THE FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE

For three days, Ava waged war.

She refused to eat the meals brought to her room. She threw herself against the locked door until her shoulders ached. She searched every inch of her prison for something, anything, that could be used as a weapon or a way out.

She found nothing.

The windows were bulletproof and didn’t open. The bathroom had no mirrors that could be broken, no razors that could be stolen. Even the furniture was bolted down, as if Dario had anticipated exactly this kind of resistance.

Of course he had. He had planned everything else.

On the fourth morning, she woke to find him sitting in the chair by her window, watching her sleep. The sight should have terrified her, but by now she was beyond fear. She had moved into something colder, harder.

Pure, distilled rage.

“Get out.” Her voice was hoarse from days of screaming at locked doors and unresponsive guards.

“Good morning to you too.” He was impeccably dressed as always, his dark suit pristine, his pale blue eyes as steady and unreadable as ever. “You look terrible.”

She sat up, very aware that she was wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt she had found in the closet. Her hair was a mess, her face pale from lack of food, her eyes probably wild with the kind of desperation that came from days of captivity.

“I said get out.”

“I heard you.” He leaned back in the chair with the casual elegance of a man completely at ease. “I brought breakfast.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You haven’t eaten in three days. Your body is starting to eat muscle tissue.” His voice was clinical. “If you’re planning to maintain this hunger strike, you should know it will kill you long before it inconveniences me.”

“Good.” The word came out sharp and bitter. “Then you will have a corpse instead of a captive. I’m sure that’s exactly what you wanted.”

Something flickered across his features—too quick to identify, but close enough to pain that it made her chest tighten with unwelcome satisfaction.

“Eat,” he said quietly.

“No.”

“Ava.” His voice carried a warning now, a hint of the steel beneath all that expensive tailoring. “Don’t make me force you.”

“Try it.” She met his gaze head-on, letting him see exactly how far past caring she had traveled. “See what happens when you try to force food down the throat of someone who would rather die than give you what you want.”

The silence stretched between them, taut and dangerous. Then Dario stood, moving with that fluid grace that never failed to make her pulse quicken with a combination of fear and something she refused to name.

“You think starving yourself makes you strong?” He moved closer to the bed, and she instinctively pulled her knees to her chest. “You think refusing to eat makes you some kind of martyr?”

“I think it makes me free.” The words came out steadier than she felt. “You can cage my body, but you can’t force me to live in your world.”

“Can’t I?” He was at the edge of the bed now, close enough that she could see the tiny scar above his left eyebrow, probably from some long-ago violence. “What do you think happens if you die, little bird? Do you think Leandro gets to mourn you in peace? Do you think your parents get to bury their daughter and move on with their lives?”

The casual way he said it sent ice through her veins.

“You wouldn’t.”

“I would do whatever it takes to honor your memory.” His voice was soft, almost gentle, which made the threat infinitely more terrifying. “If you’re not here to protect them, who will? If you’re not here to be my obsession, what do you think I will fixate on instead?”

He was right, and they both knew it. Her death wouldn’t free anyone. It would only redirect his dangerous attention to the people she loved most.

“You’re a monster.” But the words lacked the heat they had carried before.

“I’m a man who loves you.” His hand reached out, stopping just short of touching her face. “I’m a man who would burn down this entire city to keep you safe. I’m a man who would kill anyone who tried to hurt you, who would die before letting anyone take you from me.”

“That’s not love. That’s ownership.”

“Perhaps.” His fingers finally made contact, brushing against her cheek with devastating gentleness. “But it’s honest. It’s real. It’s more than anyone has ever felt for you before.”

She should pull away. Should slap his hand, should spit in his face, should maintain the wall of hatred she’d been building for four days.

Instead, she found herself leaning into the touch despite every rational thought screaming at her to resist.

“I hate you,” she whispered, but the words came out broken instead of fierce.

“I know.” His thumb traced along her jawline, and she shivered despite herself. “But you’re still here. Still fighting. Still alive.”

“Because you won’t let me leave.”

“Because you don’t really want to.” His voice dropped to barely above a whisper, intimate and terrible. “Because somewhere deep down, you know that what I’m offering is real. Dangerous, yes. Possibly destructive, yes. But real in a way nothing in your carefully constructed life ever was.”

“You’re offering me prison.”

“I’m offering you everything.” His forehead rested against hers now, and she could feel his breath against her lips. “I’m offering you a man who would start wars for you. I’m offering you passion that would make angels weep and devils jealous. I’m offering you a love so complete, so absolute, that it would rewrite the very definition of the word.”

“I don’t want that kind of love.” But her voice was hoarse—lacking the weight of hatred, and they both heard it.

“Don’t you?” His free hand found her waist, and she didn’t pull away. “Haven’t you spent your whole life wondering what it would feel like to be someone’s everything? To be worth fighting for, worth dying for, worth risking damnation for?”

The questions struck her, The truths she had buried so deep she had almost convinced herself they didn’t exist.

“That doesn’t make this right.”

“Right and wrong are luxuries for people who have everything to lose.” His voice was hypnotic now, drawing her deeper into whatever spell he was weaving. “I have nothing left to lose except you. And I will not lose you.”

“You never had me.”

“Didn’t I?” His eyes searched her face, reading things she didn’t want him to see. “Then why are you shaking? Why is your heart racing? Why are you looking at me like you want me to kiss you almost as much as you want to kill me?”

Because he was right. God help her, he was right about all of it.

She was shaking, but not from fear anymore. Her heart was racing, but not from terror. And she was looking at him like… like she wanted things she had no business wanting from a man who’d destroyed her life.

“This is Stockholm Syndrome.” The words came out desperate, grasping at any rational explanation for the traitorous responses of her body. “It’s not real. It’s just… psychology.”

“Is it?” His smile was sad and beautiful and extremely dangerous. “Or is it the first honest thing you have felt in years?”

Before she could answer, before she could think of another protest or another way to deny what was happening between them, he kissed her.

It wasn’t the gentle, careful kisses she had shared with Leandro. It wasn’t sweet or tentative or respectful of her boundaries.

It was consuming. Desperate. Full of four days of watching her waste away and months of wanting what he couldn’t have and years of being a man who took what he needed to survive.

And despite every logical thought screaming at her to resist, despite every moral principle she had ever held, despite the fact that this man had kidnapped her and threatened her family and destroyed her life…

She kissed him back.

Her hands found the front of his shirt, fisting in the expensive fabric as she pulled him closer. Her mouth opened under his, letting him deeper, letting him take what he wanted while she took what she needed.

For just a moment, she let herself drown in the sensation of being wanted with such desperate intensity. For just a moment, she let herself feel what it was like to be someone’s everything.

Then reality crashed back in, cold and harsh and unforgiving.

She shoved him away with every ounce of strength she had left, sending him stumbling backward as she pressed her hands to her mouth in horror.

“No.” The word came out broken, desperate. “No, no, no. I can’t. I won’t.”

Dario straightened his shirt with hands that weren’t quite steady, his pale eyes never leaving her face. “But you did.”

“That was a mistake.”

“Was it?” He moved toward the door, but paused at the threshold. “Eat, Ava. Please. Because I meant what I said, if you die, everyone you have ever cared about becomes my way of staying close to you. And neither of us wants that.”

As the door closed behind him, leaving her alone with the wreckage of her resolve.

The most terrifying part wasn’t that she had kissed him back.

It was that she wanted to do it again.

And again.

And again.

Until she forgot why she had ever wanted to resist in the first place.