I tried to sit up, but my body didn’t feel like mine anymore. It felt distant—wrong, disconnected.
That’s when it truly sank in.
“My legs don’t move,” I said again, quieter this time.
The nurse avoided my eyes. “The doctors are doing everything possible.”
That night, the ward was quiet.
Too quiet.
But I wasn’t alone.
Voices drifted from outside my room—low, tense, familiar.
One of them was Matteo.
“Just keep her under observation,” he said coldly. “Make it look like treatment is ongoing.”
A doctor responded nervously, “Sir, with proper therapy she might regain—”
“No,” Matteo cut in immediately. “I don’t want that. I prefer her like this. Helpless. Easier to control. She can’t run around, can’t interfere, can’t ruin anything anymore. At least now she knows where she belongs.”
My breath stopped in my throat.
The doctor hesitated. “That’s… not ethical.”
“I don’t care,” Matteo said flatly. “Do your job. Keep her alive, keep her quiet. That’s all she’s useful for. She can watch from there while I live my life.”
Their footsteps faded down the hallway.
I lay frozen, gripping the sheets so tightly my fingers ached. Tears blurred my vision, but I refused to let them fall.
He hadn’t just taken my freedom.