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Isolde POV

The ocean was louder than silence.

It rolled and sighed all night long outside the windows, never resting, always reaching. At first, I thought it would help me sleep.

Something soft. Something real. Something that reminded me I was still alive.

It didn’t.

It only made the quiet inside the house feel more artificial. As if the walls themselves were holding their breath.

I’d been alone for three days.

Three days since Dante carried me into this beautiful, haunting place like I was porcelain and left like I was nothing.

I hadn’t unpacked most of my suitcase.

I wore the same cream robe every morning, the one I suspected he had picked out just to see me wrapped in softness while he watched from somewhere I couldn’t.

I had no proof of the cameras. Just instinct. The prickling at the back of my neck when I moved between rooms.

The way the air shifted when I touched the piano.

The way I still whispered when I cried.

The house was too perfect. Warm-toned and coastal. Bookshelves lined with novels I’d told him I wanted to read one day.

A tea collection in the cupboard. The blankets were cashmere. The bathtub was deep enough to drown in.

Maybe that was the point.

That morning, I sat on the porch facing the sea. My legs were curled beneath me, the ceramic teacup warm between my palms.

The waves came and went like clockwork, and still I waited for something to change.

I hadn’t heard from him.

No calls. No notes. No messages slipped beneath the door like a secret.

Part of me was furious.

The other part missed him so much I ached.

I hated that I was still waiting for the sound of his boots across the floor.

Hated that when I walked into the bedroom at night, I still paused like he might be there.

And worst of all?

I hated that when I closed my eyes, I didn’t remember the gunshots or the cruelty.

I remembered his voice.

The low rasp of it when he told me I was beautiful.

The way his eyes changed when he whispered mine into his throat.

I should have been healing here.

Instead, I was unraveling.

In the kitchen, I made scrambled eggs I barely tasted. The guards outside didn’t speak. They rotated shifts quietly, respectfully.

I left the plate half-full.

Walked barefoot to the piano in the corner of the living room.

It sat under a large window. Morning light spilled onto the keys like a promise I didn’t believe in.

I sat.

Pressed one note.

It rang, soft and slow.

The same note he’d played the last time I heard him in his estate.

I didn’t know how I remembered that. But I did.

And I pressed it again.

And again.

Until my eyes burned.

That night, I bathed.

The tub was made for luxury, carved marble, edges deep enough to disappear in.

I lit one of the candles he had placed in a glass jar by the sink.

I sank into the warmth like it might erase me.

I ran my fingers over the curve of my collarbone. I still wore the necklace he gave me.

I told myself I should take it off.

I never did.

My hand drifted to my thigh. A bruise still lingered there, faint but shaped like possession.

I rested my head on the edge of the tub and stared at the ceiling.

“I hate you,” I whispered.

But the words came out too soft.

Too lonely.

And not true enough.

I slept that night facing the window.

The sea beyond it moved like it knew something I didn’t.

I left the curtains open.

And when the wind picked up, I closed my eyes and imagined it was his breath.

His hands. His presence, I don't know for how long this torture will continue.

I miss him, and I know he misses me even more.

His presence, folding the air around me until I was pinned to the mattress again.

My hand reached for the empty space beside me.

I cried quietly.

Not from fear.

But because I knew he hadn’t really left me.

He’d just become something I couldn’t touch.

A shadow inside every wall.

A silence that followed me like a ghost who still wanted to own what he’d left behind.

And I wasn’t sure what scared me more.

The thought of him returning.

Or the thought that he wouldn’t.