Chapter 2 Kill Me, But Listen to Me

Vicenzo narrowed his eyes, and the nearly imperceptible gesture was like the first turn of a dark mechanism beginning to move inside him. The silence in the office was no longer just the absence of sound — it had become a presence of its own, dense and charged, as if the air itself had grown heavier, thicker, harder to breathe. He didn’t move, but something in his posture shifted.

Giulia felt it.

She didn’t know exactly what had changed, only that it had. As if the ground had tilted slightly, as if the space between them had turned into a minefield on the verge of exploding. Still, she didn’t look away. Her dark brown eyes held his with an obstinacy that wasn’t courage — it was necessity. She couldn’t back down. Not after everything. She had spent six months merely surviving — not living, not fighting, just existing. Lying in a dark room where time didn’t pass and silence screamed. Not knowing whether the next day would come, and if it did, whether she would still want it to.

Death, at times, felt kinder.

Luca’s face surfaced in her mind with cruel clarity. The crooked smile, the way he tilted his head when he said he loved her, as if he were laughing at her and with her at the same time. And then… that. She didn’t think about that. She didn’t allow herself to. But the memory came anyway, like a sharp blade cutting from the inside. And when it came, it carried with it the metallic taste of guilt.

A subtle tremor ran through her body, starting in her fingers and climbing up her arms to her shoulders, but she contained it with the strength of someone who had learned not to show weakness. She took another step forward. Her heel struck the floor firmly, the sound echoing through the room like a thrown challenge.

She was no longer the girl he had met in that restaurant. No longer the woman who cried when he turned his back on her. Now, she was something else. Something he had helped shape — without even knowing it.

“You heard me,” she said, voice low but steady, without hesitation. “I want something from you.”

Vicenzo studied her for a long moment, and in his gaze there was more than coldness. There was calculation. There was hunger. She didn’t know it, but in that instant, he was redrawing every plan he had made for her. The warehouse, the chains, the pain — all of it was still there in his mind, but now it was only the beginning.

Killing Giulia Salvatore would be too easy. Too quick. And she didn’t deserve mercy.

He wanted more. He wanted to watch her break slowly. To peel away every layer of pride, defiance, resistance. He wanted to see her kneel — not with her body, but with her spirit. He wanted to turn her into the most perfect submissive, not for pleasure, but for revenge. And only then, when she was nothing but shadow, ruin, silence… would he kill her.

But not now.

Now, he wanted to savor the process.

“What do you want?” he finally asked, voice low, almost gentle, with a cruelty seeping behind every syllable like poison.

Giulia took a deep breath. Not because she needed air, but because she needed control. Her eyes didn’t waver.

“I want you to find Luca’s killer.”

For a moment, everything froze. The air felt suspended, as if even time itself were waiting to see what he would do. Then Vicenzo moved.

The whiskey glass flew from his hand with such brutal force that the impact against the wall sounded like a gunshot. Crystal shattered inches from Giulia’s face, fragments slicing through the air like invisible blades. One of them cut her neck, leaving a thin red line across her exposed skin. She felt the warmth of blood trickling down, slow — but she didn’t move. Not even the blood made her look away.

She simply repeated, with the same steadiness as before:

“I want you to find Luca’s killer.”

That was enough to make him lose control completely.

Vicenzo walked to the desk with hard, almost silent steps, as if every movement were calculated to contain the fury threatening to spill over. He yanked open a drawer and pulled out a black pistol — cold, lethal. Without hesitation, he aimed it directly at her head.

“That’s easy, you bitch,” he said, voice low and venomous. “All I have to do is pull the trigger, and the one responsible for Luca’s death will be dead.”

The barrel trembled slightly — not from doubt, but from the tension coursing through his body like a live wire ready to snap. His blue eyes, once merely cold, now burned with something deeper — pain, perhaps. Or hatred. Or both.

Giulia shuddered. Not from fear. Death was no longer a monster hiding in the dark for her. It was an old acquaintance. On some days, even a relief. Maybe if she died there, she could see Luca again. If there was something after. If God still had mercy on her.

But what made her tremble wasn’t the end.

It was the guilt.

Because no matter how much she tried to deny it, part of her feared Vicenzo was right. That somehow she had contributed to Luca’s death. Missed something. Ignored a sign. Trusted too much. That was why she was there. She needed to know. Needed to understand what had really happened that damn night. The night he was taken from her.

She looked at the gun barrel, then at Vicenzo’s eyes, and spoke with a steady voice, even though inside she was falling apart.

“I already told you. You can kill me. But only after you find the killer. Have you thought about how good it’ll be for him if you kill me and never go after him? Have you thought about how unfair that would be? Luca dead… and him alive?”

Her words hung in the air like thick smoke.

Vicenzo didn’t answer right away. He just stared at her. Then he smiled.

It wasn’t a smile of amusement. It was the smile of a man facing a puzzle and starting to realize the pieces don’t fit the way he thought they did. Something stirred in his mind. She was good at acting. Talented. But maybe… maybe there was a crack. A fracture. An accomplice. He didn’t know yet.

But he would find out.

And while he did, he would destroy her.

With the gun still in his hand, he began to walk toward her. Slowly. Every step was a silent threat. Giulia held her ground for a few seconds, but when he came close enough for her to feel the heat of his body, she took a step back. Not out of fear. But because she couldn’t bear the idea of being touched by him. Not yet. Not like this.

His gaze drifted slowly down the neckline of her dress, and Giulia felt her skin burn — not with desire, but with revulsion. Or maybe fear. Or both.

Vicenzo stopped mere inches from her. The gun now pointed at the floor, but the tension between them was so thick it felt like the entire world had stopped breathing. He tilted his face, his mouth almost brushing hers, and spoke with a calm more dangerous than any scream.

“Fine. But everything has a price.”

Giulia swallowed hard. Blood still trickled slowly from the cut on her neck, but she didn’t move. She only asked, voice low, nearly a whisper:

“What’s your price?”

He smiled again. This time, there was something perverse in it. A dark pleasure in dictating her fate.

“You’re going to marry me. You’ll be my perfect wife for the media… and my slave in bed.”