coiling through my chest. Not arousal. Something deeper. Darker. The collector’s satisfaction of watching a piece settle into its proper place.
Last night at dinner, she sat on my lap without being told.
I replay the moment. The way she walked to the table, saw the single setting, and just... lowered herself onto my thighs. No argument. No “where do I sit?” thrown like a grenade. Her body made the decision before her mind caught up.
Progress.
The hunger strike taught me her pain threshold. The solarium taught me she craves beauty she can’t resist. The drawings in the studio… those told me vanity isn’t dead. She wanted to know I’d been watching. Wanted to know she’d occupied my thoughts, my hands, my attention.
Every kindness calculated. Every gift a trap.
But standing here now, watching her breathe, I find myself noticing things that have nothing to do with strategy.
Like the way her lashes fan across her cheeks.
The small sound she makes when she shifts, something between a sigh and a whimper.
The way her hand keeps reaching for that empty space under the pillow, searching even in dreams for something to hold onto.
She needs something to hold onto.
I could touch her now. Could brush the hair from her face, trace the tear tracks with my thumb, feel her skin warm beneath my fingers. She wouldn’t wake.
My hand moves without permission. Hovers an inch from her cheek.
Stop.
I pull back. Force my fingers to curl at my side.
Not yet. Not like this.
When I touch her again, she’ll be awake. She’ll know exactly who’s touching her. And she’ll lean into it anyway.
Control.
I watch her for another ten minutes. Then I leave, closing the door behind me with a click so soft she’ll never know I was there.
She’s still asleep at six in the morning. The camera in my office shows her exactly as I left her. Curled toward my chair, hand under the pillow.
At seven-fifteen, she stirs.
I watch her wake the way I’ve watched her every morning for almost two weeks. The slow drift to consciousness. The moment her eyes open, confusion followed by recognition followed by that familiar flash of fury.
Her hand shoots under the pillow.
Finds nothing.
Her face crumples. Just for a second. Then she controls it, smooths it over, sits up and stares at the wall like she can burn through stone with pure hatred.
Beautiful.
My phone rings.
The name on the screen makes my jaw tighten. I let it ring three times before answering.
“Elio.” Cicero’s voice is silk over broken glass. “We need to discuss your upcoming nuptials.”
I lean back in my chair, eyes still on the monitor. Violet is standing now, unsteady, making her way to the bathroom. “There’s nothing to discuss.”
“Gabriella is threatening to walk. The Syndicate is asking questions.”
“Let them ask.”
“This distraction of yours—”
“She’s not a distraction.” The words come out sharper than intended. “She’s the plan.”
Silence on the line. Then, carefully: “What plan involves keeping an American art restorer prisoner in your villa while a marriage alliance crumbles?”
None of his business. Nothing about her is any of his business.
“The Rossis want power,” I say, forcing calm into my voice. “I’m offering them something better. A way into legitimate markets that don’t require blood-oath marriages and outdated ceremonies.”
“And the girl?”
On the monitor, Violet emerges from the bathroom. Hair damp. Face washed. Still wearing the gray dress from last night.
“The girl is mine.”
“Then marry Gabriella and keep the American as a pet.” Cicero’s voice hardens. “This isn’t difficult, Elio. Men have had mistresses for centuries. The Rossis don’t care what you do behind closed doors, as long as the alliance is formalized.”
The thought of touching Gabriella Rossi—of her in my bed, her hands on my skin, her body where Violet’s should be—turns my stomach.
Wrong. It feels wrong.
“End this distraction,” Cicero continues, “or I end it for you.”
The line goes dead before I can respond.
I set the phone down. Stare at it for a long moment.
He’ll have to be dealt with. Soon.
But first, Violet.
She’s showered and dressed by the time I arrive with breakfast. The blue dress hangs in the wardrobe, I left it at the front specifically, knowing she’d see it first.
She’s not wearing it.
Instead, she’s in a cream sweater and dark trousers. Still my choices, but not the one I wanted. A small rebellion I let slip, for now.
“Good morning.”
She doesn’t flinch when I enter. Two weeks ago, she would have launched herself at me. Now she just watches, wary, calculating. Like she’s measuring distances and angles.
She’s learning.
Setting the tray on the small table, I take my usual chair. Closer than yesterday. Close enough that when she sits on the bed’s edge, our knees nearly touch.
It doesn’t go unnoticed. Violet tenses at the proximity, but doesn’t pull away.
“Coffee?”
She reaches for the cup herself, another small assertion of control which I let her have. Her fingers wrap around the porcelain, and I watch the way her knuckles flex, the calluses on her palms, the scar on her left hand I’ve memorized but never asked about.
“The bread is still warm.” I push the plate toward her, my arm brushing hers in the process.
She goes rigid at the contact, her breath catching, but she doesn’t move away.
Good girl.
Slowly I move away, leaning back in her chair as she picks up the bread and puts it in her mouth.
Watching her eat is my new favorite pastime, especially after what she put herself through in the first week here.
Every bite logged, every swallow noted. She’s still too thin for my liking, but the color is returning to her cheeks, her hands are steadier, and the trembling has stopped.
“What’s your favorite time of day in the cathedral?”
The question catches her off guard, making her eyes narrow in suspicion.
“Why?”
“Curiosity.”
She chews slowly, considering whether this is a trap. “Dawn,” she finally says. “When the light first hits the windows. The colors are... different. Softer.”
“Before the tourists arrive.”
“Before anyone arrives. Just me and hundreds of years of history.”
I store the information for later. I want to know these things, want to understand what she sees when she looks at broken things, what drives her to spend her life piecing together what others have abandoned.
“Did you always want to restore art?”
Another suspicious look. “Why the twenty questions?”
“Because you’re interesting.” It’s the unfiltered truth.
“I wanted to be an architect, but architects build new things, and I kept being drawn to the old ones. The broken ones.” A pause. “Someone has to fix what others let fall apart.”
Someone has to fix what others let fall apart.
The statement makes my throat close up. Thrown off balance, I stand. Before the moment can become something else. “Wear the blue dress today. For lunch.”
It’s not a question.
Her jaw sets, but her head dips in a nod before she catches herself. Color floods her cheeks. Fury at her own compliance.
“Brava, tesoro.”
Her mouth opens, to tell me to go to hell, probably. To assert some small scrap of autonomy.
I’m already at the door. “The blue one, Violet. Not the gray. I want to see you in blue.”
I close the door on her fury.
The library is filled with afternoon light when I find her.
She’s in the leather armchair by the window, legs curled beneath her, book open in her lap. Byzantine mosaics, a text I chose specifically, knowing she’d be unable to resist.
The blue dress fits exactly as I imagined, the soft fabric skimming her curves without clinging. The color brings out the gray-green of her eyes, and makes her auburn hair look like fire. She’s left it down today, and the urge to come over and sift it through my fingers is almost unbearable.
I walk slowly, deliberately. My footsteps silent on the thick carpet.
She doesn’t hear me approach, too absorbed in the book, lips slightly parted, brow furrowed in concentration. When she reaches a particularly interesting passage, she bites her bottom lip.
Just like I told her I noticed.
I stop behind her chair. Close enough to smell the shampoo in her hair.
“Enjoying yourself?”
She startles violently, a sharp gasp escaping her lips as the book tumbles from her grasp and falls to the floor with a soft thud that echoes too loudly in the quiet room.
We both reach for it at the same time