Chapter 47 Savannah
Savannah
Isay it, and it doesn’t kill me.
“I’m choosing me.”
The words leave my mouth and the air doesn’t crack open. There is no gunshot, no slap, no punishment. Silence fills the room. They are all trying to decide how to handle a woman who just refused.
Gabriel’s hand closes around mine, and we walk away from Cassio like walking away is allowed. My legs feel weak the second we turn our backs, like my bones forgot how to hold me. My skin feels too tight, like my body is trying to crawl out of itself and hide somewhere small.
But I am walking. I am still walking.
The hallway swallows us, quieter and darker. Still not soft. Nothing in this compound is soft. But it is quieter, and that is enough for one breath.
Gabriel guides me into a smaller room near the back, away from windows, away from men, away from Cassio’s eyes. It is a sitting room with thick curtains, one lamp, no mirrors, and a couch that looks like it has held people while they made decisions that ruined other people’s lives.
Gabriel shuts the door behind us. Not locking me in, just closing the noise out. The latch clicks, and my shoulders jump like the sound is a trigger. He notices instantly. He doesn’t tell me to calm down. He just slows his own breath, like he is lending mine back to me.
He turns to me and scans my face. “How’s your body,” he asks softly.
My throat tightens. I swallow. “My body wants to throw up,” I whisper.
He nods once. “Normal,” he says.
I hate that normal includes this.
I clutch my diary tighter. My hands are shaking again. “He tried to take it,” I whisper.
“I know.”
My voice cracks. “Cassio tried to take my words like they’re property.”
Gabriel steps closer and places his hands on my shoulders. My breath shudders out like my ribs finally remembered how to move.
“You did good,” he says.
I swallow hard. “I feel like I started a war.”
Gabriel’s eyes harden. “You only told the truth,” he says. “We were already at war.”
I press my pendant. Cold metal bites my thumb. “What if Cassio punishes me,” I whisper.
Gabriel’s voice turns into steel wrapped in velvet. “He can’t.”
I blink fast. I want to believe him, and I am terrified to. Because believing him means my brother doesn’t get to control me anymore. My body still acts like Cassio is the one in charge.
I inhale too fast. “They want me at church,” I whisper.
Gabriel’s gaze sharpens. “They want people watching.”
My stomach turns. “And they want my diary.”
“Yes.”
I swallow. “Do they think my diary is proof?” My voice shakes on the last word.
Gabriel holds my eyes. “Yes. Proof you saw the photo. Proof you broke. Proof they can still reach you.”
My chest tightens. “I hate that my fear has value.”
Gabriel squeezes my shoulders once, a reminder that I am in a room, not a memory. “Your fear kept you alive,” he says. “They do not get to profit off it.”
I stare at him, eyes stinging. “Then what do we do,” I whisper.
He answers carefully. “We use what they want without giving them you.”
“How,” I whisper.
“You’re not going to church,” he repeats. “But they’ll believe you are.”
My stomach flips. “That sounds impossible.”
“It’s not,” he says. “It’s logistics.”
Logistics. A word that makes violence sound like math.
I swallow, and my mouth says the thing my brain is afraid of. “Like a body double.”
Gabriel doesn’t blink. “Like a decoy,” he confirms.
My chest tightens. My voice snaps out before I can soften it. “No.”
It is not polite. It is not pretty.
Gabriel’s hands slide off my shoulders immediately. He steps back half a pace. He doesn’t argue. He asks the real question.
“Tell me what no means,” he says quietly.
I breathe too fast. “No means I do not want my life used for someone else’s plan,” I whisper. “No means I do not want someone pretending to understand what I have lived through.”
His gaze stays steady. “I hear you.”
My throat burns. “And no means I do not want another woman to get hurt because of me.”
He nods slowly. “That’s fair.”
My hands shake around my diary. “So what now,” I whisper.
Gabriel’s eyes narrow slightly as he thinks, then he says it plain. “We do not use a woman.”
My breath catches.
He keeps his voice low. “We use the fact that I’m there,” he says. “And we use what they think is going to happen.”
“What do they think is going to happen?” I whisper.
“They think I’ll force you to go,” he says. “They think fear will make you give in.”
My stomach twists. The bait message.
“So they think I’ll be docile,” I whisper.
“Yes,” he says. “Which means they’ll come closer. Greedy men get sloppy.”
I swallow. “But they asked for my diary.”
“And they’ll get a diary,” he says.
My stomach drops like an elevator. My hands clamp. “Not mine,” I whisper.
His eyes hold mine. “Not yours. A copy.”
Copy. My skin still crawls, like even the word opens me up.
He sees it. “Not your real pages,” he adds. “Not your handwriting. Not your voice. A script. Something they can chew on.”
“A fake,” I whisper.
“Yes.”
My eyes sting. “That still feels like they’re watching me too closely.”
He steps closer again, but stops before he touches me. “They are not reading you,” he says carefully. “They are seeing what we want them to see.”
I swallow hard. “What do you want them to see?”
His eyes turn cold. “That you’re falling apart. That I’m distracted.”
