Chapter 21

 

Arie’s POV

Nico studied the destruction around us for another moment before removing his phone from his pocket. He made a call without taking his eyes from me.

“Come upstairs,” he said when someone answered. “Bring two maids and have the room cleared.”

He ended the call and slipped the phone back into his pocket.

“I don’t want anyone touching my things,” I said.

“They are already handling your things.”

“This is not my room.”

“It is now.”

“I don’t want it.”

His expression remained frustratingly calm. “You’ll need somewhere to sleep.”

“I’d rather sleep on the floor of my apartment.”

“The apartment you left unsecured?”

“The apartment you broke into.”

Nico’s gaze dropped to my bare feet. Broken glass surrounded the bed, glittering across the carpet beneath the warm light. Before I understood his intention, he moved toward me and lifted me into his arms.

“Put me down!”

My hands pressed against his shoulders, but weakness still remained in my body. Nico carried me across the room as though I weighed nothing.

“There is glass beneath your feet.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do.”

He placed me carefully in the centre of the bed. When I attempted to climb down from the other side, his hand closed around my ankle.

“Stay.”

“I’m not one of your soldiers.”

“No. My soldiers understand simple instructions.”

I pulled my leg from his hold and moved closer to the headboard. “I hate you.”

“I’m aware.”

A knock sounded before the door opened. Elena entered with two younger women carrying cleaning supplies. Their eyes widened when they saw the state of the room, but neither commented.

“Remove every piece of glass,” Nico instructed. “Replace anything she broke and check the adjoining rooms.”

“You’re replacing everything?” I demanded.

He glanced at the shattered lamp. “Did destroying it make you feel better?”

“For a minute.”

“Then I’ll order ten more.”

His response left me speechless.

Elena began gathering the larger pieces of glass while the other women removed the damaged bedding. Nico stood beside the bed until the floor around me had been cleared, watching every movement as though a small cut on my foot would be a greater crime than dragging me across an ocean.

The contradiction made something ache inside me.

He had drugged me, stolen my phone and passport, destroyed my career, and locked me inside an unfamiliar estate. Yet he couldn’t tolerate the possibility of broken glass touching my skin.

That wasn’t love.

It couldn’t be.

Love wasn’t supposed to feel like a hand around your throat and another beneath your feet.

Once the floor was safe, Nico crossed to the sitting area near the fireplace and removed his coat. He sat in one of the armchairs and began working on his phone as though this were an ordinary evening.

Messages arrived continuously. He answered several calls in a low voice, discussing shipments, meetings, and names I didn’t recognise. Men waited for his decisions thousands of miles away, and Nico gave orders with the same calm authority he used to decide where I would live.

I watched him from the bed with my arms folded tightly across my chest.

He had invaded my life and then brought his own into the room as though there were no difference between us anymore.

Elena replaced the bedding and arranged the room with quiet efficiency. One of the maids collected the yellow tulips from the floor. Most of the stems had survived the fall, although several petals were crushed.

“Throw those away,” Nico said without looking up from his phone.

“No.”

Everyone in the room became still.

Nico slowly lifted his gaze.

“They’re mine,” I said.

His jaw hardened. “They came from Hale.”

“They still belong to me.”

For several seconds, neither of us looked away. Then Nico turned toward Elena.

“Put them in water.”

Elena carried the flowers into the bathroom, returning moments later with them arranged inside a simple glass vase. She placed it on the table beside my bed.

The yellow flowers looked painfully bright inside the room Nico had chosen for me.

When the last piece of broken glass had been removed, Elena approached me.

“Would you like something to eat?”

“No.”

“You haven’t eaten properly in two days.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Nico’s attention returned to me. “Bring her soup.”

“I said no.”

“And I heard you.”

Elena gave me an apologetic look before leaving with the maids. The door closed behind them, leaving Nico and me alone.

He returned to his phone.

Minutes passed in suffocating silence. I stared at the yellow tulips and thought about Seattle. Shelly would expect to see me at work. Mr. Hart might believe the resignation Nico sent, but she wouldn’t. She knew I wouldn’t abandon the campaign without speaking to her.

