Page 49 of Made for Vengeance (Dark Dynasties #3)

His thumb brushed across my cheekbone, wiping away a tear I hadn't realized had fallen.

"I love who I am when I'm with you," he continued, his voice rough with emotion.

"Not Rafe Conti the enforcer, the businessman, the monster who takes what he wants without regard for consequences.

But just Rafe. A man with flaws and fears and hopes like any other.

A man capable of tenderness, of vulnerability, of a love so consuming it terrifies me. "

I wanted to believe him. Wanted to fall into his arms, to let his love—if that's truly what it was—fill the void left by my family's betrayal, by the shattering of my last illusions about my place in the world. But something held me back—a final question, a final doubt that needed addressing.

"If you love me," I said, my voice steadier than I felt, "then why did you take me in the first place?

Why keep me against my will? Why not approach me like a normal person, ask me out, let me choose you freely instead of forcing me into this.

.. this captivity that's become something else, something I don't even have words to describe? "

Pain flickered across his features—not physical, but emotional. A reaction to the question, to the implication that his love was tainted by its origins, by the methods he'd used to bring me into his life.

"Because I didn't know how," he admitted, the honesty clearly costing him.

"Because taking what I want is what I've always done.

What I was taught to do. What kept me alive in a world where hesitation means death, where vulnerability is exploited, where showing interest in something is the surest way to have it taken from you. "

He stepped back slightly, giving me space, his hand falling away from my face. "I saw you, and I wanted you, and I took you. Because that's who I was. Who I'd been trained to be. Who I thought I had to be to survive in this world."

The admission hung between us, raw and honest and painful in its simplicity.

This was the truth at the core of our relationship—not love, not obsession, but the damaged psychology of a man who had been taught that power was the only protection, that taking was the only way to have, that control was the only alternative to being controlled.

"And now?" I asked, the question encompassing everything—who he was, what he wanted, what future he envisioned for us.

"Now I'm trying to be someone else," he said quietly. "Someone worthy of being chosen rather than feared. Someone who can offer love rather than just possession. Someone who can let you go, if that's what you truly want, even if it breaks me to do it."

The vulnerability in his voice, in his eyes, made my throat tight with emotions I couldn't name.

This wasn't the Rafe who had taken me from my apartment months ago.

Wasn't even the Rafe who had marked me with his teeth, who had claimed me as his own.

This was someone new—someone evolving, someone struggling to reconcile the man he'd been with the man he wanted to become.

For me. Because of me.

"I don't know what I want anymore," I admitted, the honesty easier in the wake of his own.

"I don't know who I am without the illusions I've been clinging to.

The belief that my family would come for me.

The hope that somewhere out there, someone was missing me, looking for me, caring about what happened to me. "

I moved to the window, staring out at the garden without really seeing it.

"I built my identity around being Grace O'Sullivan—daughter of Patrick, sister of Sean and Michael and Connor, law student, independent woman carving out her own path.

But that person doesn't exist anymore. Maybe she never did.

Maybe she was always just a fiction I told myself to make sense of a world that never really wanted me, never really saw me as anything but a pawn, a possession, a means to an end. "

Rafe was silent, giving me space to process, to articulate the thoughts that had been swirling inside me since I'd overheard that devastating conversation.

"The irony is," I continued, a bitter laugh escaping me, "you're the only one who's ever really seen me.

Really wanted me. Not for what I could provide or represent or symbolize, but for who I am.

The only one who's ever looked at me and seen something worth fighting for, worth risking everything for.

Even if your methods were... unconventional.

Even if the way you showed it was twisted by your own damage, your own history. "

I turned back to face him, feeling strangely calm despite the turmoil of emotions still churning inside me.

"I don't know if that's love. I don't know if what I feel for you is love, or trauma bonding, or Stockholm syndrome, or some complicated mixture of all three.

I just know that right now, in this moment, you're the only fixed point in my universe.

The only certainty in a world where everything else has proven to be illusion. "

Something shifted in his expression—hope, perhaps, or understanding, or a recognition of the weight of what I was saying.

He moved toward me slowly, giving me time to retreat if I wanted to.

When I didn't, he stopped just short of touching me, his eyes holding mine with an intensity that made my breath catch.

"Then let me be that fixed point," he said softly.

"Let me be the certainty you can build around while you figure out who you are, what you want, where you go from here.

Not as your captor. Not as your owner. But as your partner.

Your equal. Someone who sees you, values you, cherishes you for exactly who you are. "

The offer hung between us, tempting in its simplicity, its apparent sincerity. A new beginning, a different kind of relationship built on the ashes of the old. A chance to redefine ourselves, our connection, our future.

But it wasn't that simple. Couldn't be that simple, given our history, given the power imbalance that had defined our relationship from the beginning.

"I need time," I said, the words torn from somewhere deep and honest. "Time to process everything I've learned today.

Time to grieve the family I've lost, the illusions I've clung to.

Time to figure out who I am now, what I want, what future I can imagine for myself in a world where all the old certainties have crumbled. "

Disappointment flickered across his features, quickly masked. "Of course," he said, stepping back to give me more space. "Take all the time you need. I'll be here. Waiting. Hoping."

The simple acceptance of my need, the lack of pressure or manipulation, touched me more deeply than grand declarations or passionate embraces could have.

This, perhaps, was the truest evidence of change—his willingness to wait, to let me set the pace, to respect my need for space and time despite his own desires.

"Thank you," I said, the words inadequate but sincere. "For bringing me here today. For letting me hear the truth, however painful. For offering me a choice, even if it's one I'm not ready to make yet."

He nodded, his expression softening into something that wasn't quite a smile but held a warmth that made my heart ache. "Whenever you're ready, Grace. Whatever you decide. I'll be here."

As we left the blue room, as we walked through the corridors of the Conti estate toward the car that would take us back to the place that had been my prison and was now.

.. something else entirely, I felt a strange sense of peace settling over me despite the pain, the confusion, the uncertainty that still churned inside.

My father had abandoned me. My family had disowned me. The life I'd known, the identity I'd constructed, had been revealed as illusion, as fiction, as a story I'd told myself to make sense of a world that had never truly wanted or valued me for myself.

But in the ashes of that life, in the wreck