Page 14 of His Savage Ruin
"Wait here," he says and then turns for the door.
"What am I supposed to do? Just... sit here?" I say, turning to face him.
"Rest. Shower. There should be something of mine that fits you in the armoire." He pauses, studying my face. “Try to leave without my permission, and I’ll make sure you regret testing me.” Before I can respond, he steps back and closes the door. I hear the distinctive sound of a lock engaging, and I'm alone.
I stand in the center of his room for a long moment, trying to process everything that's happened. This morning, I was buying forged pregnancy documents in a Chicago slum. Now I'm a prisoner in a Romano New York stronghold, protected by the man who should be my greatest enemy.
And somehow, despite everything, I feel safer than I have in months.
The realization disturbs me more than I want to admit.
I explore the room methodically, opening drawers and examining the contents, noting exits, sharp edges, anything I could use if I had to. His desk is locked, but everything else is accessible.
The closet contains dozens of suits, all black or dark gray, all perfectly tailored. The dresser holds expensive watches, goldcufflinks, silk ties arranged with military precision. Even his socks are folded into perfect squares.
The man is obsessive about order to a degree that borders on compulsive.
The bathroom is a study in masculine luxury—marble everything, a shower that could fit four people, and toiletries that probably cost more than my monthly allowance used to be. There are towels so thick and soft they feel like clouds, and the soap smells like bergamot and sandalwood.
After forty-five days of living in constant fear, the simple pleasure of hot water and expensive soap in a protected environment feels like absolution.
I stay under the spray longer than necessary, letting the heat work the tension from my muscles and wash away the lingering scent of fear and violence. When I finally emerge, pink and clean and feeling more human than I have in weeks, I discover my first problem.
My clothes are gone.
The dirty jeans and blouse I arrived in have vanished as if they never existed, along with my bra and underwear.
Wrapped in a towel that swallows me whole, I stand in the middle of his immaculate bedroom and feel the first spark of irritation burn through the fog of exhaustion. He tookeverything, stripped me down to nothing, and left me dependent on his generosity.
The armoire he mentioned holds only his suits—fine wool, tailored within an inch of perfection, all cut for a man who doesn’t know what it is to be denied anything.
I pull a black silk shirt from his closet. It slips over my skin, falling to mid-thigh, the fabric whispering against me in a way that feels far too intimate without underwear. Every brush of it reminds me I’m exposed, vulnerable, dressed in his clothing like a kept thing and I hate it.
The realization claws at me. Forty-five days of pretending, of surviving on lies, of being shuttled from one cage to another, and now this. Another prison, only more gilded this time. Another man dictating how I live, what I wear, who I am.
My pulse spikes with anger.
I look around his room—the gleaming surfaces, the perfectly aligned books, the cufflinks squared into neat little rows. Everything screams of control, of a world bent to his will
And suddenly, all I want is to break it.
What would it feel like to leave my mark here, to tear through his carefully constructed perfection and remind him that not everything bends to Romano command?
The thought takes root, dark and satisfying.
I start small—opening a drawer and leaving it ajar, nudging a book out of its height-ordered row. But the longer I move through his room, the harder it is to stop.
The fury that’s been simmering for weeks—through every fake smile, every forged document, every sleepless night of waiting to be caught—boils over.
I yank open more drawers. Socks, once folded into perfect squares, rain to the floor. His cufflinks scatter like coins across the dresser. Ties unravel from their neat rows and dangle from chairs like nooses.
For forty-five days, I’ve been pretending, obeying, surviving on scraps of choice. Now, in this one room, I can rebel. My chaos bleeding into his order, a reminder that I am not just a pawn in his game.
I tear through the space, shoving papers aside, leaving everything skewed and undone. Every small act of destruction is a release, each mess louder than the scream I’ve kept locked in my chest since Lorenzo died.
I search as I wreck—my eyes sharp for anything useful. Weapons, communication devices, anything that could help me if this tentative protection he's offering disappears. But Matteo is too smart for that. The room contains nothing dangerous or useful.
By the time I'm finished, his perfect bedroom looks like a hurricane has swept through it. Clothes everywhere, papers scattered, every surface disrupted from its careful arrangement.
