ABSOLUTE INSANITY: A forbidden bond-Chapter 180: No one is punishing you

Chapter 180

KATYA POV

I froze.

Every muscle in my body locked as my eyes snapped to the door, my heart slamming so hard it felt like it might crack my ribs from the inside.

Someone had caught me.

Marina.

That was the only thought my brain could produce. She had found me. She had come to reclaim the room I was "staining." She had come to finish the job Gina started.

The thought hit first before fear could even take shape. My fingers tightened around the edge of the nightstand, knuckles whitening as my pulse roared in my ears.

Punishment followed mistakes. I could almost feel the harsh sting of a lash across my face, the weight of her heel on my neck.

I was in his room, trapped in the oversized darkness of a shirt that didn’t belong to me, in a bed that wasn’t mine, looking like a thief caught in the act of breathing. I swallowed, my throat painfully dry, and forced myself to look.

My eyes moved slowly toward the door that was open now, light spilling in from the hallway behind the figure.

But it wasn’t the silk robe of the Donna that stepped through the threshold. It was a pair of heavy, legs.

My gaze traveled upward, past the dark, tailored trousers, past the white shirt unbuttoned at the throat, to the face that haunted every corner of my existence

Romeo.

The shock hit me like a bucket of ice water. My fingers lost their grip on the nightstand, and I recoiled, my body moving on pure, jagged instinct.

I flinched away so hard my shoulder slammed into the side of the bed, a sharp gasp tearing from my throat.

My thoughts scrambled, crashing into one another, trying to make sense of something that refused to be understood.

"Why are you out of bed?" His voice was low with a dangerous vibration as he repeated the earlier quickly.

He didn’t sound like he was shouting, but the authority in it was enough to make the air in the room feel heavy.

I shook my head violently, my eyes darting from his shoes to his hands, checking for a weapon, a belt, anything.

"I’m sorry, so sorry." I stammered, my teeth chattering. "Please let me go, give me anything, any punishment just don’t let your wife, the Donna... Marina...find out. She’ll kill me. Please, let me go back. I’ll stay in the cellar. I’ll never come back to this floor. Just—don’t.. don’t." I squeezed my eyes shut as he took a step forward.

I could take anything from him, I had been surviving him, the highest he has ever punished me was taking my senses but marina? oh god, I could not survive her next punishment.

I would never survive her, that woman has a nice face but a devil personality. I staggered, instinctively trying to put distance between us.as Romeo kept walking towards me.

My shoulder hitting the bedframe as my balance wavered. My hands came up without thinking, palms half-raised, useless shields I didn’t even realize I was forming.

Don’t look at him.Don’t draw attention. Don’t make it worse.

My heart was racing now, each beat loud and panicked, my head pounding beneath the bandage like it was warning me to run—but there was nowhere to go.

He was real. He wasn’t angry...well, he doesn’t look like that, not yet at least but that somehow felt worse.

I searched his face desperately for something—rage, disgust, punishment—anything I could prepare myself for.

Instead, I found something I didn’t recognize at all. And that terrified me more than if he’d been furious.

"I—" My voice failed, coming out hoarse and thin. I cleared my throat, my fingers digging into the fabric of the oversized shirt like it could anchor me.

"I didn’t mean to— I was just—" I stopped, because I didn’t know what I was explaining.

I didn’t know what I’d done. I ended up pressed against the cold stone of the wall, my hands coming up reflexively to shield my face, my shoulders hunched toward my ears.

"Look at me, Katya," he commanded. I couldn’t move. I was a fractured mess of bandages and borrowed silk, waiting for the floor to open up and swallow me.

Every memory of the last few hours came rushing back, telling me that I was a dead girl walking.

"I said look at me." His voice was closer now. I peeked through the gaps in my fingers, my breath coming in shallow, terrified hitches.

He was kneeling in front of me, but he wasn’t reaching for me. He was just... watching.

Watching the "thing" he had broken try to crawl away.

My brain couldn’t make sense of it. Men like him didn’t kneel.

Not in their own rooms. Not on cold stone floors. Not in front of servants who were shaking so badly they could barely stand.

He was supposed to tower. To loom. To remind me of how small I was just by breathing in my direction.

But he wasn’t standing over me. He was down there.

The position didn’t fit him—or me—or this moment. It felt like someone had taken pieces from different realities and forced them together until nothing lined up anymore.

His knees pressed into the marble floor, trousers creasing in a way that looked wrong on something so expensive.

My eyes caught on that detail stupidly, irrationally, like my mind needed something solid to hold onto.

Why would he ruin his clothes for me? The thought made my stomach twist.

Everything about this was mismatched.

His dark, expensive cologne filled the air while I smelled of antiseptic, iron, and fear. Bandages wrapped my head and back—clean, careful, professionally done.

No rough hands. No tearing pain. Someone had taken time with them. No one ever took time with me.

And the shirt hung off my frame like a mistake, swallowing my shoulders, the sleeves rolled with a neatness that felt deliberate. Like someone had noticed my hands were too small.

My pulse spiked again.

Why? Why do all this for someone who was going to be punished?

I didn’t understand why he wasn’t angry. Why he wasn’t shouting. Why he hadn’t already dragged me back to where I belonged.

Was this another punishment?

A quieter one?

Something worse?

I held my breath, waiting for the moment it would snap into place—for the cruelty to reveal itself—but it didn’t come.

He lifted his hands slowly, palms open, like I was something wild that might bolt if he moved too fast.

"Hey," he said, and the word didn’t belong to him. It was too gentle, too wrong. "It’s alright. You’re safe. Calm down."

Safe.

The word rang hollow, almost laughable. My chest tightened painfully, breath stuttering in and out like my lungs didn’t believe him either.

How could I calm down?

How could anyone expect calm when the man who decided my punishments was kneeling inches from me, his shadow filling my vision, his presence pressing into every nerve I had?

When his wife—the woman who hated me with a precision that felt personal—could walk through that door at any second.

My back burned in response, an aching reminder beneath the bandages. Marina’s work. Her anger written into my skin.

Proof of how much she enjoyed making examples out of people like me. "She’s going to come," I whispered. My voice shook so badly it barely sounded like mine.

Romeo frowned slightly, like I’d said something that didn’t compute. "Marina isn’t here," he said. "She’s not going to hurt you"

Yet.

That was the word he didn’t say, but it screamed in my head anyway.

Of course she would find out. She always did. Nothing happened in this house without eventually being filtered through her hands, twisted into something sharp.

"And when she does?" I asked, panic bleeding into my tone. "You’ll tell her. You’ll let her—" My throat closed, swallowing hard.

"You always choose her." I didn’t know when the words came out. It wasn’t an accusation. It was a fact.

Gravity. Death. Romeo stood with Marina. He always had. My fingers curled tighter into the shirt, knuckles pressing into my chest like I could hold my heart in place if I tried hard enough.

"You’re hurt," he said instead, his gaze flickering to the bandage at my head, then to my back. "You shouldn’t be standing."

"I’m not supposed to be here," I said quickly, "I know that. I know I broke something—I don’t even remember—but I’ll take whatever you decide. Just don’t make it worse. Don’t make her angry."

Romeo shifted, still kneeling, his movements careful, I saw how his calm face hardened. He was getting tired of my stamaring.

"No one is touching you," he said firmly. "No one is punishing you."

I shook my head viciously, that sent pain lancing through my skull. "I swear to you," My eyes locked onto Romeo as he continues "No one would treat you bad."

†"

Sorry for the bad Chapter and slow update