“I stopped calling for help the day I realized no one was ever coming.”

From Jennifer’s notebook

Jennifer

I step out of the water. The heat of the jacuzzi left me heavy, hungry, so I dry off and put on a pair of shorts and a blouse. I’ll be quick so I can go back and try to sleep.

I walk out of my room barefoot, the cool wood beneath my feet. The house is silent, wrapped in that strange calm, as though the very air holds its breath. The lamp in the living room, the one Mark always leaves on, casts a soft glow, muted and distant, spilling its light into the shadows.

It feels strange not seeing him stretched out on the couch. I move toward the kitchen, open the fridge, and pale blue light washes over me.

My fingers curl around a cold bottle of water, and I take a long sip, letting the chill slide down my throat.

Then, I feel it. A shift. Subtle, but undeniable. A breath that isn’t mine. A creak in the floor, faint but wrong.

An arm coils around me, steel wrapped in flesh. I don’t resist. I know better than that.
A hand clamps over my mouth. Panic surges, but I force myself still. No panic. There’s no room for it.

I count in silence. One man behind me. A heavy breath, hot and foul, against my neck.
Another stands before me, dressed in black. Leather gloves. The cold steel of a gun pressed to my forehead.

“We don’t need you to talk,” he murmurs, voice low but certain. “Just show us where the safe is.”

I nod toward my office, feigning compliance.

“Good,” he says, tilting his head at the man restraining me. His tone sharpens, a command wrapped in ice. “Don’t get sloppy. It has to look like a break-in, nothing else.”

He lingers a moment, eyes sweeping over me as if weighing risk against reward, then turns and slips into my office. The sound of his boots fades, leaving me with the reek of the one holding me, his grip tightening like he suddenly remembered he has permission to do more.

“Killing you straight away would be a waste…” the man restraining me mutters, his voice dripping with disdain. “A body this soft… begging to be fucked.”

Nausea rises in my throat, thick and bitter. Not from fear but from revulsion.
His grip shifts, unmistakable. I feel it in the change of his fingers, sliding now instead of holding. In his breath, drawing closer to my skin. He inhales deeply.

His hands start to wander. I feel it deep in my bones: my body remembers this kind of fear.

I need to get out. Now.
I glance toward my room. Too far. He’d catch me before I reached the gun in there. But there’s another under the kitchen counter.

My muscles coil, silent and tight. When I strike, it must be fast. Final. Precise.
Because I won’t let him decide what happens next.

I slam my head back into his nose. His grip loosens, just enough.
I bolt. Yank open the bottom drawer, fingers closing around the gun—

A burst of pain explodes through my ribs, blinding, stealing my breath.
His fist drives into me, then his hand twists my wrist, forcing the weapon free. It clatters to the floor. I snatch a knife instead, heart hammering, vision swimming with pain.

The front door. It’s slightly ajar. I might still have a chance.
I can’t see his face. The balaclava hides it, but his eyes gleam with a cruel, predatory hunger.

I switch the knife to my other hand, keeping it between us as I edge back around the counter.

“You can’t escape, sweetheart. We can’t allow it.”

I hurl whatever I can grab at him, glass, metal, anything, then break into a sprint toward the door.

Something slams into my skull. White heat explodes in my vision.
He catches me by the hair, yanking me down. The floor rushes up and knocks the air from my lungs. I crumple, breathless, a bird struck from the sky.
He’s faster. Stronger.

He slams my wrist against the floor, the knife skitters out of reach. Pain tears through me and a cry bursts from my throat.
I twist, kick, claw. It only fuels him.

“I like the ones that fight,” he sneers, pressing his weight down. “He sent us to kill you, but look at you, that face of a whore, those tits, these lewd curves… you deserve a fuck before dying.”

His hands slide under the fabric of my shorts. I try to kick him between the legs, but he blocks it and slaps me across the face, so hard my ears ring and my vision blurs. Tears sting my eyes. He pins my legs with his own, trapping me.

“That was close, bitch,” he growls, face too close to mine, his breath foul, eyes vicious and hungry.

Why again? Why me?
This can’t be happening. Not again.
I thought I had a chance. I tried to take it. And still, I lost.
I never had a chance, did I? Not now. Not then.

His breath is hot, his hands rough. He reeks of sweat and something worse, rotten. The sound of fabric tearing. Cold air bites my skin before his palm burns into my chest like acid. Every nerve recoils, my body shrinking in on itself.

I flinch, bile crawling in my throat.
I can’t breathe. Not just from the weight crushing me, or the arm pinning me with practiced cruelty. Panic curls in my bones like an old friend I never invited but never managed to forget.

His hands are everywhere. Not just my chest; he claws at my very being, violating me in silence.
I keep it all inside. I stay silent. I refuse to beg. That’s what he wants. Resistance. Fear. A show.
Never again.
If I’m going to break, it won’t be on his terms.

A tear slips down my cheek. Not for him.
For Sam. For Nico. I can’t say goodbye to them.

The rasp of a zipper cuts the air. My sentence.
I endured it before, for my brothers. But I can’t do it again.
I’ve lost. For the last time.

Then.
Nothing.

The pressure vanishes in an instant, like the eye of a storm swallowing its fury.

