Bound (The Devil’s Vow #2)

23. The Cage Door

Chapter twenty-three

The Cage Door

I rose from the floor slowly.

My legs trembled beneath me, and every step felt heavy, like wading through the twisted mess of emotions that clouded my mind.

Gianni’s revelations played in my head—each one worse than the last—a parade of demented confessions that made me recoil.

First, I was repulsed.

Then, tons of cold knots of fear tightened inside me.

But in the end. . .something else stirred, and my heart raced, but not in terror.

No, it was something else entirely.

Gianni was a beast—a monster—there was no question about that.

The things he had done.

The lengths he’d gone to.

The darkness that clung to him.

It was all undeniable.

He was a beast.

A monster.

But. . .he was my beast.

My monster.

That fact—as sick and twisted as it was—echoed brutally in the darkest corners of my mind.

The man who had watched over me as a child, who had shielded me from nightmares, was the same man who had taken lives to protect me without a second thought, who had stalked me, collected pieces of me like I was some rare artifact.

And yet.

Yet.

The weight of his obsession was intoxicating in a way I could barely understand.

Perhaps, I would never fucking understand.

Plus, after him telling me all of this. . .I wasn’t scared of Gianni.

Not anymore.

Perhaps, I saw the man beneath the monster—the one who had fought battles to keep me close, the one who had saved me in his twisted mind.

And maybe, in saving me, he’d saved himself.

I just knew that my reaction was dangerous. It was the sign that I had gone down the rabbit hole with no way to get back out.

I’d clearly been swallowed up by the darkness too, and there would be no path for me to ever return to the light again.

I’d spent a lot of my life getting away from this criminal world, and did my best to focus on being a decent person.

But it returned to me.

The darkness of it too.

All came back to me.

And the more time I spent with Gianni, the more I let him consume me, the more his world’s shadows stretched their tendrils, creeping silently across the edges of my consciousness.

Each moment, the darkness climbed higher, entwining itself around my soul.

In fact, currently, it felt as if night itself had descended from within my core.

My heart began to flicker under the wicked pressure.

I could feel the chill of the devilish abyss seeping into my veins, turning any warmth I’ve ever had into frost.

Moral hope to justified despair.

I unraveled and succumbed to the darkness.

I knew this because in the end. . .I was no longer scared of Gianni.

And I should have been.

After his confession, I was no longer disgusted.

Yet, my mind said get away.

Did it matter anymore?

When I met him that first night—when he sawed off Vito’s hand—I knew there would never be any escape.

Now. . .it would have been foolish to suddenly think I could leave him.

Gianni had done everything—killed, strategized, and snatched the throne from Maximo—just to have me.

He was the prince from my mother’s book, and I’d become his princess bird. And he’d taken the throne from the king, Maximo so that I wouldn’t be sold off to be used and discarded, so that we could live happily ever after.

Gianni claimed me, and once he did, he further trapped me with his words, his romantic actions, his sweet caresses, his big cock.

Even more. . .he would love me forever.

That I knew.

If his past actions hadn’t proven that, then his swallowing my nail clippings solidified it.

All he wanted was me .

No one else.

No other woman would ever grab his attention.

I had it all whether I was comfortable with that fact or not.

And because of this. . .Gianni would never cheat, never lie, never hurt me, and definitely never lose interest in me.

I was the air in his lungs, the blood pumping through his veins.

He had already proven that he was willing to kill for me, to destroy anyone who threatened to take me away.

There would be no drifting apart now, no slow loss of affection, no falling out of love.

He would be mine forever.

Because for him, love wasn’t something that faded.

I was it.

I was truly his world.

And God help me, but as sick as it sounded, he was starting to be that way for me too.

Gianni had really captured my heart and soul.

So. . .I decided right then and there. . .I wasn’t going to run.

Maybe it was the stress of the past few days.

Maybe it was the decapitated heads and the chilling realization of how deep Gianni’s obsession ran.

Or maybe. . .maybe I had finally lost my mind.

Like really gone insane.

And I didn’t care, which told me that I had already descended into madness.

But the idea of running didn’t seem like an option anymore.

Plus, I didn’t want to run.

I wanted him.

His love—twisted as it was—promised something no one else ever could.

Safety.

Obsession.

Possession.

Excitement.

Security.

“Gianni.” I turned to him and let out a long breath. “Is there anything else I don’t know? Is this all of it?”

Gianni didn’t respond right away. Instead, he walked silently to the back of the room, almost like he had planned for this moment.

What is it now?

“Queen, there’s this.” He stood by the projector, glancing over his shoulder at me before pressing play.

I turned to see the screen lit up, and suddenly, there I was, on stage.

I gasped.

How did he get this?

On the movie screen, my body twisted and turned in sharp, powerful movements as I auditioned for the role of the Vampire Queen.

I pirouetted fiercely, baring invisible claws to Melanique and her assistants.

It was so odd to see myself like this—fierce, controlled, strong—yet knowing that in that moment, I felt anything but.

I’d been so freaking nervous.

My lips parted in shock as I watched, recognizing the dance, but not the way it felt seeing myself through his eyes.

I put my view back to him. “How did you get this?”

“I had someone break into her office and find the tape.”

I widened my eyes.

“This whole theater,” He gestured to the back of the room where movies had been shelved, “doesn’t hold any cinematic films. . .it’s just footage of you. Only you.”

Holy shit.

I put my view back on the screen and heard a click as he pressed another button.

The scene shifted.

Now, I was in the shower.

Water cascaded down my body. Steam rose as I rinsed the suds from my skin. I wore a shower cap over my hair, oblivious to the camera, just going on about my morning routine.

Gianni grunted low in his throat, the sound sending a shiver down my spine. “I had cameras put in your Julliard dorm room and later in your studio apartment.”

“What rooms?”

“Every room. There could be no blind spots.”

I stiffened.

Next, he pressed another button, and now I was detangling my hair on some Sunday afternoon as I watched television.

Another button clicked, and I was sleeping.

He clicked again.

New footage of me played.

I froze.

Oh God.

It was me, sprawled out on my bed, my hand between my thighs, lost in the throes of my own pleasure.

My moans filled the room, surrounding us.

He’d watched me masturbate.

I cringed realizing that he’d seen some of my most intimate moments.

Embarrassment hit me.

I turned back to him.

His gaze seared mine. “ Now you know everything.”

He didn’t flinch.

He didn’t turn off the video.

Instead, his gaze remained locked on me. “And if you're wondering why I would watch these the answer is once again. . .to jack off.”

I stared at him, unable to form a single word. My thoughts were scrambled, emotions blurring into one overwhelming sensation.

Shock?

Disgust?

Desire?

I couldn’t separate them anymore.

Gianni moved closer as the sound of my moans rose higher in the room.

Once he got right in front of me, he leaned my way. “I know this is a lot, Queen. I know it’s overwhelming. But I need you to understand something.”

I swallowed.

“Although our start is a rough one,” his voice shifted to almost tender now, though the darkness in him never faded. “I swear to you, I will spoil you. I will love and respect you. I will get you to the point where the cage door is open. . . and you never even care. Do you understand?”