Laurel P.O.V
The door opened long after the day had bled itself dry.
I had lost count of the hours, of how many times I'd stared at the same wall, how many times I'd imagined footsteps that never came. The room had become a cage dressed in luxury. Soft sheets. Heavy curtains. Silence that pressed into my skull.
Then he came when it was sundown.
Richardo didn't look at me immediately.
That alone was unsettling.
He crossed the room with calm, unhurried steps and poured himself a glass of water from the table near the window. The sound of liquid filling the glass echoed far too loudly. He drank slowly like he had all the time in the world.
Like I didn't exist.
When he finally turned, his gaze landed on me with deliberate weight, slow, assessing, unreadable. My wrists still ached from the cuffs. My pride ached more.
He walked toward me and without a word, he unlocked the handcuff.
The sudden freedom startled me more than the captivity had.
Before I could step back, his hand slid firmly around my waist and pulled me close. Roughly. Not gentle. Possessive. As if space between us was something he refused to allow.
His eyes searched mine,too closely, too deeply like he was deciding which version of me he wanted to break first.
I tried to push him away.
"Don't—"
He leaned in, his breath brushing my neck, quick and deliberate. He inhaled like my presence itself was something he intended to claim.
It sent a shiver straight through me and I hated that my body reacted before my mind could stop it.
I turned my face away.
"I want—" My voice wavered. "I want you to kiss me"
For a moment, I thought he might laugh.
Instead, his grip tightened just enough to remind me who held control—not with strength alone, but with certainty. He tilted my chin upward, forcing my gaze back to his.
"Then don't try to stop me" He murmured.
And yet,he closed the distance even more anyway.
The kiss wasn't gentle.
It wasn't played badly either.
It was rough, deliberate. Claiming. Like he was testing the edges of my resistance, not trying to shatter it all at once. I stiffened at first, my hands pressing uselessly against his chest, my mind screaming no even as my breath betrayed me.
I should have pulled away harder.
I couldn't play my role as i planned earlier.
I didn't.
The conflict burned inside me—fear clashing with something dangerously close to surrender. I hated how my pulse raced. Hated how my thoughts blurred. Hated how his presence swallowed every other sensation in the room.
He shifted me backwards until the edge of the bed met the backs of my knees. I almost fell,but I allowed myself to sit and that truth frightened me more than anything he had done.
His forehead rested against mine, breath heavy, controlled.
"Satisfy me" He said quietly,not as a plea, but as a test.
That snapped something in me.
I pulled back, finally breaking the contact, my chest rising and falling as if I'd been running.
"Never" I said.
But my voice betrayed me.
It wasn't angry enough.
It wasn't steady enough.
And the worst part?
I knew he heard it too.
A faint curve touched his lips—not amusement, not victory—but something far more dangerous.
Understanding.
He straightened, releasing me as easily as he had taken hold like proving he never needed force to begin with.
"You lie" He said calmly. "But not to me"
I looked away, ashamed—not of him, but of myself. Of the traitorous warmth lingering where fear should have lived alone. Of how close I'd come to losing the part of me that still believed escape was possible.
Richardo stepped back, already reclaiming his distance, his control suddenly became intact.
"Rest" He said. "You'll need your strength"
The door closed behind him with finality.
And I sat there, shaking,not because he had touched me…
…but because a part of me had responded.
And that terrified me more than any threat ever could.
---
THE NEXT DAY
I escaped at dawn.
Not because the guards were careless—no, Richardo never employed careless men—but because the house itself breathed arrogance.
The house was still asleep or pretending to be.In a place like Richardo's,silence never meant safety; it meant eyes were open somewhere i couldn't see.
I moved barefoot through corridors lined with cold marble, my breath shallow, my heartbeat was like a drum pounding fear into my ribs. The mansion slept, but it didn't rest. Cameras blinked like half-open eyes. I knew this place was a spiderweb and I was slipping through its narrowest thread.
When I finally reached the servants' exit, the morning fog swallowed me whole.
I didn't look back.
I ran until my lungs burned and my wounded leg screamed in protest. Pain followed me like a shadow, but fear pushed me faster. Richardo Alterdo was not a man you escaped twice. Men like him did not lose possessions. They reclaimed them or destroyed them.
By noon, I was in a town that didn't even exist on most maps. A forgotten place with peeling signs and tired streets. I chose the smallest hotel I could find,a place too insignificant to matter.
That was my mistake.
The room smelled of old detergent and silence. I locked the door, slid down against it and pressed my forehead to my knees. Poland. I would fly to Poland by midnight. Disappear into a country where names blurred and faces meant nothing. Richardo had power, but even power had limits.
Or so I wanted to believe.
I stepped into the lobby hours later to buy water.
And that's when I felt it.
That sensation—the one you get when the air tightens, when instinct screams before logic can speak.
I looked up and found Abigail standing by the reception desk like she had always belonged there. Same tomboy stance.Same unreadable eyes. Same stillness that meant violence lived comfortably inside her.
My blood ran cold.
No.
Not here.
Not now.
I turned slowly,pretending i hadn't noticed her,heading for the exit.My legs throbbed with every step.Pain was my only companion.
But two security guards stepped into my path with unnatural precision. Not hotel staff. Not locals.
Her men.
I froze.
How?
I turned back slowly,my pulse screaming.
Abigail's eyes finally met mine.There was no triumph in the. No anger either. Just something colder.
"How did you—" My voice broke as I spun back toward her. "Why are you everywhere?"
She didn't answer.
She gestured sharply and the guards forced me down onto a chair. I tried to resist, but pain flared up my leg, white and blinding.
Abigail crouched in front of me without a word.
Then she grabbed my injured leg.
I screamed.
The pain was immediate, vicious. It felt like fire splitting bone. I tried to pull away, but her grip was iron.
One of the guards handed her an ointment.
She applied it without gentleness.
"Stop!" I cried. "You're hurting me!"
She didn't slow. Didn't soften. Her movements were precise, almost mechanical as if she had been ordered to do this against her will.
When she wrapped the bandage, she pulled it tight. Too tight. My vision swam.
When she finished, she let go abruptly.
I staggered up, limping away from her, my pride shredded worse than my body.
Then she finally spoke.
"Don't you find it suspicious" She said quietly, "that you're still alive?"
I stopped.
"You're the only one" She continued, standing now with her eyes sharp, "the only victim Richardo has ever spared. He doesn't forgive. He doesn't hesitate. And he never shows mercy"
Her words sank into me like poison.
I walked away anyway.
But her voice followed me.
"He found me twice. He could've ended me twice" I muttered to myself while I pushed through the hotel doors the moment her guards shifted position. I didn't stop running until my chest felt like it would tear open.
She was right.
I remembered Richardo's eyes the night before—not rage. Not hunger for blood.
Something else.
Something terrifying.
Regret clawed at me. I had planned to manipulate him. To survive by making him fall. But fear had beaten strategy. And now survival meant distance.
I left Italy by noon.
But here's the truth I didn't want to face as the plane lifted into the sky—
Men like Richardo Alterdo didn't need borders.
Connections stitched the world together for him. Airports. Hotels. Governments. Names changed nothing. Distance meant nothing.
And as my flight descended into Poland under a moonless sky, one thought refused to leave me:
You don't escape a man who has already marked you.
Not alive.