The gates creaked open at exactly ten a.m.
Siena’s hands trembled on the steering wheel as the black iron doors parted, revealing the long private road winding up toward the estate. Every inch of her body screamed to turn back. But Lucia slept in the backseat, and Siena had no choice. She drove through, heart pounding. The house emerged like a shadow—sleek lines, stone walls, floor-to-ceiling windows that mirrored the cloud-covered sky. A fortress. Cold. Imposing. Just like him. She parked near the entrance and exhaled slowly. “We’re just here to talk,” she whispered to herself. “He’ll see her, and then we’ll leave.” But she didn’t believe it. Not really. The front door opened before she could knock. Adriano stood there, dressed in black slacks and a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Casual. Effortless. Dangerous. His eyes dropped immediately to the little girl in her car seat. Lucia stirred and blinked sleepily. “Mommy, where are we?” Siena stepped out, unbuckling her gently. “We’re visiting someone, baby. Just for a little while.” Adriano didn’t say a word as they walked past him. He didn’t need to. His presence was loud enough. The inside was even colder than she remembered. Clean lines, marble floors, high ceilings. No warmth. No life. Just power and silence. “Sit,” he ordered, motioning to the leather couch in the living room. Siena obeyed, clutching Lucia close. Adriano sat across from them, his gaze locked on the child now nestled in her mother’s lap. Lucia tilted her head. “Hi.” His brows lifted. Siena’s breath caught. “This is Lucia.” Adriano’s jaw clenched. “How old is she?” “Four.” Silence. Lucia, unfazed, twisted in her mother’s arms and reached toward the table. “Do you have any juice?” Adriano rose without a word and disappeared into the kitchen. Siena wanted to scream at the absurdity of it. The Devil in his lair, pouring juice for a four-year-old. He returned with a glass and set it down. “Apple.” Lucia beamed. “Thank you.” He nodded, sitting again. “She looks like me.” Siena met his gaze, fire in her voice. “Because she is yours.” Another beat of silence. His expression didn’t change, but something shifted behind his eyes. “And you thought you could hide her from me forever?” “I was trying to protect her.” “From me?” “Yes.” Adriano leaned forward slowly, elbows on his knees. “She’s mine, Siena. You don’t get to decide that.” “You lost that right the day you left me in pieces.” “She’s mine,” he repeated, each word like steel. “And I’m not letting her go again.” --- Siena swallowed hard, wrapping her arms tighter around Lucia, whose small fingers now played absentmindedly with the hem of her mother's sleeve. “You don’t get to just claim her,” Siena said, her voice lower now, shaken but stubborn. “You weren’t there. You didn’t even know.” “I know now.” Adriano's voice dropped, quiet as thunder. “And that changes everything.” He stood and walked to the tall window behind him, the glass reflecting the tension that stretched between them like a wire ready to snap. “You think I’ll just hand her over to you?” Siena rose too, holding Lucia against her hip. “You think I’ll let a man like you near her? You threaten people. You kill them.” He turned sharply, his face carved in cold fury. “I protect what’s mine.” “By putting guns in their faces?” He stepped closer. Siena didn’t back down. “Do you think I don’t know who you are now?” she whispered. “I saw it, Adriano. The blood. The way they feared you. That’s not the man I loved.” “No,” he agreed. “That man died the night you left.” The words sliced through her. He saw it—how she flinched, how her breath hitched. Lucia looked between them, then softly, “Mommy… are we going home?” Siena blinked, her throat tightening. “Yes, sweetheart. We’ll go soon.” “No,” Adriano cut in. “You’re not going anywhere.” Her head snapped toward him. “You brought her here. To me. You should’ve known this wouldn’t be temporary.” “She’s not a bargaining chip—” “She’s not a chip,” he growled. “She’s my daughter.” “And what do you want now?” she hissed. “Me in your bed again, playing house in a mansion built on blood?” He was in front of her now, closer than he should be. Lucia shrank back in her arms. Adriano’s voice dropped to a murmur. “I want what’s mine. You. Her. Everything I lost when