In Antonio's hands held a long taser. The type of taser that felt as if killer bees were inside your body individually leaving stingers in every part of your organs.
Antonio told me all about it. He informed me about how he used it on the people he tortured in his dungeon.
My numb lips finally got some feeling in them.
"Please," I begged in the tiniest voice.
The taser lit up the room as Antonio turned it on.
"Speak." He left no room for a single word to be said when he shoved the taser right into my belly drawing the loudest cry I've ever cried in my life.
He removed it from my belly.
"Don't do this." I pleaded with tears blurring my vision. He turned up the mode of the taser and it shined brighter than before.
He shoved the torture device into my belly again and I felt my soul leave my body.
My cries echoed in the silent room as the torture began.
"I would never even think of leaving you." My head was pounding like my brain was about to explode through my head. My body ached from a pain that I've never experienced in my life.
It felt like my insides were on a fire.
My nightgown was leaking with fresh blood and Antonio didn't seem to have a care in the world as he proceeded with his torture.
I tried to think of ways to put an end to this wretchedness but I couldn't even think too hard without my brain feeling like shit.
Pleading words fled from my mouth like liquid.
"You're hurting me." I've said that one a lot but I'm hoping it will work this time.
"It's what you deserve."
"I could never get pregnant if you continue this mistreatment,"
All of this trauma to my belly would surely mess up a lot of things in my body. I knew I could get Antonio to stop if I used a delicate topic to persuade him with.
Probably one of his biggest desires is to have a child with me. I personally think it's to trap me but he swears it is because he would adore having a product of our love.
That's partially true, but the trapping part sounds more convincing and much more like my evil husband.
"You're ruining my body!" I wept.
This seemed to grab his attention as he lowered the taser and stood like a statue staring at me.
He was thinking hard, I could tell by the way he was practically mumbling to himself. Almost as if he came up with an answer, he tightened his grip on the taser and released a chuckle that made my heart drop.
"Without the taser, you can't even give me children so what difference does it make?"
His horrible words left me feeling humiliatingly infertile and afraid all at once. He brought the torture device close to me and traced my body with it.
Luckily it was off or I would have felt more pain than all the abuse Antonio has put me through combined.
"Think of this as punishment to your uterus for not bearing my child in that feeble body of yours."
I shut my eyes tightly and braced myself for the pain that he would soon inflict on me.
I can't even believe that I talked in my sleep, let alone shared every damn detail about my stupid escape plan.
I cried on my shoulder in embarrassment. How could I, stupid naive Drea, escape one of the most powerful men on the planet? Antonio was someone that had ties and connections with even more dangerous people all over the world. For me to even think of escaping him was a brainless thought.
The first mistake of my stupidity was writing my thoughts in a notebook. A notebook that is easily accessible to Antonio that gives away every little detail.
Plus the name of my foolish 'checklist' is "Anti-Antonio". I was probably drunk off of my mind when I brainstormed such a dull-witted name because that totally wouldn't give anything away.
I was such a child. I could have called it anything else but I found that title amusing since the words both started with an A and they sort of rhyme.
The second mistake was breaking into Antonio's liquor cabinet. I've never mentioned that one, because Antonio doesn't even allow me to drink wine. And he was gone for work and the drinks were looking so tempting.
And obviously, when you haven't had real alcohol before in a long time when you finally have a taste with your mind congested with stress, you tend to overdrink. And unfortunately, I did way more than just overdrink.
Antonio used to measure his liquor to see if I'd taken any since I was fond of doing that. But I drank the whole bottle and trashed it in the garden and he never seemed to notice.
My third mistake was being so ingenious. I should have just jumped off a balcony, that would have been easier than being in this situation.
Actually, jumping off a balcony would be impossible since Antionio locks me in the house all the time.
I heard the sound of the taser turning on and I pulled my lips into a thin line waiting for that dreadful pain to begin.
When I didn't feel a thing I opened my eyes to see the taser stuck in Antonio's mouth as his eyes bulged out of his head.
I couldn't believe what the hell I was seeing.
Could this all be a dream? Was this real? Was I going insane?
My eyes were heavy and everything around the room was beginning to spin.
A scream made its way out of my mouth as Antonio morphed into different versions of himself while the walls were melting.
For a split second, he would be the cute, lovable boy that I grew up with, then he transformed into the cold teen that I had to break through, and soon after that, he would turn into a young adult in our early years prior to our marriage.
