Fake Dating The Bad Boy-Chapter 55: The Cave

Justin’s POV

The gates of the cave rose before me like the maw of some ancient beast—an imposing, black-iron barrier etched with rust and runes stolen from nightmares. But as I drove down the long, winding driveway, the beast revealed its true shape: a colossal mansion carved from onyx stone, lit by hidden LEDs that traced every archway and buttress, its mirrored windows glinting under the moonlight. This was my sanctuary—and my prison in reverse.

I eased to a stop at the motor court, where a sleek Phantom Black Range Rover rested under a sculpted portico. I killed the engine and climbed out, kneading the tension from my shoulders. June sat beside me, her head lolling toward the door, eyes wide and haunted. I reached in and gently unstrapped her seatbelt, my fingers trembling against her skin. She didn’t respond; she was already slipping away.

I opened her door. "Come on," I murmured.

She rose unsteadily as I supported her, draping her arm across my shoulders. Her weight was a feather, but her mind felt as heavy as lead. I led her inside. frёeωebɳovel.com

The Mansion’s Two Faces

West Wing: The Dread Dungeon

The first corridor I entered was draped in shadows, lit by recessed uplights that cast tall, trembling silhouettes on vaulted ceilings. Here, the walls were lined with steel-reinforced doors, each marked by a simple steel plate: "Cell Block A," "Cell Block B," "Electro Ward," "Inoculation Bay."

"Something like this used to be referred as ground zero back in lab ," I told June, my voice low. "Where they kept us. Tortured us. Turned us into what they wanted."

She didn’t look at me. She just gazed ahead, eyes flicking, ears pricked for phantom commands.

In the center of the hall stood my pride and my penance: a heavy, four-poster table of blackened iron, thick straps dangling from its corners. Above it, a track of pulleys and wires, the remains of an apparatus that once delivered electrical shocks so fierce they left us begging for oblivion.

I swallowed. The memories rushed back—watching Number Nine convulse under those wires, hearing his silent scream echo off the concrete. Feeling the burn of Volt Protocol Seven igniting my nerves.

I led June past it like it was already burned out. To the south was a chamber labeled "Redemption Suite," where I’d once brought bad men and forced them to remember what they’d done to us. It was a labyrinth of padded cells and mirrored walls, designed to break them with their own reflections—only I’d repurposed it to bring them to their knees.

Tonight, it would serve a different purpose.

East Wing: The Sanctuary

A heavy oak door at the end of the hall swung open silently on hidden hinges, and the oppressive gloom gave way to a flush of warm light. Rich Persian rugs muffled our footsteps on polished marble floors. Velvet drapes shielded floor‑to‑ceiling windows. A grand staircase swept upward, its banister carved from obsidian. Oil paintings of serene landscapes, painstakingly framed, lined the walls—antidotes against the chaos lurking next door.

This side of the mansion was for the survivors I’d saved over the years: lost souls who had nowhere else to go. They didn’t stay long—only Rico remained here full-time, handling logistics, running the surveillance net I’d set up across the continent. Rico was the one I trusted to administer sedatives to June, to keep her pain at bay just enough to remember who she was.

I settled her gently onto one of three oversized leather chaises arranged around a low ebony table. On the table rested a crystal decanter of a pale yellow liquid—midazolam mixed with ketamine, calibrated to her weight and trauma load. A single glass waited beside it.

Rico was already here, pale in the glow of antique sconces, reviewing security feeds on a tablet. He looked up, relief flickering across his face. "Boss," he said quietly.

I pressed a hand to June’s forehead. "Administer it. Now."

He nodded and approached with the glass and a syringe. June’s eyes fluttered, half‑conscious. She smelled of sweat and tears—the remnant tang of panic.

Rico knelt beside her and gently coaxed her arm out of my hold. With a practiced hand, he inserted the needle into her vein and immobilized her as he injected. Within seconds, her eyelids fluttered shut, her breathing eased, and the tremor in her body slowed.

As June sank into sedation, her mouth moved. I leaned closer, straining to catch her whispered words.

"They said... I’m not real. They said..." Her voice trailed off into wet gasps, and the decanter rattled when I set it on the table. My heart clenched.

The Emotional Reach

I sat into the saddle of my own ivory chaise, legs spread in a battle-ready stance. My eyes never left her serene form.

She looked so peaceful—an angelic ruin. The contrast between this comfort and what she’d endured was unbearable.

"She’s out," Rico said softly, stepping back. "The voices will quiet for a while."

I nodded, though I knew it wouldn’t last.