Would she search for me?

Would Nico threaten her too?

My father’s photograph stood on the bedside table. Nico’s men had brought it exactly as he ordered, but the sight of my father’s face broke something inside me.

He had once told me never to allow anyone to decide the shape of my life.

I had failed him.

The first tear slipped down my cheek before I realised I was crying. I wiped it away angrily, but another followed. Soon, I could no longer stop them.

I turned my face toward the window, refusing to let Nico see.

The room became silent.

A moment later, the mattress dipped beside me.

“Don’t,” I whispered.

Nico didn’t answer. His arm moved around my waist, and he pulled me against his chest.

I stiffened immediately.

“Let me go.”

“Not while you’re crying.”

“You’re the reason I’m crying.”

His hold tightened—not painfully, but firmly enough to remind me of the strength surrounding me. My hands rested against his chest, yet I didn’t have enough energy left to fight him.

“I missed you, my baby,” he murmured against my hair. “More than you will ever understand.”

“You don’t get to miss someone you chose to destroy.”

“I didn’t destroy you.”

“You destroyed everything I trusted.”

Nico leaned back enough to see my face. His thumb moved beneath my eye, catching a tear before it could fall. He watched me as though I were a lost piece of himself he had finally recovered.

“You’re here now,” he said. “You’re mine, and I will never let you go again.”

The tenderness in his voice hurt more than anger would have.

I had moved across an ocean. I had built a career, made a friend, and learned how peaceful life could be without the Contini empire surrounding me. Nico had watched all of it, waited until I began believing I was safe, and then taken everything away.

Now he was trying to tempt me with the same tenderness that had made me love him the first time.

“You cannot hold me until I forget what you did.”

“I don’t expect you to forget.”

“You expect me to forgive you?”

“No.” His fingers caressed my cheek. “I expect you to remain.”

I turned my face away, but his palm stayed against my skin. His thumb traced the line of my jaw with unbearable familiarity.

My heart betrayed me by beating faster.

Nico noticed. He always noticed.

His gaze lowered to my lips, still sensitive from the kiss inside my apartment. I remembered the hunger in his mouth and the way my body had surrendered before the sharp sting exposed his plan.

“You used my feelings against me,” I whispered.

“The kiss wasn’t a lie.”

“Everything with you is a lie.”

His expression hardened. “Not this.”

Nico pulled me closer until my side pressed completely against him. His face lowered, and his warm breath moved across my neck.

My body became painfully still.

His nose brushed lightly beneath my ear, and he inhaled as though he had spent months starved of my scent. The movement was intimate enough to send a shiver down my spine.

“I thought about this every night,” he said against my skin. “Holding you. Hearing you breathe. Knowing you were where I could reach you.”

Tight knots formed low inside my stomach. I hated my body for remembering him. I hated the warmth spreading through me when I should have felt nothing but disgust.

Nico’s lips barely touched the curve beneath my ear.

“Nico…”

He stopped.

The hand around my waist remained firm, but he didn’t move his mouth against me again.

“Tell me to move away,” he said.

The words should have been easy.

Instead, I sat frozen between the man who had broken my heart and the familiar warmth my body still craved.

Then my gaze fell upon his wedding ring.

Reality returned like a slap.

I pushed against his chest and moved away. This time, Nico allowed me to go.

“Return to your wife.”

A muscle moved in his jaw. “Bianca has nothing to do with what exists between us.”

“She has everything to do with it.”

“Our marriage changes nothing.”

“It changed me.”

The words silenced him.

A knock sounded at the door, and Elena entered carrying a silver tray. The smell of warm soup filled the room, but the thought of eating made my stomach turn.

“Place it there,” Nico instructed, pointing toward the table beside the bed.

Elena obeyed. Before leaving, she glanced at me with quiet concern.

“Will there be anything else, sir?”

“No. Make certain no one disturbs us tonight.”

The meaning behind tonight tightened something inside me.

Elena lowered her head and walked out. The lock clicked behind her, leaving Nico and me alone once more.