But I don’t move. Not yet. I don’t believe it.
The silence isn’t peace. It 's disbelief. A delay. An echo.
It takes a second. Maybe two.
No unwelcome touch. Just the cold floor against my back.
And then I understand.
He’s gone.

I’m staring at the ceiling, my body still tense, like it hasn’t received the message he’s gone.
I remember to breathe.

What is happening?
Something heavy hits the floor. A cry of desperation, muffled, then cut short.

I rise, clutching the torn remains of my blouse to my chest, as if they could shield me from everything I failed to stop.
I follow the sound and see him.

Enzo.
No. Death incarnate.
Not the peaceful, gentle kind that takes you in your sleep.
No. He is rage made flesh.
Punishment with teeth. Violence pure, consuming.
Enzo brought judgment with him.

He is relentless, jaw set, shoulders straining with each blow. His face is splattered with red.
The sound is sickening, wet, final.
The man doesn’t fight anymore.
And still, Enzo doesn’t stop.

Enzo

The second I see her on the floor, torn blouse, hair tangled, her eyes gone, something ancient shatters inside me.

 She wasn’t trying to survive. She wasn’t hoping to be saved. She had already said goodbye. And that look, that quiet surrender, does more damage to me than any bullet ever could.My chest caves. My pulse stutters, then roars. I don’t see red. I become it.

I tear him off her and don’t give him time to react. I slam him against the floor, my full weight crushing his neck. He claws at my wrist, desperate. Pathetic. He tries to speak but I don’t let him. My fist breaks the words out of him. Again. Again. He’s not a man anymore. He’s every shadow that’s ever haunted her. And I’ve come for his soul.
I hit him again. His nose caves. Teeth snap loose. Blood splatters hot against my face. I don’t stop when he cries and pleads. I don’t stop when he passes out. I don’t stop when he gurgles choking on his own blood.
I don’t even feel the pain in my knuckles, flesh grinding against bone.
It isn’t enough. It will never be enough.

When I finally stop, his face is no longer a face, just a mass of flesh, bone, and blood. Too much blood pools around me. I’m covered in it.
Silence settles like a gravestone. My hands are trembling, skin split, bones aching with every pulse. The metallic stench clings to the air, thick and suffocating. My jaw clenches, the echo of bone crunching still ringing in my ears, like the fight hasn’t ended even though the body is no longer moving.
I search for her.
Jennifer.
She’s there, standing in the corner like a ghost. Clutching the torn pieces of her blouse, as if holding together what has just been ripped away.
She looks at me… but she isn’t seeing me. Her eyes are dull. Empty.
My chest tightens at the sight. I feel it like a knife. Not just a stab, but one twisted deep inside me.
I rise, step forward slowly, as if even the ground might shatter beneath me.
But the second I move, she flinches.
I stop. Step back.
“Enzo.” A voice cuts through the silence, sharp, commanding.
I turn, my breath ragged, still half-feral.
It’s Mark.
I didn’t hear him come in. Not the door. Not even his footsteps. Hell, I don’t even feel the blood dripping from my hands.
Rage made me deaf and blind. All I see is her and the ruin I can’t undo. I have failed her.

Mark steps in first, every movement clipped, precise, his voice all steel. No trace of the quiet watchman, only the soldier. His eyes sweep the scene, sharp, methodical, with precision. They land on me, on my fists, on the ruin at my feet, on her.
He knows.
He doesn’t say anything else.
Next to him is Rem. He isn’t smirking like usual. No witty remark. No teasing eyes. Just motionless. The kind that comes when everything is about to collapse.
Mark shoves someone forward. Another man. Limp. Bound. Eyes wide with fear.
“This is the other one,” he says, voice cold as steel.
But I’m barely listening. My eyes drag back to Jennifer.
Her right cheek swollen, her wrist clutched against the thin scraps of fabric, holding herself together as if she’ll fall apart if she lets go. She isn’t shaking. She isn’t crying. She’s just still. Too still.
A raw snarl rises inside me again. My breath heaves, rage crawling back into my veins, begging to be unleashed. My body starts to turn toward the bound man, and that’s when Mark moves. He steps into my path, voice even, commanding. “It 's over.”

The words hit, but my chest still heaves, fists twitching like they’re begging for more, refusing to calm. Then I catch a shift, Rem’s gaze sliding to Jennifer, his jaw tightening.
He moves slowly, the way someone does when even the air might break what’s left.
“Jennifer...” he whispers, cautious, carrying the weight of the questions he knows not to ask.
I swear there’s concern in his voice.
But her eyes are on me. On my hands soaked in blood that’s already cooling but still dripping, joining the pool on the floor that keeps spreading, like time refusing to stop.
She sees the real monster I am.
Rem inches closer. She stiffens, a tremor rippling through her frame. Her lips move. A breath, not a voice.
“I’m fine.”
Not for us. For herself.
“I’m fine,” she repeats. But her breath hitches.
A fracture. A crack in her armor.
Her body twists, her face distorts in pain. Her breathing turns heavy, like she’s fighting for air. Her eyes brim with tears she refuses to shed.
The next second, she’s gone.
The slam of the door and the lock clicks like the final nail of a coffin.
Funeral quiet.