All the while, the walls were...melting in different... colors?
He continued to morph growing taller, and smaller, with an eerie smile plastered on his wickedly appealing face.
I have no idea what the hell is going on, all I know is that I'm insane right now and can't understand why the room is changing colors.
"20," I heard a voice say. It couldn't be Antonio since he was now levitating in the air with a smile still stuck on his face but it sounded exactly like him when he was a teen.
Yeah, you heard that right. Antonio was fucking floating off the ground.
"66." A voice spoke it was even deeper this time and sounded like an older version of Antonio.
I have no idea what is going on but I feel like this is a fever dream.
Or maybe I'm just dying from all the pain.
I shut my eyes tightly in hopes that I could wake myself up when the booming voice spoke once again and I found myself stuck in this derangement.
"20. 66. Grey. Dazzling. Insect." The voice continued to speak and it sounded through the room like an intercom.
The voice was morphing just like Antonio's face. It would be high like lungs full of helium, and deep like a bass.
My body was growing weak and debilitated due to the lunacy breaking loose through my subconscious mind.
I was imagining awful things that were stripping me of my sanity allowing hysteria to control every demented thought in my deteriorating brain.
Antonio's face looked straight out of a horror cartoon. His once beautiful eyes were pitch black and wide like saucers. The corners of his lips were stitched to his cheekbones forcing a sickening smile to remain on his damaged face.
I laid my head low to avoid looking at my husband's creepier version when I caught sight of my feet.
I had more than 20 toes!
"Dazzling."
"Insect..."
I was about to scream when my head rolled off my body, onto the bed, and fell to the ground staring up at my headless self as random, yet oddly significant words boomed through the room
___
"Drea?"
I opened my eyes hesitantly. I didn't want to wake up in the same room that had melting walls with my husband looking like a cursed Tim Burton character.
When I saw Antonio's normal face in my view, I sighed in relief sitting up.
Thank goodness it was all a dream.
I did the unexpected and hugged my husband close to my body. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and buried my head into his tattooed neck.
I know I probably seem crazy right now but I'm grateful his face doesn't look like Wybie from Coraline right now. And I'm also grateful that he's not standing above me with a massive taser.
That has to be the weirdest dream in my life. I can't tell if the memory I had of Antonio was a part of the dream or if I did wake up and fell asleep again and then dreamed about all of that bullshit.
My head literally fell off, Antonio was levitating, random words were echoing through the room, the walls were melting and I had 20 toes! What the absolute hell was that?
"Please tell me I didn't talk in my sleep." I thought out loud.
Antonio held me close to his chest.
"Nope. just some strange noises. Why?" He replied.
"No reason," I answered quickly.
"It's four in the morning. Sleep." He kissed the side of my head and laid me down gently on my pillow.
His arm wrapped around me securely and I closed my eyes thinking about my dream.
It's quite sad that I initially didn't think it was a dream. If Antonio was the type of husband to never hurt me, I would have quickly known it was a dream.
But it was the fact that I wasn't surprised. The fact that I knew that Antonio could most definitely harm me like that without a second thought.
That thought alone deeply broke my heart.
If I had a dream about Antonio hurting me as a kid I would have known that I was dreaming. I don't even think my mind would ever go to such a dark place. The love Antonio had for me was purer than snow. There was no malicious intent, just a young boy showing true affection to a lovesick little girl.
But this Antonio was not so loving.
"Why do you hate me?" I softly asked in the silent room. I stared at the wall straight in front of me and I was quite glad that it wasn't melting.
"What?" Antonio spat out as if I asked him the stupidest question ever.
"I do not hate you, Drea. It is impossible for me to feel anything but adoration for you."
"Obsession." I corrected instantly.
I turned around to face Antonio and as expected he looked like he could kill.
"If you loved me you wouldn't torture me. You would let me free and allow me to live like a human. You wouldn't beat me up like I'm your worst enemy just because I dare to look at another man." I let it all out as I had absolutely nothing to lose.
I was hoping to leave him tomorrow but now I'm thinking a month is better.
After my horrid dream, I realized that I wasn't going to move too fast in this whole thing. The ending of my dream was plain crazy and I didn't have to worry about that coming true. But the beginning felt all too real and felt like something Antonio would definitely do.
Being tortured by Antonio in my nightmare felt like a premonition and not a silly dream. I had to calm things down for a long while. I wasn't going to deactivate the wifi. Although that would help me immensely, it would be the hardest and most riskiest thing to do.