I closed my eyes and exhaled a rasp of pent-up air. When I opened them again, I stared at June’s face. One side was pressed into the leather, the other illuminated by a single candle’s flicker. Her scalp was covered by strands of hair sticking to her sweaty cheek. Her lips, parted, seemed half‑ready to speak secrets.

I stood and circled around the table. Each step was a vow: to protect her from the monsters without, and the ones within.

I placed a hand on her shoulder. The leather under my palm was warm now. I heard myself whisper: "June..."

I remembered the first time I saw her. A ghost of a girl, huddled behind a pillar in the lab’s communal bathroom, crying so hard the guards ignored her just to watch. I’d slipped in and sat beside her, kept my voice low—"Hey. It’s me." And she had looked up, shock and recognition and something like longing flickering in her eyes.

She had trusted me then.

I reached under her chin and gently tilted her head until her face was bathed in candlelight. "You have to come back," I breathed. "You have to remember."

My voice faltered. Memories surged: her hand reaching for mine after an electroshock session, tears staining her cheeks. My own hands stained red with desperation as I pressed against the door, screaming for help that never came.

I knelt beside her chaise. "They made you forget so you could survive. But I made you a promise—never again. Not on my watch."

My fingers brushed her temple. I felt the subtle tremor that remained, even in sedation.

"She’s slipping," Rico murmured from the corner, watching the monitors. "We’ll have to bring her deeper under if she fights it."

"No," I said, too quickly. "No more sedation. Not now."

Rico’s head darted to me. "Boss—if we don’t—"

"I’ll lose her," I snapped. "I can’t lose her again."

Rico closed his mouth. He knew. He’d been there when she shot me that look, the first time she remembered our names together, and then lost it again like a candle flickering out in the breeze.

I turned back to June. "Listen to me. You’re not a number. You’re not a monster. You’re not their test subject. You’re June. My June." I brushed a strand of hair away from her face.

Silence pressed in. The only sound was her slow, even breathing. Even sedated, her chest rose and fell with the weight of her trauma.

I cupped her cheek. "I’ll never let them take you from me again."

My voice broke on the vow.

The grand doors behind me creaked softly. Tucked in the shadows, my group members—once prisoners I’d hauled from the brink—peered in. A tall woman with steel-gray hair, a man with a metal prosthetic arm. They’d helped me for years but stayed away from the dungeon side. Only Rico stuck around, day and night.

They hovered in silence.

I straightened. "Thank you, Rico." I nodded to the others. "Give me a moment."

They filed out, footsteps muted on the marble.

Now I was alone with her. The world outside seemed to recede until it was just a bubble of dim light and aching hearts.

I paced once, then stopped at the ornate mirror. My reflection stared back: haunted, hollow-eyed. I twisted to look at June. She lay there like a fallen dream.

I swallowed. "What can I do?" I whispered.

The voices had said the answer was violence. The same answer they’d given her when she plunged that fork into the monster’s eye. But violence wasn’t the cure—just another wound.

I leaned over her. "Come back to me," I said, gently brushing her fingers. "I need you."

And then I spoke the one thing I hadn’t dared say since she woke.

"I love you."

It was raw, unguarded. A prayer. A confession.

Nothing moved.

But inside my chest, I felt something shift—like a stone breaking.

A tiny crack.

A sliver of hope.

*******

I didn’t leave. Roi turned the lights down to a single lamp so she’d rest. I sat in a high-backed chair, watching her every breath. I battled my own demons: the urge to knock out every guard, burn down the lab’s last remnants, drown the world in an ocean of retribution.

But my June—my June—needed something else now.

She needed me.

So I stayed. Silent. Present. Head cradled in my hand, elbow on my knee.

Hours passed. Candles guttered, shadows shifted. The mansion hummed with quiet life elsewhere: footsteps in the kitchen where Mrs. Caldwell, our housekeeper, prepared breakfast for the others. Soft laughter drifting from the library where my oldest protégé poured over maps. But here, in this amber-lit sanctuary, time slowed.

My gaze flickered to June’s face. Her eyelids fluttered. She murmured—

"Don’t let them... don’t..."

Her voice was hoarse. I leaned closer.

"... find me again."

I grazed her hand. She flinched but didn’t wake. Her fingers clenched mine for a heartbeat, then relaxed again.

I whispered to the empty room, so she would hear: "I won’t. I swear."

Through the veneer of sedation, through the throb of her fractured memories, I hoped she felt it.

Hope is a dangerous thing.

A tiny flicker in a sea of darkness.

But if hope was all she had left, then I would carry it for both of us.