Chapter 23 Violet
VIOLET
My brain refuses to shut the fuck up.
He always comes back to me. No matter how many little distractions catch his eye.
He gets bored. Gabriella’s voice loops through my skull and won’t stop, won’t quiet, won’t let me have even five minutes of peace.
The smug satisfaction in her tone. The way she looked at me like I was temporary. Disposable.
Enjoy him while you can, troia.
I roll onto my side. Punch the pillow into a different shape. The moonlight cuts silver lines across the floor. Outside, the Mediterranean whispers against distant rocks.
I called him my monster. In my head, but still. A possessive pronoun, like I have any right to it. Claiming something I have no right to claim.
Like I haven’t been fighting it for weeks.
I think about the courtyard. About his fingers between my thighs. The way I came so hard while hating myself for how badly I wanted to. I think about the restaurant, the table, his tongue making me come apart while I told myself I’d never forgive him.
I think about today. Gabriella’s nails reaching for my face. Elio shielding me from her without hesitation. His thumb on my cheekbone.
Are you hurt?
The tenderness in his voice. The rage in his eyes when she called me nothing.
He’ll change his mind. He always does.
But he didn’t, did he? Twelve years of engagement, and he ended it with a text message. For me. The American trash he dragged in off the street.
I press my face into the pillow and groan.
What are you doing, Murphy?
The question echoes in the dark. Same question I’ve been asking myself since the first time my body betrayed me. Since I stopped wanting to escape and started wanting... him.
Stockholm syndrome, my brain whispers.
But that’s the thing.
I am thinking clearly. Maybe for the first time since I woke up in this gilded cage.
I wanted him before the fear became familiar. Before the captivity settled into routine. I wanted him in the café, before I knew what he was. Electricity passed between us over espresso and ricotta pastries, and I’ve been lying to myself about it ever since.
The fear didn’t create the want.
The fear just made me ashamed of it.
I sit up. Heart pounding for no reason. Or every reason.
No more games, I told him once. But I’ve been playing the biggest game of all. Saying no when I meant yes. Pushing him away while pulling him closer. Letting him touch me, taste me, make me come, and then hating myself for wanting more.
I’m tired. So fucking tired of fighting something that’s already won.
My feet hit the floor, the stone is cool under my bare soles. I’m wearing one of his silk nightgowns, cream-colored and thin, the kind of thing designed to be taken off. I should change. Should put on something that doesn’t make me feel naked.
I don’t.
The door glides open, and I step into the hallway.
A guard stands at the end of the corridor. Different from the ones who used to watch me like a prisoner. This one straightens when he sees me but doesn’t move to block my path.
“Where is he?” The question comes out steadier than I feel.
The guard studies me. His eyes move to the nightgown, back to my face. Whatever conclusion he reaches, he keeps it to himself. Then he turns and walks.
I follow.
We move through corridors I’ve never explored. Deeper into the fortress. The architecture changes as we go. Less ornate, more lived-in. His part of the house.
My pulse drums in my throat. Each step feels like a door is closing behind me. Like I’m walking toward something I can’t take back.
Last chance, Murphy. You can still turn around.
But my feet keep moving.
The guard stops in front of a heavy wooden door. Dark oak, carved with patterns I can’t make out in the dim light. He nods once toward the door, and then he’s gone. Footsteps retreating down the corridor until the silence swallows him whole.
Just me and the door.
Just me and him.
My hand lifts and hovers against the wood.
What if he’s asleep? What if he doesn’t want—
Since when has Elio Marchetti not wanted you?
I knock.
Three heartbeats. Four. The silence stretches so long I almost convince myself he’s not there, that I’ve made a mistake, that I should go back, that this was—
The door opens.
Elio.
Barefoot. Shirt unbuttoned, hanging loose over dark trousers. Hair disheveled like he’s been running his hands through it. His eyes widen for a beat before the mask slides back into place.
“Violet.” His voice is rough., sleep-edged. “What’s wrong? Are you—”
I push past him.
Into his room. His space. The one place he’s not shown me before.
The first thing I notice is the warmth. The stone floor under my feet isn’t cold like I expected, but heated somehow, ancient architecture married to modern comfort.
The walls are the same natural stone as the rest of the fortress, but softer here, more textured.
Floor-to-ceiling windows stretch across one wall, overlooking terraced gardens that spill down toward the glittering Mediterranean.
Moonlight floods the space.
The bed is low and wide. Dark linens. Minimal frame. Clean lines, nothing ornate. A stack of books on the nightstand—Italian, English, what looks like Latin. A single photograph in a simple frame, too far away to see clearly.
Personal. Private. Vulnerable.
This is where he sleeps. Where he dreams. The only space in this entire fortress that’s belongs only to him.
And I just invaded it.
I turn to face him just as the door clicks shut.
Elio hasn’t moved from the threshold, like I might be a miracle or a grenade and he hasn’t decided which.
“Violet.” Quieter now. “What are you doing here?”
The words stick in my throat. All the things I rehearsed in my head, all the speeches I constructed while staring at ceiling cracks, they’re gone.
I open my mouth and nothing comes out.
He takes a step toward me. Stops. Like he’s afraid of spooking me.
“Talk to me.” His voice is gentle. The same tone he used when I was starving. When he washed my hair and fed me from his hands. “Whatever it is, whatever you need—”
“I’m done.” The words finally break free. Too loud in the quiet room.
