Her voice is rough. Raw from crying, from screaming, from whatever Giovanni reduced her to tonight.
"Tell me."
She shifts slightly. Not pulling away, just adjusting so she can breathe easier. Her face still against my chest, her hand still gripping my shirt.
"You're..." She pauses. Searching for words. "You're the one who puts me back together."
My chest tightens.
"Every morning," she continues, voice barely above a whisper. "After he... after Giovanni takes me apart. You rebuild me. Piece by piece. You teach me how to be what he needs. What he wants. You show me the rules, the positions, the protocol. You make me perfect for him."
Fuck.
"You're my guide," she says. "My teacher. The bridge between what I am and what I need to become. For Giovanni."
Everything she's saying is true. Technically. By the terms of our arrangement, by the role I agreed to play—she's right.
But hearing it laid out like that. Hearing her reduce herself to raw material that needs shaping, sculpting,fixingso she can be worthy of Giovanni fucking Bavga?—
It's wrong.
All of it is wrong.
"Emmaleen—"
"I know what you're going to say." Her fingers tighten on my skin. "And I don't want to hear it."
"You need to hear it."
"No." Firm. Resolute. "I don't."
I pull back slightly, just enough to see her face. Her eyes are open now—pale green reflecting the dim candlelight filtering through the doorway. Clear. Sharp. Not glazed with subspace or clouded with confusion.
She knows exactly what she's saying.
"I need to apologize," I tell her. "For Giovanni. For what he did tonight. That wasn't?—"
"Stop."
"Emmaleen—"
"I saidstop." She pushes up on one elbow, looking down at me. Her hair falls around her face in dark waves, messy and beautiful and completely at odds with everything that happened tonight. "Don't apologize for him. Don't you dare."
"He hurt you."
"I know." No hesitation. No shame. Just acknowledgment.
"He went too far."
"His game. His rules." She shrugs, wincing slightly as the movement pulls at welted skin. "All I have to do is follow them."
My jaw clenches. "That's not how this works."
"Isn't it?" She settles back down, but doesn't turn away. Stays propped on that elbow, watching me. "He sets the boundaries. I exist within them. That's the deal."
"The deal was supposed to include safety. Sanity. Mutual?—"
"I love him."