Chapter 70: EMPTY

MIA

I lay on the bed long after Dante left following the police search announcement, the words echoing in my head over and over again. They had been here—right above me—and found nothing.

When the door unlocked that evening, I didn’t move as Dante stepped in with dinner, his posture cautious, expecting the usual rage or tears. Instead, I sat up slowly, meeting his eyes with a calm mood that felt foreign even to me.

“I’m done fighting,” I said quietly.

He set the tray down, studying me warily. “What does that mean?”

“It means you win.” My voice was flat and emotionless. “I can’t escape and the police can’t find me. So there’s no way out. I’ve spent weeks trying, and it only hurts more. This is my life now so I might as well accept it.”

I stood and walked to him, watching as his body tensed as if expecting a trap. I rose on my toes and kissed him softly to show him I had accepted this. His hands came up to my waist, hesitant at first, then pulling me closer when I didn’t resist.

“Mia…” he murmured against my lips, searching my face.

I didn’t answer with words. I kissed him deeper, sliding my hands under his shirt, feeling the familiar warmth of his skin. He responded, lifting me onto the small table, hands roaming with growing hunger. I let him and even helped him. My clothes came off easily, his following.

We moved to the bed and I lay back, pulling him over me. When he entered me slowly, I wrapped my legs around him, meeting his thrusts. My body reacted by arching, gasping and clenching around him as pleasure. But inside, I was somewhere else.

I moaned his name at the right moments, ran my nails down his back and kissed him like I used to.

He moved harder, chasing release, but I felt the shift in him midway. His rhythm faltered then he pulled back slightly to look at my face. Whatever he saw there made something crack in his expression.

After we both finished, he collapsed beside me and pulled me into his arms and holding me tightly. His breath was ragged against my hair. “Mia… talk to me.”

I stared at the ceiling. “What do you want me to say? You won. I’m yours. Isn’t this what you wanted?”

“Not like this.” His voice was rough, almost pained. He tilted my chin to force eye contact. “Not like this.”

“Then what did you want?” I asked softly, genuinely curious in my numbness.

He had no answer. The silence stretched between us as he held me longer than usual before dressing and leaving, the locks engaging.

Alone again, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, the afterglow fading into nothing. The realization settled that i had stopped fighting because fighting gave him something to react to—anger, passion, resistance. It fed his obsession. But this… this compliance, this emotional absence—it disturbed him. I had seen it in his eyes tonight. He wanted me to want him. He wanted the fire, the love, the version of me he had stalked and stolen.

So I would give him the opposite with complete emotional withdrawal. I would let him have my body whenever he wanted. I would be perfect—compliant, responsive, submissive. But my mind, my soul—those I would keep locked away in a place he could never reach. No more genuine smiles, no more real pleasure and no more pieces of me for him to claim.

It was the only resistance I had left. And I would wield it like a weapon. The game wasn’t over. It had just changed strategies.

DANTE

I sat in my office, staring at the surveillance feed like a man possessed. A week had passed since Mia’s surrender, and every day felt like descending deeper into hell. This was supposed to be victory as she no longer fought or screamed or plotted or slapped me. She was completely complaint and that bothered me deeply.

I watched her on the screen now, sitting on the bed with the new art supplies I had brought her yesterday. She sketched absentmindedly to draw a flower.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I left my apartment and descended to the room, carrying another gift which was one of her old camera equipment, cleaned and fully charged. When the door opened, she looked up calmly.

“Thank you,” she said softly as I set the bag down.

“Do you like them?” I asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.

She nodded. “They’re very nice.” Then she went back to her sketch, as if I weren’t even there.

I tried conversation next. “Tell me about your day.”

“It was fine,” she replied. “I read a little and ate the meals you left. Thank you for the fresh fruit.”

Every response was polite and just surface level. She answered questions but offered nothing of herself. When I pulled her into my arms that night, she came willingly. She kissed me back, let me undress her, and moved with me perfectlyBut her eyes stayed distant. She was there physically, but the woman I loved was gone. I finished with a groan, holding her afterward and whispered promises of eventual freedom, of trips we’d take one day, of the life we could still have to see her reaction.

She listened, nodded and said, “That sounds nice,” in the same flat tone.

I left the room feeling more alone than when she had been fighting me.

The next day I tried again with more books and her favorite takeout. Then i sat with her for an hour, talking about old memories—our first real date, the night she had fallen asleep on my chest. She smiled all through but I saw that it didn't reach her eyes.

Marco found me later that evening in my office, nursing a glass of whiskey as I watched the feeds.

“You look like shit,” he said, dropping into the chair across from me.

I laughed bitterly. “She’s gone, Marco. I have her body, but she’s gone. She does everything I ask. She lets me touch her, eats and sleeps. But there’s nothing there. It’s like loving a ghost.”

Marco leaned forward, eyes hard. “You wanted her broken. Congratulations.”

The words hit like a slap. I slammed the glass down. “What did I do wrong? I gave her everything. The room, the comforts, my love, what else could she have wanted that I didn't provide?

“You kidnapped her,” Marco said flatly. “Isolated her and broke her spirit day by day. What did you expect?”

“I expected her to understand!” My voice cracked. “To see that this is love. That I did all of this because I couldn’t lose her.”

“This isn’t love. This is obsession that destroyed what you loved. You turned her dead inside. You did that.”

I buried my face in my hands, shoulders shaking. The panic I had been holding back finally broke free. “How do I fix this? Tell me how to fix her.”

Marco was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was heavy with sorrow. “You can’t fix what you broke. Only she can if there’s anything left to save.”

He left me there, alone with the screens and my thoughts. I couldn’t sleep that night. Instead, I pulled up the old footage again. In this one she was laughing with Yuna at a café, head thrown back, eyes sparkling with life. Then another of her spinning in her apartment with music playing, full of joy and fire. The woman who had challenged me, who had made me feel alive.

Then I switched to the current feed. She was reading one of the new books, turning pages without a blank expression.

I opened the journal I hadn’t touched in years and began writing, the pen shaking in my grip.

“Day 47. I have her completely but I’ve lost her entirely. She’s here in body but gone in spirit. I’ve become the thing I hated most: the person who destroyed her light. Marco is right. I can’t fix this. But I still can’t let her go. So we’re both trapped now. Both prisoners and both dead while still breathing.”

I closed the journal and stared at the screen, watching the empty woman I had created, wondering how much longer either of us could survive like this.