Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 95046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
I stop pacin'. Turn to look at her directly.
"He keeps notebooks. Did you know that? Meticulous fuckin' records of everything—every transaction, every weakness, every piece of leverage. He catalogs people like they're assets in a portfolio. And the worst part—the truly terrifyin' part—he's brilliant at it. At seein' patterns. At predictin' behavior. At knowin' exactly which buttons to push to make someone dance to his tune while thinkin' it was their idea all along."
I pause. Let that sit there between us.
"How close am I?"
Emmaleen's face does that thing again—the uncomfortable flicker. For just a second, I see the woman underneath the trainin'. The one who recognizes truth even when it contradicts what she wants to believe.
She shrugs.
It's tiny. Noncommittal. But it's a break—her conditionin' crackin' just enough to let human response slip through instead of perfect submission.
I notice. Of course I notice. I'm engineered to notice things like that.
Then she catches herself. Straightens. Voice level and empty. "Understood, Sir."
And there it is. Back to the script.
But I felt it. That moment where Emmaleen Rourke—the actual woman—surfaced before the slave pulled her back under.
Which means I'm gettin' somewhere.
So I keep goin'. Because apparently I can't leave well enough alone.
"Right. Monsters." I start pacin' again, the lecture buildin' momentum in my head. "Let's talk about monsters, shall we? Humanity's spent millennia catalogin' them. Grendel rippin' warriors apart in Heorot. Dracula seducin' victims with promises of eternal life while drainin’ them dry. Jekyll and Hyde—that whole Victorian anxiety about the beast lurkin' inside every civilized man. Frankenstein's creature, who was actually more human than his creator but nobody noticed because they were too busy bein' terrified of how he looked."
The words are tumblin' faster now, stream-of-consciousness academic ramble meets existential crisis.
"And the Greek myths—Zeus rapin' his way through the pantheon disguised as swans, and bulls, and showers of gold because apparently divine power means consent is optional. Hades kidnappin' Persephone and everyone decidin' it's a love story instead of Stockholm syndrome with pomegranates. Medusa gettin' her head cut off after she was the one who got assaulted, because gods forbid we blame the actual monster instead of his victim."
I stop. Turn to face Emmaleen again.
"Every culture's got its version of the monster who looks human. Who walks among us. Who is us, just without the social conditioning that makes us pretend we're not capable of terrible things."
My voice drops. Gets quieter. More dangerous.
"But those monsters?" I gesture vaguely toward the window, toward the world outside this cabin. "Those legendary, mythological, historically documented monsters that humanity spent centuries warnin' each other about?"
I let the silence stretch.
"Those monsters never met Giovanni Bavga."
Her expression changes.
Not the trained-submissive mask crackin' with a flicker of discomfort.
This is somethin' else entirely.
The shift happens so fast I almost miss it—one second she's sittin' there with that practiced patience, the next her eyes narrow and her jaw sets and I'm suddenly lookin' at a completely different woman.
She glares at me.
Proper glare. The kind that could strip paint.
I feel a grin spread across my face before I can stop it.
There she is.
The laugh escapes before I can contain it—a quick bark of genuine delight.
"Oh, grand. There's the fire."
Emmaleen doesn't move from her position on the couch. Doesn't stand or shift or do anything theatrical.
Just sits there.
But when she speaks, her voice is low. Controlled. Each word delivered with surgical precision.
"You're finished?"
I lean against the wall, still grinnin'. "Depends. You plannin' on contributin' to the conversation now or—"
"Because I've been sitting here—naked, I might add—listening to you perform your one-man show about monsters, and mythology, and Giovanni's psychological profile, and I have to say..." She pauses. Lets the silence sit there just long enough to make me wonder where she's goin' with this. "It's impressive. Really. The way you've managed to catalogue every flaw, every pattern, every dark tendency like you're narrating a true crime documentary for an audience that asked for your expertise."
Her tone hasn't risen. Hasn't sharpened.
She's just... speakin'. Plainly. Calmly.
But somethin' about the way she's stringing words together makes my grin falter slightly.
"Except here's what's interesting about men like you." She tilts her head. Studies me like I'm a specimen under glass. "Men who rescue women they've decided need rescuing. Who break into houses, and throw people in trunks, and drag them to remote cabins while congratulating themselves on their superior moral clarity."
I open my mouth.
She talks right over me.
"You think you're the hero. The one with perspective. The only person in the room capable of seeing the situation clearly because obviously—obviously—the woman involved couldn't possibly understand her own circumstances well enough to make informed decisions about them."
The words land soft. No heat behind them.
Which somehow makes them worse.
"You've known me for what—an hour?" She doesn't wait for me to answer. "In that time, you've determined I'm a victim. A slave. Someone who needs to be saved from herself because clearly my judgment is compromised and I'm suffering from Stockholm syndrome, or bad faith, or whatever intellectual framework you've decided explains why I couldn't possibly want what I actually want."