Pain wasn't always loud.
Sometimes it whispered
Sometimes it came in the quiet moments between breaths, in the memory of someone's eyes, in the echo of a name you thought would protect you.
For Annah, pain was a cold marble bathtub in a Dubai penthouse, a bruised wrist, a hand around her throat that wasn't meant to kill but to remind her she belonged to no one but the devil now.
His name was Alex Moretti.
If Valentino was ice, Alex was fire chaotic, cruel, impulsive. Where one ruled with silence, the other ruled with noise. And yet, the moment he took her from that warehouse, she knew… this would be worse.
Much worse.
Dubai was beautiful like something out of a dream. But her prison was lined with gold and cruelty.
Alex dressed her in silk and forced smiles. Introduced her as "my new toy" at private clubs. Took her shopping in the day, and at night…
He changed.
There were rules. She couldn't speak without permission. Couldn't look any man in the eye. Couldn't cry God help her if she cried.
And sex with Alex wasn't love. It was punishment dressed in lust. He loved pain. And he loved watching her swallow it.
Sometimes she stared at the ocean from the balcony, wondering how long it would take to drown.
🥀 Meanwhile, Back at the Mansion…
Valentino sat alone in his study, a glass of untouched bourbon in his hand. A week had passed since Annah's exile.
And yet, her silence still haunted the halls.
Her rose was still on his desk wilted, drying. The chain he gave her still in his drawer.
He didn't sleep well.
Not because he missed her.
But because something about the story didn't make sense.
Arik was all smiles these days. Too comfortable. Too chatty. And when he saw her wearing a perfume he remembered Annah once admired, something inside him snapped.
"Trace the wine shipment," Valentino told his head of security. "Every bottle. Every handler. Find out where it came from."
Within days, the truth unraveled like a ripped curtain.
The bottle had been switched after Annah delivered the food. The guards assigned to monitor her had been bribed. Arik's story had holes wide enough to drive a tank through.
Valentino stood in the interrogation room, fists clenched, staring at Arik as she sobbed under the weight of her own lies.
"She was in the way!" she screamed. "You never even looked at me! I was here before her! I did everything ,everything for you to see me!"
Valentino didn't blink.
He turned to his guards.
"Find Annah."
Annah tried to survive in silence.
But every day under Alex chipped away at her soul. He liked control. Liked the power he had over someone once cherished by his rival.
"You miss him, don't you?" he whispered one night as she winced under him. "You miss his cold hands and empty eyes."
She said nothing.
He smirked. "Too bad. He won't come for you. You're trash to him now."
She wished she didn't believe that.
But the truth was she did.
Valentino was not a man of many emotions.
But guilt?
It burned him.
He had sent away the only person who ever looked at him without fear.
He should've known better.
He shouldn't have believed Arik whose lies now sent her to hell.
Within forty-eight hours, his men traced Alex to Dubai. The security footage showed Annah arriving limping. Her eyes wide with shock. A bruised lip.
Valentino stared at the screen until his knuckles turned white.
"Get the jet ready," he said. "We leave at dawn."
Dubai sparkled beneath the night sky like a dream laced with diamonds and smoke.
Alex was throwing one of his famous underground parties ,drugs, guns, expensive suits, and women who looked like art.
Valentino entered through the back. Dressed in all black, armed and silent.
It took three shots, two choked guards, and one broken jaw to reach the top floor.
And there she was.
Annah stood in front of a mirror, bruised but beautiful, wrapped in a dress that wasn't hers, wearing a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
Their eyes met through the reflection.
For a second, time stopped.
Then she turned slowly, lips parting. "Val"
Alex appeared from the shadows.
"You're late," he said with a grin. "She's mine now."
Valentino's gun rose. "Let her go."
Alex pulled her closer. "What are you going to do, shoot through her? You're not a killer. Not like me."
"No," Valentino said softly, "I'm worse."
What followed was chaos.
A table flipped. A gunshot echoed. Glass shattered. Men screamed.
In the end, Alex lay on the floor wounded, crawling. Valentino towered over him, breath heaving.
"You don't touch what's mine," he growled.
Then, to the guards: "Take him. Tie him. Burn this place."
He turned to her.
She hadn't moved. Still trembling. Still frozen in that mirror-image she no longer recognized.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I should've believed you."
Her legs gave out.
He caught her.
🩹 Healing Isn't Instant
Back in Chicago, she didn't speak for days.
Valentino gave her space. No orders. No questions. Just presence.
A nurse was hired. A therapist brought in discreetly.
He didn't sleep until she could.
Didn't smile until she did.
One night, while the mansion was quiet, Annah walked into his room in a silk robe not seductive, just soft.
"I need to know something," she said.
He looked up from his desk.
"If I had died in that place… would you have cried?"
His jaw tightened.
"I would've burned the world," he whispered, "until I found your ghost."
She nodded once.
Then walked back into the hallway, leaving the scent of roses behind her.