I said nothing. My jaw ached from holding itself steady. My hands throbbed from how tightly I’d curled them into fists.
Seraphina sighed theatrically. “Don’t make me regret not smothering you while you were unconscious in this bed. It would have been so much cleaner.”
Then she turned on her heel and glided out, the door closing behind her with a soft, final click.
The sound echoed like a coffin lid.
I stood frozen in the center of the room, still wrapped in black silk pajamas that suddenly felt less like clothing and more like a burial shroud. My hands hovered near the doorknob, trembling—not from fear alone, but from the sheer force of everything I was holding back.
Part of me wanted to chase her. To scream. To claw truth into the walls until someone listened.
The smarter part knew that would only send me back into darkness.
I sank back onto the edge of the bed, elbows braced on my knees, face buried in my hands.
Escaping the Albanians was supposed to be the end of the nightmare.
I’d planned it all in my head during those endless nights underground: find Vanya. Take him. Disappear back to Greece. Live quietly. Heal slowly. Let the scars fade where no one could see them.
But Seraphina had stolen more than a year of my life.
She had stolen my son’s memory of me.
She had stolen Dmitri’s past—every cruel word he’d thrown at me, every reluctant tenderness he’d never admit to, every moment I’d bled for him because I couldn’t stop loving the monster who’d once been a boy I fell for at fifteen.
Dmitri had forgotten the hospital room where I took a bullet meant for him.
The way his hands had shaken as he held mine, blood still warm on his palms as he begged me not to die—his voice breaking, the mask slipping for once. He had sworn then that he would never forgive himself. That he would never let me go again.
He had forgotten all of it.
Forgotten the nights I slipped back into Lake Como after five years of hiding, drawn by a love I despised myself for but couldn’t outrun. Forgotten the arguments, the reconciliations, the quiet moments when he let himself be human with me—only me. Forgotten every scar I carried because of him. Forgotten every time I chose him anyway.
And Vanya...
My beautiful, bright boy—who used to press his forehead to mine before bed, who used to whisper secrets like I was the safest place in the world—now looked at me like I was a curiosity. A woman he’d pitied. Someone interesting, maybe even kind.
But not his mother.
The pain of it was sharper than any blade I’d endured underground.
Tears burned behind my eyes, threatening to spill, but I forced them back. I would not cry here. Not in this room. Not in a house that no longer belonged to me. Not where Seraphina might have cameras hidden in the corners, might be listening for weakness like a predator waiting for blood in the water.
I lifted my head slowly and stared at my reflection in the darkened window.
The woman staring back at me barely resembled who I’d been a year ago. Bruised. Hollow-eyed. Skin stretched too tight over bone. But alive. Still breathing. Still standing.
They hadn’t broken me.
Not completely.
I would play along.
I would be whoever they needed me to be—Penelope the ghost. The nameless rescue case. The wounded stranger Dmitri’s son had dragged home out of misplaced compassion. I would smile at Seraphina’s manufactured kindness, thank Dmitri for his reluctant charity, answer Vanya’s innocent questions with careful half-truths that neither frightened nor betrayed him.
I would become small.
And while they underestimated me, I would watch.