"You're mine." The words come out low and confident. Like he's stating a law of physics rather than staking a claim. "You were always mine. Even when I couldn't be with you. Even when I had to watch from a distance. You. Were. Mine."
Bastardo.
The absolute certainty in his voice, the complete and unshakeable conviction, cracks something inside me.
Twelve years. He left me twelve years ago. Walked away "for my own good" without giving me a choice, and now he stands in my kitchen claiming ownership like the intervening decade didn't happen? Like I've just been waiting for him to come back?
My hand moves before thought catches up.
The crack of my palm against his face echoes through the quiet house. Hard enough that his head snaps to the side. Hard enough to split the corner of his lip.
Cazzo. I hit him. I actually hit him.
We both freeze.
Blood wells at the corner of his mouth. It's a dark bead against his skin. He straightens slowly, hand coming up to touch his lip. His fingers come away red.
His eyes find mine.
And he smiles.
Not a smirk. Not mockery. Something darker. Something that looks almost like satisfaction. Like I've finally done something he's been waiting for.
His tongue flicks out, licking the blood. Deliberate. Slow. Eyes never leaving mine.
"Feel better?"
Oh god.
Heat blooms low in my belly and between my thighs. It's immediate, undeniable and completely, horrifyingly inappropriate.
No. No, no, no.
I'm wet.
From hitting him. From the blood on his mouth, and the way he's looking at me like I just gave him exactly what he wanted.
Eight years. Eight years of nothing. Dates that felt like auditions for a role I didn't want. Vibrators gathering dust in my nightstand. My own hands giving up because what was the point? Therapy homework completed in the dark, crying with frustration, convinced that part of me was simply broken beyond repair.
And now this. Now him.
My body decided before my mind could object. The horror of that realization crashes into the heat still spreading through me, the ache building between my thighs despite everything. Despite the surveillance, the lies, the absolute insanity of what he just admitted.
"Get. Out." My voice shakes.
That smile stretches wider. He knows. Of course he knows. He's been watching me for seven years. He probably knows my body better than I do, can probably read every micro-expression, every hitch in my breathing.
"No."
"I'm calling the police."
"And telling them what?" He doesn't move. Doesn't step back. The blood is still wet at the corner of his mouth. "That you have a security specialist in your home while you are being threatened? That your uncle sent protection and you want him removed?"
"I'll tell them you've been stalking me for seven years."
"I have been." No denial. No flinch. "And I'll tell them about the three threats I eliminated before they reached you. The man who followed you home from the grocery store six years ago. The online stalker who found your address four years ago. The process server who was actually casing your security three months ago."
His voice stays level, almost conversational. "I wonder which story they'll find more interesting."