Chapter 68 ALMOST THERE…

Chapter 68 ALMOST THERE…
MIA

I woke up each morning with the same steel resolve buried deep beneath the performance I had perfected. I was still strong-willed, still fighting in every way that mattered. The sex had become part of the game—giving him my body to lower his guard, whispering that I missed him, letting him see vulnerability that wasn’t entirely fake but was carefully controlled. He loved me in his twisted way, and I would use that love against him. I acted mentally fragile, crying at the right moments, staring blankly at walls, letting him comfort me. It made him soft and careless. And carelessness was my only way out.

I had been planning it for days.

The daily hour above ground had become my lifeline for reconnaissance. Today was no different. Dante led me upstairs, his hand possessive on my lower back. I played the part by leaning into him slightly, murmuring thanks for the fresh air. While we walked the corridors, he got a call on his other phone.

I was waiting, watching and learning his habits for the right opportunity which had just come as he left his main phone by accident and that felt like a kid opening presents on Christmas day.

I had to control my excitement and work fast.

I had approximately five minutes.

My heart slammed against my ribs as I snatched the phone fast and started scrolling until I found the security app.

The log history took another twenty to read through and what I found in it was simple: he checked the feeds at eleven, at midnight, at one. After that, nothing until six in the morning. Five hours where he wasn't watching, nobody was looking and I could move then I also memorized the master PIN displayed on screen

I put the phone back exactly where it was and sat down before he came back out of the bathroom and I didn't let anything show on my face which I had surprisingly gotten good at.

Back in the room that evening, I waited. 

The bobby pins I collected over the following week, pulling them from my hair one or two at a time, slow enough that he wouldn't notice that I had them. I practiced on the interior door handle every night in the dark with my eyes closed so my fingers would learn the process without needing light to do it, and I watched lock-picking tutorials on the laptop he'd given me because he thought monitored internet access was going to give me nothing to do. He wasn't wrong that he could see my search history but he was wrong thinking that it would stop me.

He underestimated how desperate a caged woman could become.

And after a few days, ic ould now say that I can pick locks even in my slip.

I waited for three in the morning.



Hours crawled by. I lay in bed, pretending to sleep, every nerve alight.

I'd been lying still for two hours when the clock on the wall read 2:58, which was close enough. I got up slowly, there were no lights on as i walked to the door in my socks, crouched down and got out the pins I'd ready to use them.

My hands were shaking so I took one breath and then another and told them to stop, which they mostly did. 

The first pin went in and found the tension point then i held it and as the second pin started working through the cylinder. I was sweating so hard even though the floor was cold through my socks and everything felt louder than it actually was, my own breathing, the tiny sounds of metal on metal, the distant hum of the building around me. I stopped twice when I thought I heard something and both times it was nothing then I started again.

On the third try the lock turned.

I eased the door open and held it so it wouldn't swing then stepped out into the corridor beyond it which was dark, cold and empty, exactly what I needed.

But even as I moved, my heart pounded so loud, I feared someone would hear it.

The security panel was at the end of the hall, maybe thirty feet, and I walked it fast in my socks without making noise, found the keypad and inputed the pin I had memorized.

The panel beeped once and then the light turned from red to green.

Fuck yes!

And then above me, somewhere up at street level, I heard the sound of the front door lock disengaging, a sound I had listened to every single time he came and went for days.

Then I ran.

The stairs at the end of the corridor were narrow as I took them fast with one hand on the wall.

Keep going, Mia,

I came through the door at the top into the service corridor and the front door was right there in front of me, ten feet away. I smiled. I was finally getting out.

Yes! Yes!

I pumped my feet and got close to the door and then a strong hand clamped around my wrist like iron.

My stomach dropped.

I hadn't heard him nro seen him. Yet here he was, as if he stepped out of thin air. He pulled which made me stumble into him but he held me to keep me steady.

"Where do you think you're going?" he said.

I slowly looked at his face and he didn't even look shocked. He had known thsi was my plan.

“Let go of me!” I started to scream and thrash in his hold but he held me firsm, efforlessly.

He strate pulling em back down the service corridor and I continued screaming at the top of my lungs but no one was in sight as the door shut behind us.

No, no, no. Thi cannot be happened.

He relocked the first door while I fought and clawed and then he dragged me back into my room, closing the door once again.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t notice your practice picking locks?” he asked, voice steady as he guided me further inside. “i watched you use YouTube to practcie and I know you went through my phone. I left it there to tests my love for you and yet, you brokw it again.”

I collapsed to my knees on the floor, the hope that had flared so brightly now crushing me. Sobs tore from my chest. “I was so close,” I gasped between tears. “So close…”

Dante knelt and lifted me gently into his arms, carrying me to the bed as if I were fragile glass. He set me down carefully, sitting beside me. His hand stroked my hair, the tenderness making my skin crawl.

“I’m impressed really. The lock picking, the PIN memorization, the timing. Very clever.”

I looked up at him through blurred vision, broken. “Why did you let me get that far?”

He knelt fully in front of me on the floor, hands resting on my knees, eyes locked on mine with that terrifying devotion. “Because I wanted you to try. I wanted you to feel hope and then I wanted you to realize: there is no escape. There’s only me. Only this. The sooner you accept that, the easier this becomes.”

Rage exploded through the despair. I slapped him hard across the face, the sound cracking through the room. His head barely moved as he took it without flinching.

“Feel better?”

I slapped him again, harder, my palm stinging. He caught my wrist on the third attempt, holding it firmly but not enough to hurt me.

“I’ll let you have two because you earned them. But that’s enough.”

I was shaking, rage and defeat warring inside me until I felt like I might shatter. “I hate you.”

He leaned in and kissed my forehead, soft and lingering. “I know. But you’re still mine.”