Plus the only reason why I want the wifi deactivated is so the cameras and sensors won't be on while I attempt to escape.
I can open the fucking bedroom door and a loud blaring alarm would go off. As of right now, I want to keep things chill and keep my nightmare from turning into a true story.
I will figure something out but deactivating the wifi is a death wish and I don't want to get this far just to throw it all away. To be honest, this whole plan is a death wish and I'm losing motivation.
But I need to leave Antonio. If Antonio doesn't end up killing me out of rage I might just do the job myself. The situation I'm in is killing me internally.
And before I leave I need to understand. I need to understand why I've gone from not only being Antonio's most delicate obsession but also his most delicate punching bag.
"Go to bed."
"God forbid I look at a man for a second. Then you kill them and torture me like I massacred your whole family. Why?" I pressed.
"Sleep." His tone was authoritative and warning me to shut up. His black eyes were urging me to speak and see what happens.
"Why?!" I yelled.
He refused to speak.
I punched his chest as hard as I could and he didn't falter. His nostrils flared and his eyes were dark.
"Tell me! Te-"
"You belong to me! And nobody else will ever get the chance to even look at you. No woman and definitely no fucking man will ever have the luxury of getting near you. Not even your goddamn family." He grabbed my wrists to stop me from hitting him.
The way he said 'family' was as if my family hated him. But they were so supportive of our relationship and showed him nothing but love. And he ruined it. Just like he always ruined everything.
"Drea I warned you. I tried to stay away when I returned from Italy but you kept pushing my buttons." He let out an aggravated breath.
"You have got what you've wanted! All those years back you should have just gone on with your life. But you're naive, Drea. You didn't stop fucking pestering me until I finally befriended you again.
"How could I stay away when you attacked every single one of my guy friends?!" I retaliated.
"You think I didn't know that you told all the guys in the damn school to stay away from me? You were ruining my life before I even got close to you again."
"Enough."
"You know for a fact that you wouldn't have let me go. For god's sake, you were always watching every move I make. You didn't even like it when I had girlfriends. You controlled everything about me and I didn't even notice that."
"Stop talking and go to bed, Drea."
"But he was different. He didn't care that you threatened all the guys to stay away from me. He wasn't like you at all. He didn't pull me from class just to force me to wear his hoodie since my clothes were too revealing. He didn't give all my friends a dirty look that made them stay away from me. And he certainly didn't hit me."
I was careful not to say his name. I didn't want to trigger Antionio too much.
"You guys were nothing alike. He was better."
The room was silent. Deadly silent. Like Antonio could erupt at any second.
"You want to know another difference between the both of us?" He asked chuckling.
I furrowed my eyebrows as he grabbed my face bringing it closer to him.
"What?" I asked cautiously.
"I have you. Alive and breathing. And he had you..."
My heart started to speed up.
"Dead and gone." I felt my body go limp.
Antonio killed Jonathan.
I couldn't even believe it. I knew Antonio was wicked but wicked enough to kill someone I haven't even spoken to in years...
That was pure blasphemy.
"Y-you. Oh my god." I couldn't move. I couldn't even breathe.
"I was originally supposed to torture him in my basement in Brooklyn, but one of my men had to bring him back in a body bag since he struggled a lot." Antonio laughed like he was stating something normal.
"His last words were 'Is Drea okay'. That dork dared to speak your name. I wanted to shoot him in the head but I decided to let him die a slow death. I made sure I told him that I just finished fucking you. The look of horror on his face was comical.
"No." That was all I could muster up. I shook my head in disbelief and closed my eyes. I could not even look at the abominable man I married. There were no words to describe how sick I felt.
Jonathan and Antionio were the only men that I'd fallen in love with.
Jonathan was protective as well, but in a way that wasn't toxic or abusive. He knew how to be overprotective without overdoing it.
Jonathan was a very lovely boy. He was sensitive and caring and if he ever laid a hand on me, it was purely affectionate.
But clearly, I ended up with Antonio. When I was younger I thought it was because I loved Antonio more. I mean we grew up together and spent every waking moment of our childhood by each other's side.
But now as I'm more mature, I realize that I felt like I had no choice. Antonio displayed toxic traits since high school that I never acknowledged.
I didn't see how he was sabotaging every part of my life. How he was slowly but surely cutting off communication with everyone I loved.
I wanted to go to college and get a job as an interior designer. However, Antonio didn't want me to be alone in a class full of people.
