Chapter 61 Chapter 61

Chapter 61 Chapter 61
\[ IRIS’S POV \]

I sank onto the edge of the velvet-covered bed and pulled the notebook from my bag. Blank pages. Pencil. It was a small comfort, a tether to the world where I had some control. I began to sketch, not people or landscapes, but the layout of the fortress that I managed to see last night and this afternoon, when I walked down to the library with the help of a maid. I sketched just as I knew it: the bedrooms, the hallways, the balconies, the security cameras Salvatore controlled. I marked possible escape routes, points where I could ask questions without giving away the full measure of my fear.

It was only a sketch. But it gave me something Salvatore could never fully predict: thought independent of his control.

I had made my way to the library in the afternoon to find something to read. Something that would take my mind off the text but what I saw only fuel my suspicion even more. My mother’s books were there. Arranged neatly in a section of the library.

My hands shook as I sketched the final hallway, the one that led to the library.  If the rumors were true, if the text last night was telling the truth, then maybe, just maybe, evidence remained somewhere hidden, and I could find it.

But even the thought made my stomach churn. I wanted to confront him directly, to demand answers with all the fire I had in me. Yet the man who had orchestrated every step of my life for the last five years would see that coming. I was trapped in my mind as much as I was trapped in the house.

I dropped the pencil and clenched my fists, nails digging into my palms. The thought that he had killed my mother while simultaneously building a cage to protect me twisted my stomach into knots. How could someone be both destroyer and savior? How could I feel relief and terror at the same time?

Hours passed. Shadows lengthened. Salvatore eventually returned to the suite, carrying two glasses of water. He placed one beside me without a word. His gaze swept over me, unreadable. I wanted to ask, to demand, but the words stuck in my throat.

“Iris,” he said finally, breaking the silence. “You look like you’ve been restless for hours.”

“I… I have questions,” I said, my voice trembling. “About… my mother.”

He tilted his head, expression neutral. “Questions can wait.”

“No. No questions. The truth.”

His lips curled into a faint smile, sharp, knowing, dangerous. “The truth is… complicated.”

He knew? Of course, he knew. He knows everything. And I’m sure he knows who the sender is as well even though the number was encrypted. But to me, the sender can wait all I want is to hear the truth from him. Or the reason…the reason why he killed his mother.

“Complicated?” I asked, my voice cracked as tears began to wet my eyes. “She’s dead. And you were there. Tell me what you did!” I shouted, unable to control the tremor in my voice. “Tell me the truth!”

Salvatore's eyes darkened. He stepped closer, every movement deliberate. “You want the truth, Iris? You want it raw and unfiltered?”

“Yes!”

“You think the world gives up the truth so easily? That pain is optional?” He circled me slowly, the floor beneath my feet echoing with his steps. “The day your mother died, the world was in chaos. I was there. I intervened when I had to. I did what no one else could, or would.”

I shook my head. “What do you mean? She… she was…”

“Dead?” His voice softened ever so slightly, but the intensity never left his eyes. “Yes. But not at my hands. I tried to save her. You want to blame? The world is full of blame, Iris. Your father. His business rivals. People who would have hurt you, used you, and taken her life without a second thought.”

I swallowed hard, the knots in my chest tightening. Relief and rage fought in equal measure. “You tried… to save her?”

“Yes. And I failed. Just as I failed to keep you under the watch of people who weren’t worthy of you.”

Tears sprang to my eyes, unbidden and angry. I wanted to scream at him, to punch him, to tell him I hated him. And yet, in the same moment, a part of me, shocked, unwilling, terrified, understood. He had been watching, guarding, controlling, saving. Even if he had failed once, he had never stopped.

I sank to my knees, clutching the silver orchid, shaking. “You…You’ve been doing all this… for me?”

“For you,” he said, crouching beside me. “Not for your father. Not for Sofia. For you. Even when it meant crossing lines you can’t imagine. And the message. That’s just a means to separate us, to make you hate me, Iris. And even if you do I will never let you go. I would rather die than let you slip away from me. You’re mine Iris and you know that”

The realization hit me like ice and fire. I hated him. I feared him. And yet… I couldn’t deny the truth. He had saved me in ways no one else had. And he had watched my life, obsessed over me, stalked me, even stolen me, but he had never let me fall entirely.

And that was the cruelest part of all.

I wanted to confront him fully, to demand more, to make him answer for the past. But I didn’t know how. I didn’t know if I could. Because Salvatore wasn’t just the man I feared. He was the man I had learned to depend on. And in the strange, twisted architecture of our lives, dependence was a chain just as strong as fear.

I pressed the orchid to my chest, tears streaking down my face. My mother was gone. And Salvatore had not been the killer, but he had been the shadow that shaped the rest of my life.

I didn’t know if I would ever believe him. I didn’t know if I would ever be able to love him deeply. But I knew this:

I had to survive. And surviving meant facing him again. Confronting him. Even if it broke me in the process.

Because in Salvatore Moretti’s world, the only way forward was through him.

And the only way out was inside the cage he had built.