Something feral simmers behind that quiet.“The driver will take you home.Put ice on your cheek.Luc will meet you there soon,” he says evenly.
“Wait, what about you?”I ask, my voice small.“Aren’t you coming too?”
He leans in, presses a kiss to my forehead like it’s a goodbye.“I have business to finish.I won’t be long.”
A pit opens in my stomach.“Damiano…” My voice cracks.“Please don’t hurt them.Don’t hurt Chiara.She had nothing to do with this.”
He doesn’t answer and closes the door.Then he’s gone.As the car pulls away, I twist in my seat, watching him ascend the stairs like a dark, vengeful angel on a mission.
* * * *
I’ve been sitting in the bathtub so long the water’s gone cold, but I don’t move.My arms are wrapped tightly around my legs, my forehead pressed to my knees, and I just…breathe.
In.Out.In.
I don’t even notice the tears until they drip silently onto my skin, joining the water lapping against my body.
It’s like something inside me has cracked open, and everything I’ve ever buried is pouring out, violent, suffocating, endless.I’ve always been good at locking things away, at tucking my pain into corners and sealing them shut.But now the dam is broken.There is no more room to hold it all in.
Father’s slap plays on a loop behind my eyelids, but it’s not only the sting of today—it’s every word he’s ever thrown at me like a weapon.Every time he made me feel small.Unwanted.A burden.All the years of being looked through instead of looked at.A lifetime pretending it didn’t matter.
The guilt for leaving Chiara there, not being strong enough to save her, gnaws at me, suffocating me.The guilt of failing Mom.The guilt of failing myself and my dreams.
I’m sinking, my body shaking, my breath ragged, and it hits me all at once.I don’t know who I am anymore.I’m not that girl who had a future, a dream, a purpose anymore.The one who dreamt of a quiet clinic somewhere in the city, a few rescued animals, maybe a life built slowly, gently, with love.I used to believe in that.Now I’m a ghost of her, watching a stranger live out something I never asked for.
Then I hear him.
Soft footsteps.The rustle of fabric.And suddenly that familiar scent, citrus, cedarwood, something dark beneath it, wraps around me like a memory I never agreed to keep.Water shifts.A sponge gently glides across my back, slow and tender, and I know without turning that it’s Damiano.He’s washing me with a kind of reverence I don’t understand, like I’m something fragile, something to be mended.
But I don’t want to be handled like glass.I want to scream.To fight.To feel again.
Yet all I can do is cry, silently, brokenly.The sobs come from somewhere deep, where the hurt has lived for too long.My shoulders tremble.I curl my hands into fists, as if I can hold together what little is left of me.His hand stays on my back, rubbing slow, steady circles.A gesture meant to comfort, but it only deepens the ache.
Damiano.
I don’t know what he’s doing to me.He has torn down every wall I’ve ever built, swept into my life like a storm that doesn’t ask permission.He doesn’t see it, but he has taken my choices, my direction, my freedom.Piece by piece.And now I am floating in the wreckage.
By the time he lifts me from the tub, my skin is cold and my spirit is raw.He wraps me in a thick towel and carries me to the bed, cradling me like I am made of something rare and fragile.I shatter anyway.I curl against his chest, fists tucked under my chin, and sob harder than I ever have.Not out of fear but from sheer, aching despair.
“I didn’t want this,” I whisper, my voice cracked and hoarse.“I didn’t want this life… I wanted my own life.A simple one.My clinic.A family.Dogs.Laughter.A life that isn’t…this.”
His breath catches.He says nothing, but his grip slightly tightens around me, like he is afraid I’ll slip through his fingers if he lets go.And maybe I will.
Because now he knows.This life he is building around me like a gilded cage?I never asked for it.I don’t want it.
Eventually, my sobs quiet, reduced to shallow breaths and the occasional tremble.I feel drained, hollowed out by everything I’ve lost, everything I’ve buried, everything I never got to choose.My eyes are swollen and heavy, and I’m too tired to hold them open.Damiano lifts me like I weigh nothing, then gently lowers me onto the bed and tucks the covers around me with a tenderness that makes my throat ache.He doesn’t say a word, but his hands linger, like he’s not ready to let go.
And maybe that’s what breaks me the most.Because I know he means it in his own way.His possessiveness, his protection…they come from something real.Something fierce and raw.And God help me, I care about him.I wish I didn’t, but I do.I’ve seen glimpses of the man beneath the monster, the pieces of him that feel like safety, like firelight in a storm.
But none of that changes the truth.
This life—his life—isn’t the one I wanted.It’s not the future I dreamed of when I was clinging to hope in a childhood full of shadows.I didn’t ask for this story.And loving him…even a little…doesn’t make it mine.
As sleep pulls me under, I hold onto a single aching truth.He may think he owns me.But I am not his to keep.
And it hurts so much more, because part of me still wants to be.
Chapter Twenty-Six
