"If you don't like it, slave, you’re free to leave."
Slave.
"Get up and go. I don't care either way. But if you stay, I'll treat you like every other slave I've had down here."
Every other slave? It's bad enough he's given me that title, it's humiliating. But to then elaborate with the fact I am far from the first woman he's subjugated this way… it's cruel. Just fucking cruel.
You mean nothing to me, that’s what he's really saying. How many others have sat at this exact desk, naked and shaking, writing confessions for his entertainment?
Is he worth it?
The question materializes in my brain without permission, stark and devastating in its simplicity. Is Giovanni Bavga—mobster, murderer, psychological terrorist—worth whatever piece of my soul this is going to cost?
Why am I doing this?
Why this man?
I don't know. I genuinely don't know, and that terrifies me more than the crop, or the demerits, or the fact that I'm currently sitting naked in a basement about to write pornographic diary entries for an audience of one.
I've always made bad choices when it comes to men. My ex wasn't my first mistake—just my most recent and most violent. Before him, there was Marcus, who convinced me to drop my advanced literature seminars because they made him feel intellectually inadequate. Before Marcus, there was Alex, who had a temper and hands that moved too fast when he'd been drinking.
There's a pattern here, and I'm apparently too stupid or too damaged to break it.
But if I don't figure out why I'm so attracted to dangerous men—why I keep gravitating toward the ones who view my destruction as entertainment—I'll never break the cycle. I'll keep bouncing from one psychological terrorist to the next until someone finally kills me or I kill myself trying to escape.
Maybe that's what this is. Maybe this is my chance to understand the broken thing inside me that keeps choosing violence over safety, chaos over peace.
The notebook waits in front of me, blank pages hungry for confession.
I realize, with crystalline clarity, exactly how fucked up this game really is. Surrender my body to Master by day—a man I don't know, don't want, don't trust. Then surrender my mind to Giovanni by night—the one whose touch I crave but can never have.
Clever.
Fucking diabolical, but clever.
The game shifts in my mind. The Jenga tower of self-destructive behavior topples in my head, blocks scattering everywhere, no longer stacked neatly for Giovanni to prod and dismantle at will.
They’re mine—my scraps, my wreckage.
What I choose to rebuild from them is mine too.
I open the notebook and start writing.
9
I watch Emmaleen from behind, tracking the minute adjustments in her posture. She slouches, barely maintaining the appearance of discipline. Her muscles must be screaming after eleven hours in Jino's care. The clock on the wall ticks past seven.
The day isn't over yet.
She writes in the journal with careful precision, as if each word might detonate if misplaced. Every few sentences, her head drifts upward, searching the ceiling for inspiration—or perhaps for mercy.
There's something methodical in how she approaches this task.
The Word Collector, doing what she does best.
My cock has been hard most of the day—begging me to fuck her or jerk off to climax. It's distracting but manageable. Unlike lesser men, I can compartmentalize desire. It's a background process, not the main function.
What interests me right now is what she's writing—how much of herself she'll surrender without physical coercion. The mental surrender is always more telling than the physical.