Chapter 2 The Man Behind the Cage

That night, I didn't sleep. The image from the video kept replaying in my mind like a warning on a loop. "Don't trust Vittorio. Or yourself."

Why would I record myself saying that? What was I protecting myself from? From him? From who I used to be?

The air in the clinic had grown heavier, denser. Every step I took outside my room was measured, monitored. And yet, he moved through the halls as if the place belonged to him.

The next morning, when he walked in wearing a spotless white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, my body reacted before my mind could: my stomach tightened, my skin went taut, and my breathing quickened as if it remembered something my mind had yet to catch up to.

"You didn't sleep much," he said, setting a tray on the side table. Tea, fruit sliced with surgical precision. Toast. Honey. Everything in perfect proportions.

"Are you watching me?"

His smile was faint. Ambiguous.

"I'm taking care of you. That's different."

"And the cameras in the room?"

"Protocols. We can't always predict when you might feel unwell or need something."

"I'm not a child," I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

"No. You're Catalina. And Catalina sometimes breaks."

The way he pronounced my name made me hold my breath. As if he were tasting it.

Three days passed. Or five. I wasn't sure. Time in the clinic wasn't linear-each day felt like a warped repetition of the last. But that day, Vittorio suggested something different.

"Want to go out to the garden? Stretching your legs will do you good."

I agreed. Not because I trusted him, but because I needed to feel the wind. To see if the sea was still real.

He led me down a side hallway I had never seen before. All the doors looked the same, but some had double locks. Others, sensors.

"Is this a clinic or a prison?"

"The difference is in the will, don't you think?" he replied. "You chose to stay."

I didn't remember doing that. But his gaze was so steady, so deep, it almost convinced me I had. That I had begged for it. That I had surrendered to him willingly.

The garden was overflowing-jasmine, bougainvillea, a mature lemon tree. The sea in the distance, hypnotic. Its beauty hit me like a wave.

We walked in silence. Each step brought me closer to a version of myself I didn't know.

Vittorio stopped under a willow tree. Offered me a seat on an iron bench. I didn't sit.

"Who was I before?"

"You were fire," he said without hesitation. "And ice. Unbearable and fascinating. You had a gift for wounding, even without meaning to. But you were mine."

The word mine echoed in my chest like a threat disguised as tenderness.

"And you? What were you to me?"

Vittorio stepped closer. Just enough to invade my space. His scent hit me-sandalwood, soft tobacco, warm skin.

"The man trying to hold you together while you fell apart."

"And you failed?"

"No. I lost you by choice."

"And now you're taking me back by force?"

His eyes darkened.

"You came back on your own."

He was lying. Or he thought he was telling the truth. With him, I never knew.

That night, I had another memory.

I was in a car. It was raining. Vittorio was driving. We were shouting. I was crying. He stopped the car. Told me to get out. I refused. Someone was pounding on the windshield from outside.

I woke drenched in sweat, the sheets clinging to my skin. My heart out of rhythm.

I went to the bathroom. Looked at myself in the mirror-dark circles, cracked lips. A faint bruise on my collarbone I didn't remember seeing before.

My eyes dropped to the sink. Someone had left a small amber bottle with no label.

I opened it. Smelled it. I recognized the scent instantly-it was the same Vittorio used after shaving.

Why was it there?

The next morning, I confronted him.

"Did you come into my bathroom last night?"

"I would never leave without making sure you're okay."

"Are you drugging me?"

His jaw tightened. For the first time, he lost his composure.

"No."

"Then what is this?" I showed him the bottle.

He looked at it. Held it between his fingers.

"Memories. They help rebuild."

"What kind of memories are inhaled?"

"The kind that refuse to be remembered any other way."

I wanted to throw the bottle at him. I wanted to kiss him. I was so close to him I couldn't tell if I hated him or needed to lose myself in his body to understand who I had been.

That afternoon, he took me to the greenhouse. No one else seemed to use it. Tropical flowers. Black orchids. Humid air. The glass walls fogged with condensation.

He showed me one flower in particular. Red. Fleshy. Veined. Almost alive.

"You brought it here. Said it was the only one that survived confinement."

I touched it. It was warm. Like skin.

Vittorio's gaze burned through me. The humidity in the room slid down my thighs. I wanted to pull away. I wanted to touch him.

"Did you love me?" I asked.

"I loved you so much I had to stop so I wouldn't destroy you."

His honesty stole my breath.

He held my face. Brushed my lips with his. It wasn't a kiss-it was a threat. A promise of something lost.

"And now?"

"Now I don't know if I love you or if I'm punishing you for everything you did to me."

My knees weakened. The greenhouse spun slowly. The air was too thick.

"What did I do to you?"

Vittorio smiled. He didn't answer.

That night, another video appeared on my phone. I hadn't searched for it-it was just there.

Me, with red eyes.

"Don't let yourself be convinced. Vittorio's love feels like an embrace... and a noose. If you fall in love with him again, you're lost."

I turned it off. My hands shook.

Outside, footsteps in the hallway were more frequent. Someone whispered behind the walls.

I looked at the door. Locked. From the inside. This time, I had slid the bolt myself.

I had locked myself in.

At dawn, an alarm went off in the north wing. Voices. Shouts. Shoes pounding on the floor.

I went to the window. A stretcher raced across the garden. Someone shouted, "We found her, she was in the gallery!"

And then I saw him.

Vittorio.

Covered in blood.

With a faint smile. As if he had been expecting it.

The revelation wasn't that someone had died.

The revelation was that something in me... smiled too.