LOGINSeeing the expression on my face, Matteo leaned, paused by the door. "What?" he asked. "You don't like the word normal?"I narrowed my eyes on him. "I don't trust it."He let out a short breath that sounded suspiciously close to amusement. "By normal, I mean she's relatively okay.""Define relatively.""She hasn't isolated herself. She hasn't lashed out at anyone beyond the usual. She hasn't tried to climb over the walls or manipulate half the staff into helping her escape."I folded my arms. "So, business as usual.""Exactly."I remained silent.Matteo continued, "More importantly, she hasn't shown any signs that she's particularly stressed about what happened."That caught my attention."What do you mean?""I mean exactly that," he replied. "Considering she was kidnapped three days ago, she seems surprisingly composed."I frowned."Lena doesn't stay down for long.""No, she doesn't."That part made sense.From the moment I had brought her into this house, Lena had shown an irritatin
~~NICCOLÒ~~There were only a few people who knew about what had happened back then. My mind immediately went to my father. If he was involved in this somehow, things could become ugly for the entire Santoro operation very quickly.I closed the file in front of me and leaned back in my chair, studying Matteo carefully."Do we have any leads at all?" I asked.Matteo exhaled quietly and shook his head. "None that I trust.""None?" I repeated. "You're telling me an organization is moving illegal cargo through our ports, renting warehouses across the city, transporting industrial refrigeration units, and nobody has seen anything useful?"Matteo folded his arms across his chest. "I'm telling you exactly that."I frowned."That doesn't happen.""I know.""No," I said, sitting forward. "You don't understand. It doesn't happen. Somebody always talks. Somebody always makes a mistake."
~~LENA~~Three days had passed. And to my surprise, absolutely nothing had happened.I had spent the first day expecting a disaster to occur. By the second day, I had convinced myself that someone would eventually corner me in a hallway, demand the device back, or reveal that they somehow knew I had kept it. And the third day, I no longer knew what to think.There were no messages, threats, mysterious instructions and no signs that anyone even remembered I existed.The people behind the device had simply vanished.At times, I found myself wondering if I had imagined the entire thing. The silence bothered me more than I wanted to admit. Silence meant waiting. And waiting usually meant something unpleasant was coming.Niccolò had been equally absent.Not physically. He was still in the house every night, but he had barely been around otherwise. Whatever business occupied him seemed important. Over the past few days, the
~~NICCOLÒ~~ I woke up in the middle of the night. Lena was sprawled against my chest calmly, one of her arms was tucked beneath my ribs while the other rested over my stomach. Her breathing was even now, and she felt soft on my skin. Every few minutes she shifted slightly closer without even realizing it, chasing my body warmth in her sleep. And every single time she did, my mind got worse. The room was dark except for the faint city lights slipping through the curtains. I stared at the ceiling, with one arm behind my head while the other stayed wrapped around her waist. This was a mistake. A massive one. I had spent years building control so carefully that most people believed I was born without emotions entirely. Discipline kept people alive in my world, feelings got exploited and attachments got you buried six feet underground. Yet somehow this woman had managed to crawl under my skin in a matter of weeks. I looked down at her quietly. Her hair was spread across my ches
Niccolò pulled back from the kiss, breathing heavily, his forehead still stayed on mine. His eyes were dark, full of an emotion I couldn't quite name. Without a word, he stood up and took my hand, pulling me gently to my feet. "Come with me," he said calmly. I didn't argue. My legs felt shaky as he led me out of the study and down the quiet hallway toward his room. The mansion was silent around us and every step forward made my heart beat faster. The moment we stepped inside his room, he closed the door and locked it. Then he turned to me slowly. The lamp on the bedside table cast a soft, warm light across his face. He cupped my cheek with one hand, brushing my skin with his thumb like I was fragile. "I'm not going to rush this," he murmured. "Not tonight." "I don't even know what we're doing anymore," I admitted quietly. His thumb brushed my cheek again. "Neither do I." His eyes stayed on mine. "But I know I'm done pretending I don't want you." That surprised me more than a
~~LENA~~ Niccolò was already walking toward the dining table. His dark shirt sleeves were rolled to his forearms, exposing the tattoos that disappeared beneath the fabric. His expression remained as unreadable as ever, but something felt different about him this morning. Whatever the reason, I became painfully aware of his presence the closer he got. Without saying a word, he reached for the chair opposite mine and pulled it out. The movement was calm and effortless, the kind of thing that looked ordinary until he did it. Then he lowered himself into the seat as though nothing unusual had happened between us. I swallowed and forced myself to speak. "Good morning." The greeting came out less confident than I intended. He lifted his eyes to meet mine. "Morning." That was all. He simply nodded once before reaching for his breakfast and beginning to eat as though yesterday had been perfectly normal. I stared at him for a moment before looking down at my own plate. Okay. Maybe th
~~LENA~~ I couldn’t breathe properly. The moment we stepped inside the mansion fully, I tried to walk faster and way ahead of him, my heels clicked angrily against the marble floor as I headed straight for the stairs. I needed distance. I needed to get away from him before I said or did something
~~LENA~~ The car ride was suffocating. I sat stiffly beside Niccolò, the burgundy dress suddenly feeling too tight and exposing. He hadn’t said a word to me since we left the compound. He was on his phone, speaking in Russian and completely in his own world. My eyes kept drifting to him. The s
Sleep wouldn't come. Every time I closed my eyes I saw blood on the gravel, Niccolò's hand catching me and Alessia's calm face telling me my cage had been built years before I stepped into it.I gave up somewhere around eight in the morning.The window was where I ended up sitting instead, knees pu
~~LENA~~“What the hell is wrong with you?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.The words came out louder than I expected. My chest felt tight, like I couldn’t breathe properly anymore.Was this really normal to him?The way he ordered a man’s fingers broken without even blinking. The calm i







