Page 36 of The Assassin's Captive
"Isn't it?" I throw the folder at his chest, papers scattering across the floor. Surveillance photos flutter like deadly confetti around his feet. "You're a killer, Lorenzo. And I'm an idiot for thinking you might be anything else."
I move toward the door, needing distance, needing air, needing anything except the suffocating weight of his presence. But his hand closes around my wrist before I can escape.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Away from you." I try to pull free, but his grip is iron. "Away from this—away from whatever game you and Costa are playing."
"There is noaway." His voice is flat, matter-of-fact. "You're no longer just a legal threat—you're a liability no one knows how to handle. Until Emilio decides what to do about you, you're not going anywhere."
The words claw across my heart, leaving wounds I don't know if I can heal from. Because they confirm what I have been trying not to believe. I am being kept in reserve until someone decides whether I am more valuable alive or dead… And Lorenzo knows it, and he keeps fucking with me… keeps fucking me.
"Let go of me." Tears burn my eyes, but I refuse to cry in front of him. I'm a fool, an idiot, and maybe a whore. Sleeping with him to soften him up? What a fucking joke. He's a monster. Heprobably drinks the blood of virgins for breakfast and calls it a day.
"Serena—"
"Let go of me," I hiss again, and he releases my wrist but doesn't step back. We stand facing each other in the wreckage of my illusions, truth scattered across the floor between us. My birth certificate lies face-up near his feet, Emilio Costa's name clearly visible. My birth mother knew this but the adoption agency refused to reveal it—they had to have or my adoptive parents wouldn't have wanted me.
The hot rage builds in my chest until I feel like I might become a murderer. For days I've been helpless, trapped, dependent on his mercy. But this—this betrayal, this violation of everything I thought I understood about my life—this I can fight.
My palm connects against his cheek before I realize I'm moving. The sound echoes through the room. His head barely moves from the impact, but red blooms across his skin immediately. A perfect handprint marking him as mine.
He does not flinch, does not retaliate. He simply stands there watching me as though he expected this. As though he has been waiting for me to finally see him clearly.
"Feel better?" he asks quietly.
"No."
I push past him, shoving against his chest when he doesn’t move quickly enough. He lets me go this time, stepping aside as I stalk toward the door. My heart pounds against my ribs, adrenaline and fury making my hands shake.
"This doesn't change anything," he calls after me.
I stop at the threshold, turn back to look at him one final time. He stands surrounded by the evidence of his surveillance, my handprint still burning red against his cheek. For a moment I think I see regret in his eyes. Pain. But it disappears so quickly, I might have imagined it.
"You're right," I say. "It doesn't change anything. Because nothing was real to begin with."
I walk away before he can respond, leaving him alone among the scattered photographs and broken illusions. I pass by Victor Costa, whose face is drawn in anger much like the expression on Lorenzo's face, and my bare feet carry me up the stairs, past the guest room where I should've been sleeping, straight to the master bedroom where I can still smell him on the sheets.
I close the door and sink to the floor, my back against the solid wood. The rage is already fading, leaving behind something worse. Something that feels dangerously close to grief.
Because for a few hours, I allowed myself to believe that the man who held me last night might be different from the killer who took those photographs. That the tenderness in his touch might be real rather than calculated.
But Lorenzo Santoro is exactly what he has always been. A predator. A weapon. A man who follows orders without question or conscience.
And I am exactly what he said I am. A liability. A problem to be solved when convenient.
The birth certificate might name Emilio Costa as my father, but that changes nothing fundamental about my situation. I’m still trapped. Still alone. Still completely at the mercy of men who see me as an asset rather than a person.
The only difference now is that I no longer have any illusions about my captor. About what he is capable of. About how little my life means to him.
I hear Victor's low voice questioning my captor, but Lorenzo's response is too quiet to make out. Still, I can hear the edge in his tone. They're discussing me. Planning. Making decisions about my future as though I have no say in the matter.
I pull my knees to my chest and close my eyes, trying to block out the sound of their voices. Trying to forget the way Lorenzo'shands felt against my skin. Trying to pretend that somewhere in this nightmare, there might still be a way out.
But the undeniable truth sits between us now.
He is the Sin Eater. And I am just another transgression to be consumed.
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