The pain came first—white-hot, all-consuming, like knives through her spine every time she tried to breathe. Then the sound: steady rain against the window, the faint creak of floorboards, and something softer... breath. Controlled. Close.

She opened her eyes slowly, disoriented. Her body was wrapped in bandages, her back immobilized. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic, lavender... and him.

He was seated by the bed.

Reading, of all things.

As if this were a normal day. As if she hadn’t just been thrown out of a window by a dead girl, or watched everything fall apart in blood and glass. As if he wasn’t the Chesapeake Ripper.

Her mouth went dry.

She had loved him. Trusted him. Shared her bed, her heart, her home. And all this time—he was him. “You... shouldn’t be here.”“You should’ve let me die.”

But he didn’t flinch. He closed the book gently and looked at her with something that might have been affection... or regret. Maybe both.

“You used me. Lied to me. You’re a monster." She said with a weak and broken voice

He stood, moved slowly, deliberately, to her side. He didn’t touch her—yet. But she could feel the weight of his presence press against every nerve.

“You’re alive,” he said simply. “I made sure of it.”

She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. But the pain made both impossible. And so she just lay there, staring at the man she once loved—who had broken her body and saved it in the same breath.

She didn’t know then that this was only the beginning.

That days later, he would carry her out of the country in the dead of night, her spine braced and her legs trembling. That he would push her through ancient streets in a wheelchair, beneath the sun-washed stone of Florentine buildings. That he'd register her as his wife, legally, effortlessly, to complete the illusion and shield them both.

At first, she didn’t speak much.

Pain demanded her silence. And hatred—hatred was exhausting.

But he cooked for her. Dressed her. Sat beside her every evening, reading aloud in Italian. And when she needed to cry—silently, always silently—he would leave the room without a word, only to return with something warm for her hands.

Time passed strangely in Florence.

She regained her strength slowly, learning again to balance on her feet, to trust her bones. The wheelchair remained for weeks. Then came the crutches. Then the cane.

Now she walks.

Not far. Not fast. But she walks.

And he’s always there—half a step behind, watching her with those unreadable eyes, offering his arm like a gentleman, like a husband, like... something else.

She doesn’t ask what they are now. Not lovers. Not captor and victim. Something twisted, delicate, and quietly damning.

Something that breathes in shadows.

And she doesn't know whether this is healing... or surrender.