All Chapters of Love's Darkest Cage: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Dove“Babe, no offense, but you look like a librarian. And not the sexy kind.”My roommate Priya shook her head disapprovingly with an apologetic smile, served with a side of cringe.“Gee, thanks.” I sighed as I undo the buttons of my navy cardigan.Priya was right, though. I had tried on everything I owned, and everything I owned was wrong.The pile of clothes on my bed had become a small mountain — the floral dress that made me look twelve, the blouse with the coffee stain I couldn't get out, the one nice skirt that had survived the bus from Pennsylvania only to come out of my suitcase wrinkled into a fist. I stood in front of our cloudy mirror in the last clean thing I had, a plain white t-shirt and a blue cardigan, and I wanted to cry."This is literally all I have." I sighed in defeat as I looked through the pile of clothes again.It was a little after eight. Outside our window the city was doing its electric blue thing, the hour when the buildings start to glow and everyone with

ElioA man should know his own face before he asks other men to fear it.I studied mine in the mirror the way I study everything — for weaknesses. It gave me back exactly what I gave it. Dark suit. White shirt, collar open. The ink my father hates running down past the collar and the cuffs, the marks of a life he pretended we didn't lead. I fixed one cuff. Then the other. I did not smile, because the men I was about to walk among have learned to be more afraid of me when I don't."Looking good, boss." Marco's reflection appeared behind mine, leaning in the doorway with his tie already loosened, a glass of my wine already in his hand. Marco was my consigliere, or right-hand man. He'd been with me since I was nineteen. He'd taught me which knife to use at dinner and which to use under the table. "You look like a don. A real one. Il padrone."I scoffed at his words. "I’m just a. man going to work.""Same thing, with you." He came closer, and his voice dropped into something warmer, so

DoveI woke up to softness, and that was the first wrong thing.My bed at home was a thin mattress on a metal frame that complained every time I turned over. This was deep and clean and smelled faintly of cedar, the kind of bed you sink into instead of lie on, and for one drowsy, merciful second I thought I was dreaming a good dream. Then I tried to roll onto my side, and my left arm wouldn't come.Metal. Cold metal, snug around my wrist.I came awake all at once, the way you surface from cold water — heart first, then lungs, then everything. I was lying on top of the covers in Jessica's black dress, rumpled now, my boots gone, my feet bare. My right hand flew up and found my throat, and the little gold cross was still there, still warm from my skin, and I held onto it like it could hold onto me.My left wrist was handcuffed to the bedpost.The room came into focus slowly and then refused to make sense. It was beautiful. That was the cruelest part. High ceilings, dark wood, a chair in

DoveThe day felt like it lasted a hundred years.I learned the room the way a prisoner learns a cell, because that's what I was, whatever the cedar smell and the expensive chair tried to tell me. I learned that the barred window faced east, because the light came in strong and gold in the morning and then slid away, hour by hour, until the walls went amber and then gray and then the color of nothing at all. I learned exactly how far the handcuff let me go: to the edge of the mattress, to the nightstand, not to the window, not to the door. I learned that if I stayed very still and very quiet, the fear would settle into something duller and more bearable, like a bruise you stop pressing.Once, around midday, the door opened and a woman came in — older, silent, a housekeeper by the apron, with eyes that had clearly been trained not to see anything. She didn’t seem to speak much English, but unlocked the cuff and said, “Bathroom.”Standing behind her at the doorway was a man and he was h

DoveTen million dollars. He had written it down.I stared at the number until it stopped looking like a number and started looking like a shape, a row of little circles marching off the edge of something. My mind couldn't hold it. A million I could almost imagine. Five million had made my stomach drop. But this — this wasn't money anymore. This was a fairy tale, or a trick, or a trap dressed up as a miracle, and I'd read enough stories to know those three things are usually the same thing wearing different coats."Is this a joke?" My voice cracked on it. "Is this — is any of this even real?"Elio had settled back into the chair, one ankle crossed over his knee, watching me with the patience of a man who has all the time in the world and knows it. "It's real.""How do I know that?" The words came out sharper than I meant, half hysterical. "You could write a hundred million on that paper. You could write anything. It doesn't mean it's real, it doesn't mean you'll — how do I know you w