He goes still, his eyes wild with fear. “Done?”
“Done fighting.” My hands are shaking. I press them flat against my thighs to make them stop. “Done saying ‘no’ when I mean ‘yes’. Done pretending I don’t want—”
I can’t finish. Can’t say the words while he’s looking at me like that.
“Violet.” He takes another step. Close enough now that I can smell the citrus and wood I’ve come to crave. Clean. Real. Him. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I want this.” The truth rips out of me, raw and terrifying. “I want you. And I need you to know it’s not because I’m scared, or broken, or confused.”
His breath catches.
“It’s because of you.” My voice cracks. I don’t care. “Because you’re a monster, and I know you’re a monster, and I want you anyway. Because when Gabriella stood there telling me she’d had you, all I could think was—” I laugh, hollow and a little desperate. “How dare she touch what’s mine.”
His face cracks. Behind his eyes, something gives.
“You can’t mean that.”
“I do.”
“Violet—” He shakes his head and takes a step back, like he’s the one who needs distance now. “You don’t know what you’re saying. What you’re offering. I’m not—I’m not capable of—”
“Bullshit.” I close the distance he created. Stand right in front of him, close enough to see the pulse jumping in his throat. “You don’t get to decide what I want. You don’t get to tell me I’m confused or scared or making a mistake.”
“I kidnapped you.”
“I know.”
“I kept you prisoner. Drugged you. Forced you to—”
“I know.” My hand lifts before I can stop it. Presses flat against his chest. His heart pounds beneath my palm, fast and frantic. Not the steady predator rhythm I expected. “And I’m still choosing this. Choosing you.”
His eyes close. His whole body trembles.
“Why?” The word comes out broken. “After everything I’ve done, why would you—”
“Because you make me feel safe.” The admission burns coming out.
“Because whenever there’s a threat, you put yourself in front of it to protect me.
Because you broke a twelve-year engagement with a text message when you thought I was comparing you to other men.
” My fingers curl into his shirt. “Because you’re the only person in this entire fucked-up world who looks at me and sees me. The real me.”
His hand comes up. Covers mine. Pressing my palm harder against his heart.
“You matter.” His voice is wrecked. “More than anything. More than the empire. More than—”
“Then stop asking if I’m sure.” I step closer, chest to chest, and look up at him in the moonlight. “Stop trying to protect me from my own decisions. I’m choosing this, Elio. I’m choosing you.”
He searches my face. Looking for doubt, for hesitation, for any crack in my certainty.
He won’t find one.
“Say it again.” He whispers. Almost begging.
“I’m choosing you.”
His face breaks open. Relief. Disbelief. Terror. Hope. All of it at once. His hands frame my face. Trembling. Gentle. Not taking. Asking.
“If you change your mind—” His thumbs stroke my cheekbones. “—at any point, for any reason—”
“Elio.”
“—just tell me. Just say the word and I’ll stop, I’ll back away, I’ll—”
“Elio.” I grab his wrists. Hold him still. “Kiss me.”
He does.
It’s nothing like before.
Not demanding. Not taking. Not the predatory conquest of a man who owns what he touches.
He cups my face in both hands and just looks at me for a moment, his thumb tracing my cheekbone the way it did in the courtyard, like he’s checking I’m real. Like he’s been waiting long enough that he needs a second to believe it.
His lips brush mine like a question, like he’s asking permission even now, even after everything I’ve said.
I answer by pressing closer, and I feel him exhale against my mouth, slow and unsteady, like something releasing that’s been held too long.
My fingers slide into his hair. His hands drop to my waist, drawing me against him, and his grip tightens by degrees, careful and then less careful, his breath going ragged against my mouth.
“Violet.” His voice sounds broken.
“Stop talking.” I kiss him deeper. “Just—”
His mouth swallows the rest.
The kiss opens, his tongue sliding against mine, and heat moves through me in a slow wave that settles low and insistent. My back meets the stone wall, warm, heated like the floor, and his body presses against mine, solid and real and here.
His hands don’t grab. They explore. Sliding up my sides, skimming the silk of my nightgown, learning the shape of me like he has all the time in the world. Like I’m precious. Breakable. Something worth being careful with.
My throat tightens with it. I didn’t know being touched like this was something I was missing until right now, until his hands moved over me like I mattered.
“Are you—” He pulls back. Just enough to meet my eyes. “Violet, I need you to tell me—”
“I swear to God, if you ask me one more time—”
“I have to.” His forehead drops to mine. “I need to hear it. Need to know this is real, that you’re not going to wake up tomorrow and hate me for—”
“I might hate you tomorrow.” The truth. The complicated, terrible truth. “I might hate you for the rest of my life for what you did. But I’ll still want you. Those two things don’t cancel each other out.”
His breath catches. A sound escapes him, half-laugh, half-sob.
“You’re a monster, Elio Marchetti.” I cup his face in my hands. Force him to look at me. “But you’re my monster. And I’m choosing you anyway.”
His whole body shudders. His eyes squeeze shut. When they open again, they’re wet.
“Say that again.”
“I’m choosing—” I kiss the corner of his mouth. “—you.”
He makes a sound I’ve never heard from him before. Something primal and broken and grateful. Then his arms wrap around me, crushing, desperate, like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he lets go.
“I’m yours.” The words are muffled against my hair. “Whatever you want. However you want me. I’m yours.”