“And then?” I whisper, because my body already knows there is always more.
“And then Sergei shows up,” Gabriel says. “To verify. To collect proof. To report back.”
My skin goes cold. “Then what.”
His voice stays quiet. “Then we take him.”
Take him. My stomach turns with nausea.
“Are you going to kill him,” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer fast. He watches me like he is measuring what I can take. Then he gives me the truth.
“If he resists,” he says, “yes.”
My throat tightens. “I do not want you to become a monster because of me.”
Gabriel’s gaze sharpens. “I was a monster long before you,” he says. “With everyone else.”
His voice lowers, softer without being sweet. “With you, I choose control.”
The words hit me hard, but they also make me feel safe.
I press my pendant again. “Cassio is going to interfere.”
“Cassio will try,” he says. “Because he hates not being in charge of your safety.”
“He thinks he owns my safety,” I whisper.
“Yes,” Gabriel says simply.
I look down at my diary. My hands stop shaking for one second.I remember Cassio’s face when I said no. Shock. Anger. Pain. Like I hurt him. But he hurt me first. With his words. With his shame. With the way he made me feel damaged.
“I don’t want him to die,” I whisper.
Gabriel’s gaze holds mine. “I don’t want you to carry that,” he replies.
My chest tightens. “Then stop talking about killing,” I whisper.
Gabriel’s jaw flexes. He doesn’t argue. He doesn’t get offended. He adjusts.
“Okay,” he says. “Then we talk about ends.”
“The end is Sergei in our hands,” he says. “Romano exposed. Mikhail blind.”
My stomach flips. “How do you blind Mikhail.”
Gabriel’s eyes go cold. “We take his daughter,” he says.
The sentence hits like a gunshot. My breath catches. My fingers clamp around the diary.
“What.”
“Mikhail has a daughter,” Gabriel says. “A princess. She moves with security. She’s valuable.”
The meaning is clear even without him saying more.
My skin goes colder. “A captive,” I whisper.
“A bargaining chip,” he corrects. “The same kind men tried to make you.”
My throat tightens hard. “That’s what they did to me.”
“Yes,” he says.
“So you want to do it back.”
“I want to end the war,” Gabriel says. “And Mikhail only understands pain that touches his blood.”
My breath shakes. “That girl didn’t hurt me.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrow, steady. “She will be treated correctly,” he says. “Safe. Fed. Guarded. Prisoner, nothing else.”
Nothing else. My stomach still turns, because I have heard men say nothing else and then do everything.
“How do you know your men won’t,” I start.
“They won’t,” he snaps, too sharp.
I flinch. He sees it immediately. His whole face changes.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I’m not angry at you.”
I swallow. “I’m scared,” I whisper.
“I know,” he says.
The words jam in my throat because my body is screaming that could be me. The year. The file. The photo. The window.
Gabriel steps closer. “Look at me,” he says gently.
I do.
“You are not her,” he says. “And she is not you.”
My throat tightens.
“You were a child,” he continues. “Her father is using her. We stop that. We do not hurt the girl.”
My breath shakes. “I do not know if I can live in a world where women are treated like this.”
Gabriel holds my eyes. “You already live in that world,” he says quietly. “You’re just refusing to let it happen to you again.”
The words land hard because they are true.
I swallow. My hands tighten around my diary again. “What do you need from me,” I whisper.
His expression turns careful again. “Nothing you do not choose.”
I nod once. My throat burns. “I chose bait,” I whisper.
“Yes,” he says. “So I need one thing.”
“What.”
He points to my diary. “I need a lie,” he says. “Short. Written in a different hand.”
My stomach flips. “A lie about me breaking.”
“Yes,” he says. “A lie that makes Sergei greedy.”
I stare at my diary like it is a heart on paper. Then I do something I hate.
I set it down, closed, not opened, never opened for them.
I pull a blank notepad from a drawer, plain paper, house stationery. I pick up a pen. My hand shakes. Gabriel stays behind me. I force my breathing to slow.
Then I write a sentence that tastes like poison.
I saw it. I cannot stop seeing it. I cannot breathe. I do not know how to be his wife.
My eyes blur.
Gabriel’s voice behind me is low. “That’s enough.”
I set the pen down like it burned me. My throat tightens.
“Is that what you want them to believe,” I whisper.
“No,” he says softly. “It’s what they want to believe.”
I close my eyes for one beat, then I pick up my real diary again and press it to my chest.
Mine. Safe. Still mine.
Gabriel takes the notepad page carefully like it is evidence, folds it once, and tucks it into his inner jacket pocket.
His phone buzzes once, then twice. Luca’s voice comes through the door, tight.
“Jefe. Cassio is mobilizing. He’s calling a sit-down at the church.”
My stomach drops.
Church. Noon. Stage.
Gabriel looks straight at me, and I know this just got worse.
* * *
Dear Diary,
It was fake.
All fake.
I saw it.
And I cannot stop seeing it.
I cannot breathe.
I do not know how to be his wife.
But the worst part is the question that will not die.
Was it really.