Chapter 110: The Gilded Shackle
He finally set her down, but he didn't release her. He kept his hands on her shoulders, pinning her against the bulkhead. The vibration of the ship's powerful engines thrummed through her spine, mirroring the frantic racing of her heart.
“You look at me,” he commanded, his voice a low, dangerous rasp.
Isla slowly lifted her head. Her lip was still bleeding, and the red mark on her cheek had deepened into a purplish bruise. When she met his eyes, she saw a man who had moved past anger and into a cold, calculated state of absolute possession.
“I only ran because you lied!” she spat, her voice trembling. “You said you were leaving the island. You set that boat there like a trap. You wanted me to run just so you could prove I couldn't.”
“I wanted to see if the woman who held my hand while I bled was real,” Lorenzo countered, his face inches from hers. “Or if she was just a ghost I conjured in my own mind. Last night, you gave me your word. This morning, you threw it into the sea for a merchant ship and a cup of tea.”
He reached up, his fingers moving to the lead foil she had wrapped around the diamond tracker on her neck. With one violent tug, he ripped the foil away. The diamond caught the light, mocking her with its brilliance.
“Did you think lead would hide you from me, Isla? I am the gravity of this island. Everything falls back to me eventually.”
He let go of her shoulders and stepped back, pacing the small cabin like a caged predator. “Three days. That’s how long I planned to be gone. Do you have any idea what happens to a man like me when the only thing he values in this world vanishes?”
“I am not a thing, Lorenzo! I am a person!”
“You are mine!” he roared, slamming his hand against the wall next to her head. The sound made her jump, her eyes wide with terror. He breathed heavily, his chest heaving. “You chose to save me. You chose to enter my world. You don’t get to leave just because the sun came up.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, sleek device. He pressed a button, and the wall monitor flickered to life. It showed the silver yacht, the Snowflake, currently being rigged with explosives by his men in the distance.
“Watch,” he whispered.
Isla watched the screen. A second later, the beautiful, custom yacht—the vessel that had represented her three hours of freedom—erupted into a ball of orange fire. The debris rained down into the Mediterranean, disappearing beneath the waves until nothing was left but a smear of oil on the surface.
“That was the last of your exits,” Lorenzo said, turning back to her. “There are no more boats. There are no more 'friends' like Raymond to remember. There is only the mansion, and there is only me.”
He walked back to her, his expression softening into something even more terrifying: a look of dark, obsessive hunger. He reached out and gently wiped the blood from her lip with his thumb.
“When we get back to the estate, you will not leave the master suite. Not for the gardens. Not for the library. You will stay in my sight until I am convinced that the next time you look at the horizon, you only see me.”
Isla felt a tear slip down her face. “You’re going to lock me in your room?”
“I’m going to make sure you never want to leave it again,” he murmured. He leaned in, his lips brushing the bruise on her cheek with a tenderness that felt like a threat. “You’re going to learn, Snowflake, that mercy has a price. And you’ve just run out of ways to pay it.”
As the ship surged forward, heading back toward the dark silhouette of the island, Isla realized the truth. She hadn't just failed to escape. She had shown him exactly how to break her. By running, she had given him the excuse he needed to stop pretending she was a guest.
She was no longer the nurse who saved him. She was the prize he had finally decided to keep under lock and key.