Page 77 of Beautiful Villain
Now I welcomed death with open arms, because living without him felt like a sentence I didn’t have the strength to serve.I didn’t want to kill myself—no, I wasn’t brave enough for that.I was selfish.I wanted someone else to do it for me.I wanted Archie to end it cleanly, so I wouldn’t have to keep waking up with this hollow, screaming absence lodged behind my ribs, rattling every time I breathed.
The road changed the further we got from Montalcino.
At first, it was all the same soft hills and neat rows of vines, the kind of Tuscany people put on postcards.Sun-warmed stone and dry grass.The smell of wine and dust drifting in through the cracked window.It almost felt wrong to be afraid in a place that pretty.
But then we started to climb.
The air shifted first.I noticed it in my skin before I noticed it in my head.The warmth slipped away, replaced by something thinner and sharper, like the day was pulling back from us.I drew my arms in closer, even though the car was still warm, and watched the landscape tilt and rise.
The vineyards gave way to trees.
They weren’t the normal scattered olive groves or tidy rows of cypress.These were darker, taller, packed close together like they were trying to keep secrets.The light thinned out, trapped in the thick canopy above us, and the road narrowed as it wound higher and higher into the mountains.
“Where are we?”I asked, staring up at the trees crowding in around us, their dark branches pressing close like they were trying to listen.
“Somewhere no one would think to look, in case anyone got any ideas,” Archie said after a pause that felt too deliberate.“Somewhere so far off the map you’ll start to understand how small you are.”His eyes slid to mine.“And if you do manage to run, the forest will finish what I don’t.The wolves are just faster.”
“Where are we?”I asked again.
Archie ignored me and turned away, looking forward as the car travelled on.
The temperature dropped fast.
I watched my breath fog faintly against the window and felt the cold creep in through the door seams.The trees closed around us, swallowing the last bits of open sky.Everything looked darker up here.Heavier.Even the air felt like it had weight.
The farther we climbed, the quieter it got.
No farms.No houses.Just forest and rock and the thin, twisting road cutting through it all.I imagined the world we’d left behind shrinking with every mile.Montalcino, with its golden hills and warm afternoons, felt like a story someone had told me once, not a place I’d actually lived in.
This was where you brought someone when you didn’t want them to be found.
I pressed my forehead against the cold glass and watched the trees blur past, tall and black and endless.The mountain loomed ahead, hidden in mist, and for the first time since Archie had taken me, something in my chest tightened with a new kind of fear.
Not panic or dread, but a real sense of something evil waiting at the end of the road.
The house rose out of the trees, all dark stone and towering walls, its shape cutting into the grey mountain sky with cruel confidence.Ancient and immense, it looked less like a home and more like a warning, the kind of place built to last through wars, plagues, and the quiet suffering of anyone trapped inside it.Ivy crawled over its walls like veins, and narrow windows stared down at me like unblinking eyes, giving nothing away.It was beautiful in the way storms are beautiful—powerful, cold, and completely indifferent to the small life standing in its shadow.
The car slowed.
Turned.
Stopped.
When the door opened, I climbed out on stiff legs, my body moving on instinct alone.
“Welcome to Monte Amiata,” Archie said, spreading one arm like he was showing off a holiday villa instead of a stone monster on a mountain.
Monte Amiata.
The name slid through me, sharp and familiar.For a second I couldn’t place it—and then it hit.Gianni had told me about it over dinner.That night.That table.The way his voice had dropped when he talked about this place, about the dark forests and the history buried beneath the mountain like bones.
I shook my head, hard, as if I could knock the memory loose.Thinking about him now was dangerous.It made my chest ache in ways I couldn’t afford.
I followed Archie into the house without resistance.
Because resistance required hope.And I was fresh out of that spice.
He tookthe handcuffs off my wrists before we walked into the house.
