Room Twenty-Two

Five years before the main story, Axel Moretti and his two closest friends—Kian and Ronan—corner Kevin, Stella Adams's high school boyfriend, in a warehouse.

Five years before the main story, Axel Moretti and his two closest friends—Kian and Ronan—corner Kevin, Stella Adams's high school boyfriend, in a warehouse. Kevin had been warned not to touch her. He ignored them. Ronan, normally the composed one, castrates Kevin with a knife. When Kevin responds with slurs about Stella, Kian drives a blade through his jaw and skull, again and again. They call cleaners using connections from Ronan's oligarch father. With Kevin dead and Stella believing he simply vanished, Axel declares the plan: they will wait—years if necessary—until Stella is ready to belong to the three of them.

Three obsessed men orbit Stella for years unseen

Axel begins flying from Chicago to Boston every weekend to watch Stella at college. What starts as surveillance escalates into breaking into her bachelor apartment, standing over her bed as she sleeps, stealing her underwear—items he inhales while masturbating. Kian, meanwhile, paints nothing but Stella—her hair, her eyes, her body on every canvas—and spirals into self-harm when the longing overwhelms him. Ronan holds the group together, reminding Kian they need two more years. All three men have stopped sleeping with other women, using each other for physical release instead. When a college student drugs Stella's drink at a bar, Axel intercepts, beats the man to death, and carries an unconscious Stella home. She never learns what happened.

Stella peeks through Axel's door and can't look away

Stella's mother has married Anthony Moretti, a notorious Chicago mob boss, and Stella arrives at the family's castle-like manor for the summer. She knows Axel from high school—she once witnessed him, Kian, and Ronan beating a man nearly to death in a locker room and has avoided him ever since. Alone in the manor and spiraling into a panic attack, she hears sounds from Axel's room across the hall. Through the cracked door, she sees Ronan on his knees between Axel's legs while Kian strokes himself nearby. She begins touching herself—and they catch her mid-act. Axel pins her wrist, holding her hand inside her underwear, and proposes a game: she runs, they chase. If they catch her, she's theirs.

The forest hunt ends with no safe word spoken She bolts into the forest surrounding the manor with a ten-minute head start. They close the distance in moments. Axel pins her against a tree, fingers her roughly despite her period, and makes her taste her own blood. Ronan crouches beside her, stroking her hair and praising her—his gentleness a calculated counterpoint to Axel's aggression. Kian hangs back at first with folded arms,…