Page 63 of Psychotic Faith
Faith's expression shifts, something flickering in those empty eyes. Anger, finally. "Your protection is a cage, Luca."
"Then be caged." I step closer, and this time Dante does move between us, one hand raised in warning. "Be caged and alive. I don't care if you hate me for it."
"You don't get to make that choice for me."
"Watch me."
Faith walks toward the door, each step deliberate. "I'm doing this with or without Rosetti help. Choose."
She pauses at the threshold, not looking back. "I've waited twelve years. I won't wait anymore because you've decided I'm too precious to risk."
The door closes with finality that sounds like a death knell.
I stand in the destroyed dining room, chair overturned, wine spreading like blood across the table, my family watching me like I'm a bomb about to detonate.
"Luca," Marco starts, but I'm already calculating: every way to track her, every way to stop this, every way to keep her away from Neumann even if she hates me for it.
"You don't understand," I tell them, hands shaking. "He won't just kill her. He'll make her suffer first. Like her mother. And I'll have to live with knowing I could have stopped it."
"Your protection is suffocating her," Sofia says again, carefully. "You're proving her point."
"I don't care." My voice is raw, honest. "I'd rather she hate me and live than love me and die."
Marco's expression hardens. "And if we don't help, she'll do it alone. Which outcome do you prefer?"
The room tilts. Exhaustion crashes over me, five days of no sleep finally catching up. My legs threaten to give out.
"Twenty-four hours," I manage, voice scraping like broken glass. "She has twenty-four hours to change her mind before I handle this my way."
"What does that mean?" Nico asks, but I'm already walking out, following her scent trail.
"It means I'll lock her in my room before I let her walk into Neumann's trap." The words come out raw, desperate. "And if any of you help her do this, you'll have to go through me first."
I don't wait for their response. My legs move on instinct, following her through the mansion. Five days of dying without her, and she's walking toward death like she's already accepted it.
Not on my watch. Not fucking ever.
The thought of Neumann's hands on her makes my vision red. The thought of her willingly walking into danger makes me want to chain her somewhere only I have the key.
She thinks I'm suffocating her now? She has no idea what real possession looks like.
But she's about to learn.
Twenty-four hours to make her understand she belongs to me, not revenge. Twenty-four hours before I take choice out of the equation entirely.
The front door is closing when I reach it. Her taillights disappear down the drive, red bleeding into darkness.
My hands shake, but not from withdrawal anymore. From anticipation. From desperation.
She thinks she's choosing revenge over safety.
She's wrong.
And I'm done asking permission.
24 - Faith
The wire cuts into the tender skin between my breasts where Luca’s teeth left marks nearly a week ago. Cold metal replacing warm mouth, surveillance replacing possession. My hands shake as I tape it in place, not from fear of Neumann but from the wrongness of preparing to be bait.