It was not just men he distanced me from, but women too.
It was obvious he wanted me all to himself but I could never make that out until it was too late. I was a 17-year-old girl shopping with my 18-year-old boyfriend inked with tattoos as he chose every item of clothing I got which just happened to cover up every part of my body.
But it didn't bother me because I thought he had good intentions.
Or when I would be walking to my next class and he'd pull me into a random empty classroom and scold me for talking to another guy.
My stupid teenage mind just thought he was looking out for me.
Oh, I can't forget the time he pulled a knife out on a freshman for helping me find the new location of my classroom.
Yet, I ended up apologizing to Antonio.
And I simply ignored it because those actions of violence were not directed toward me. And he made sure I knew that.
Antonio had me under his fingertips. He controlled me without my knowledge and destroyed my life before I even graduated high school.
He gaslighted me, manipulated me, and told me everything he could to make sure I was stuck in an illusion where I believed that our relationship was everything but destructive.
Jonathan started off as a close friend that I had to secretly hang out with to avoid getting him seriously hurt by Antonio's murderous temper. But when I finally went on break with Antonio after he's been way too violent for me to handle, Jonathan became more to me than just a companion.
He helped me through my breakup and we became romantically involved. I obviously wanted to keep it private so Antonio didn't end up killing Jonathan.
Antonio would almost beat a guy to death for speaking to me, I couldn't imagine what he would do if a guy was with me romantically.
I and Jonathan were together for a few months. I broke it off when Antonio showed true signs of 'development'. Jonathan was heartbroken and it hurt to see him every day at school.
His head was always hanging low and he always looked like he was on the brink of tears. He wore the same hoodie and sweatpants consistently with his hood always on his head. I knew he was hurt badly by my decision to leave him for someone who didn't deserve me, but I felt like I was betraying Antonio.
Long story short, Antonio found out about the whole thing somehow and hurt Jonathan so bad he was put on life-support. He and his gangster buddies jumped him after his therapy session.
A therapy session he happened to go to frequently after our breakup.
I broke up with Antonio again. And that's when the toxic cycle began. The first time I broke up with him he fought a lot with me until I just avoided him. Still, he would kiss me and hug me even when I told him we were over.
But after Jonathan, it was like he couldn't even look at me. He didn't protest much when I called it off. He probably was disgusted that I could sleep with a man other than him. But I didn't even sleep with Jonathan. I just kissed him and it was nothing too sexual.
Jonathan and Antonio were polar opposites. Antonio left hickeys all over my body while Jonathan remained very gentle when we got intimate.
When Antonio found out I didn't sleep with Jonathan he seemed almost proud and so happy. I think that's why he spared Jonathan for a few years and begged me to get back together with him.
I don't even know why the hell I took Antonio back after that. But it was the power Antonio had. He could tell me that the sky is pink and I would believe him. He is a master at convincing, especially when he was younger. He shielded me away from anyone and anything which left me vulnerable to him only. Antonio is crazy selfish and he tricked me into believing he was a good man.
After our incident on my honeymoon, I'm sure that led him to kill Jonathan.
I felt very guilty. I provoked Antonio by calling out Jonathan's name when Antonio was already furious.
"I can't let another man continue to live after they've touched what is mine. That pathetic boy was all alone. Living in an expensive condo with a good job and no bitches. I did him a favor."
I turned around and closed my ears refusing to hear the man I once loved trivialize another man that had my heart long ago.
I tried to keep my crying quiet as I didn't want Antonio to know I was crying for another man. But like always, he found out.
"You love crying for other men, don't you?" Right now I wished that I could fall into a deep slumber and never awaken.
Antonio pulled my palms from my ears and repeated his question.
"Of course not," I said. My tears have come to a stop. The first time I cried for a man didn't end well and I didn't want to repeat that. Not after my dream.
He was silent for a while until he broke the silence.
"Don't forget who you belong to, tesoro. If I have to remind you by killing every person in this world, then ill do it without hesitation."
He laid a kiss on my back that repulsed me. He returned his arms to my waist and turned me around towards him.
He laid his head on my forehead and closed his eyes sighing.
"I want you to face me while you're sleeping."
I didn't need him to explain why. He knew I would worry about Jonathan too hard but now with his stunning face stuck in my face, Antonio was the only thought in my brain.
I was forced to think about Antonio Ricci, my crazy husband who controls every aspect of my life.
But not for long.