“I’m not eating,” I said.

Nico removed his coat and placed it over the back of a chair. “You haven’t eaten properly in two days.”

“Whose fault is that?”

“Mine.”

His easy admission surprised me.

“Then take the food and leave.”

“No.”

He carried the tray to the bed and placed it between us. Steam rose from the bowl while Nico unfolded the napkin with infuriating calm.

“I said I’m not hungry.”

“And I heard you.”

“Then why are you still sitting here?”

“Because hunger is not required.”

He lifted the spoon and stirred the soup as though we were discussing an ordinary meal instead of my imprisonment.

“I’m not a child, Nico.”

“No, you’re a stubborn woman who would rather make herself ill than accept anything from me.”

“I would rather starve than let you pretend you’re taking care of me.”

Something dark entered his eyes.

“You have two choices, Arie. You can eat by yourself, or I can feed you.”

“There is a third choice.”

“No, there isn’t.”

My heartbeat quickened. “You cannot control whether I eat.”

Nico placed the spoon back inside the bowl and leaned toward me. One hand pressed into the mattress beside my thigh, trapping me beneath the weight of his gaze.

“I crossed an ocean, entered your apartment, and brought you back to Italy despite every attempt you made to escape me.” His voice became dangerously quiet. “Do you truly believe a bowl of soup is where my control ends?”

Fear moved coldly through me.

“That is not control,” I whispered. “It is cruelty.”

“Call it whatever helps you sleep.” He sat back and lifted the spoon again. “But you will eat.”

I turned my face away.

Nico remained motionless for several seconds. Then his fingers closed gently—but firmly—around my chin and guided my face back toward him.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Open your mouth.”

“No.”

His thumb rested beneath my lower lip. He didn’t hurt me, but the calm certainty in his expression frightened me more than anger would have.

“If you intend to fight me tomorrow, you’ll need your strength.”

The words reached the part of me still searching for an escape. Refusing food wouldn’t punish Nico. It would only leave me weaker inside a house filled with his men.

He knew that.

He was using my own determination against me.

I looked at the spoon waiting between us.

“One bite,” I said.

“The entire bowl.”

“I won’t.”

“Then we’ll sit here until morning.”

The room became silent. Nico’s patience was endless when he had already decided how something would end.

Slowly, I opened my mouth.

He placed the spoon against my lips and tilted it carefully. The soup was warm and mild, but humiliation made it difficult to swallow.

Nico watched my throat move.

“That’s my girl.”

“Don’t call me that.”

He filled the spoon again. “Open.”

Anger burned through me, but I obeyed. Not because he had won. Because I needed enough strength to survive him.

He fed me slowly, never looking away from my face. Whenever I hesitated, his thumb brushed across my chin in a gesture that might have felt tender if it hadn’t been another form of control.

Halfway through the bowl, I reached for it.

“I can feed myself.”

Nico moved it beyond my grasp. “I know.”

“Then give it to me.”

“No.”

He lifted another spoonful. I wanted to throw it across the room, but I remembered the guards, the locked doors, and the weakness still lingering inside my body.

I swallowed.

The wedding ring on his hand caught the light each time he raised the spoon. I watched it approach my mouth again and again, a cruel reminder that even this disturbing tenderness belonged to another woman’s husband.

When the bowl was finally empty, Nico placed it on the tray. He used the napkin to wipe a drop of soup from the corner of my mouth, his touch lingering longer than necessary.

I recoiled, but his hand moved to my cheek.

“Was that so difficult?”

“I hate you.”

His gaze lowered to my lips.

“You keep saying that as though it will make me believe you.”

His thumb traced the lower lip he had kissed only two nights earlier. My breathing changed despite every effort to control it.

Nico noticed.

He always noticed.

He moved closer until the mattress dipped beneath his weight and the warmth of his body surrounded me again.

The empty bowl sat forgotten on the table.

“Now,” he murmured, his eyes holding mine, “we can discuss what happens tonight.”

That was when I understood the true danger of Nico’s tenderness.

Even his care was another way of reminding me that I belonged to him.