Ashley's POV:
My father was slumped against the kitchen cabinets. He was tied to a chair. His head was bowed, his shirt soaked in a dark, viscous liquid. "Dad... oh my god, DAD!"
I sprinted forward, dropping to my knees. The coppery smell was overwhelming. He was breathing.
Barely.
A wet, ragged sound. His face was a ruin of bruises, but it was his hands... oh god, his hands.
They were resting on his knees, and they were... wrong. The "brutal torture" was not an exaggeration.
His fingers were broken, twisted at unnatural angles, the skin split. He'd been tortured, methodically.
One joint at a time.
A small, white card was tucked between the ruined fingers of his right hand.
I reached for it, my entire body shaking so hard I could barely see. I unfolded it. One sentence, in that same, sharp, elegant script.
You gave me permission to teach you. This is the first chapter.
The world shrank to the size of that small, white card and the ruined hands of the man who held it.
The words were not a threat; they were a declaration of war. A sickening realization punched through the panic:
Roman wasn't playing a game of capture; he was executing a methodical lesson in pain, forcing her to watch her life dismantle piece by piece.
A frantic, high-pitched noise tore from my throat—a sound too raw to be called a scream. I shoved the card into my jeans pocket, my fingers sticky with the blood I had touched.
"Dad! Stay with me! Dad!"
I fumbled with the thick black zip-ties binding his wrists to the chair arms. My hands, still numb from Roman's grip, were useless.
I couldn't tear them..
I couldn't even manage to yank the knot free.
He let out a shallow, rattling cough, his head lifting weakly. His eyes, swollen and bruised, found mine.
They were glazed over with shock and pain, but there was a flicker of recognition.
"Ash..." he wheezed, his voice a ghost. "Run... get out..."
"No! I'm not leaving you!" I frantically ripped the dishtowel off the counter and pressed it uselessly against the lacerations on his hands. "The ties—I need a knife. Where's Mom? Where's Daniel?"
The house was still unnervingly silent. The lack of my mother's or brother's voice was the coldest fear yet.
"They're... they're safe," my father mumbled, his chin resting against his chest. "He warned them. Told them to leave before... before he started the lesson."
My knees nearly gave out.
Roman hadn't just attacked him; he'd emptied the house first. He wanted me, and me alone, to find this horrifying tableau.
I needed to cut the ties. Where would Mom keep scissors? The junk drawer!
I scrambled to my feet, knocking over the shattered lamp from the living room on my way.
I felt blindly for the kitchen's main utility drawer, my heart hammering against my ribs.
My phone flashlight was useless, bouncing wildly, throwing light everywhere but where I needed it.
Found it.
I grabbed the heavy pair of kitchen shears and lunged back to the chair, sawing frantically at the thick plastic.
It took two agonizing, clumsy minutes, but the ties finally snapped.
My father fell immediately, a dead weight collapsing off the chair.
"Oh god, oh god," I sobbed, catching his torso and trying to ease him gently to the floor.
The moment I touched his shirt, my fingers sank into the sticky wetness of the wound on his chest.
I pulled back, horrified. There was a clean, deep slice across his ribs, bleeding profusely. The hand trauma was torture, but the torso wound was life-threatening.
I forced myself to breathe. Think like a doctor. Think like the scholarship student you are.
"Dad, I have to stop the bleeding. I have to call 911."
"No police," he coughed, clutching my arm with a strength that surprised me. "No hospitals. Not here. They'll find you. The guards... they all left. They'll find you if you call."
"But you're bleeding to death!"
"He'll be back," my father insisted, his grip tightening. "He wanted you to see this. He wants you to know what I took from him. I betrayed him, Ashley. Not you. Don't let him catch you trying to fix my mistakes."
The truth was a sudden, violent nausea. He was right. Roman would be monitoring this. Calling 911 would bring uniformed officers and a trail that Roman would sweep up instantly.
I had to move him.
Now.
I found my reserves. The same cold, sharp strength that allowed me to defy Roman in the library now took over my body. I used the remaining zip ties to roughly bind the dishrag over his chest wound, praying the pressure would hold.
My father was a heavy man, but adrenaline lent me superhuman strength.
I dragged him, inch by agonizing inch, out of the kitchen, past the wreck of the living room, and toward the back emergency exit.
I knew a place.
A safehouse my father had set up years ago—a small, forgotten studio apartment deep in the Lower East Side, used for secret meetings, far from the influence of the uptown families.
He'd shown Daniel and me how to access it months ago, but we'd always treated it like a game.
This was no game.
I maneuvered him through the narrow back alley and managed to get him into the back seat of my car—a beat-up sedan he insisted I keep for anonymity.
The key was still in my pocket.
My hands were shaking so violently I could barely turn the ignition.
As I pulled away from the curb, I glanced back at the dark, silent brownstone.
It looked like a tomb. Roman had already claimed it.
I sped down the street, my mind already calculating the quickest, darkest route to the Lower East Side, praying the bleeding didn't worsen, praying the police hadn't been alerted by a nervous neighbor, and praying that the man who had just kissed me with savage possession wasn't already waiting for me at my destination.
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Author Note:
If your heart rate dropped reading that kitchen scene, you're not alone. Ashley has officially entered the Reckoning Phase, and Roman is proving that his revenge is cold, precise, and utterly ruthless. 💔
She made her choice in the library, and now she's paying the iron price. Witnessing her father's torture—and the sheer, calculated cruelty of Roman emptying the house so only she would find him—was a devastating move.
The question isn't if Roman will find them at the safehouse, but when. Get ready for the next move in his game, because the clock is ticking and the stakes couldn't be higher. ⏱️
Stay safe out there. (Ashley certainly won't be.)
-Vaanni🖤