you disappeared.” “You mean everything you destroyed.” “Maybe.” He shrugged slightly. “But that doesn’t change the fact I can keep her safe. You can’t.” Tears burned in her eyes. “Don’t you dare say that.” “You’re broke. Working nights while she coughs herself to sleep. You brought her to me for help, Siena. I’m giving it to you.” Her lips parted—but no words came. Adriano lowered his voice again. “Stay here. Both of you. One month. I’ll give you doctors, security, anything she needs. In exchange, you’re mine.” “Mine?” He leaned in, brushing a knuckle along her jaw. “Mine.” Siena didn’t move. Couldn’t. Lucia fell asleep on her shoulder. And the devil in front of her waited… smiling. ---They transferred Lucia upstairs when the sun was still a rumor at the edge of the city. The elevator doors opened onto a quieter floor, the kind built for waiting rather than crisis — low voices, long corridors, daylight that would arrive slowly and take the edge off metal and glass. Observation Room 7 was small, rectangular, and cleared of everything that could make a mother feel in the way. A narrow bed. A recliner that pretended to be comfortable. A monitor mounted high, its screen already alive with thin lines and numbers. A rolling pole with a saline bag hung but capped — ready if needed, unnecessary if luck held. Lucia lay on her back, blanket tucked under her arms, a tiny adhesive band across the crook of her elbow where the cannula sat like a promise not yet called in. The pulse-ox clip glowed red against her finger, a little jewel that pulsed with each artifact of the heart’s work. The blow-by nozzle had been removed; the mask coiled at the base of the pole like a snake out
The hour before dawn makes every room honest. Color drains to ash; sound thins to a thread. The safe apartment breathed in long, even measures — vents whispering, pipes settling, the city outside reduced to a pulse behind glass.Siena had stopped pretending not to sleep. Somewhere between three and four she’d let her body fold into the chair by Lucia’s bed, a throw blanket slid haphazardly over her knees, her head tilted against the high back. She kept one hand free, palm resting on the mattress, two fingers lightly touching the edge of Lucia’s blanket where the rise and fall would tell her more than any clock. The bandage over her palm tugged when she flexed; it itched the way healing does when it decides to, not when you ask.Lucia lay on her side facing her, hair looped into soft curls against the pillow, breath a quiet tide. A line of stuffed animals kept sentinel at the foot of the bed — fox, rabbit, a soft bear whose ear had been loved thin. The nightlight in the corner had surr
Night settled over the safe apartment like a heavy curtain, muting the city to a distant murmur. The lamps were turned low — one pool of amber on the sideboard, another a thin halo over the corner of the living room where Siena sat with her legs tucked under her, a blanket thrown across her knees as if warmth could argue with dread.The place was engineered for quiet. The HVAC hummed at a regulated whisper. In the corridor outside, guards rotated in soft-soled shoes that never quite made a sound. Somewhere below, the elevator locks cycled, checking and rechecking their own certainty. The windows, double-laminated and polarized, showed nothing of Milan except a suggestion of light, like the city had been reduced to a pulse.On the coffee table lay the black card with the golden serpent and, beside it, the photograph from the morning’s package. Siena had left them there deliberately, a boundary line in plain view. She refused to keep them out of sight. She also refused to touch them aga
The apartment didn’t feel safe anymore. It felt measured.Siena sat on the edge of the low sofa in the living room, elbows on her knees, the photograph from the black package balanced between her fingers like a blade. Lucia’s small face stared back up at her from the glossy paper — lashes lowered, mouth parted in concentration over a children’s book. The closer she looked, the more the image refused to stay still; it kept pulling her inward to the single fact she could not make smaller: someone had been that close.The room breathed around her in slow, careful sounds — the distant hum of the building’s ventilation, the soft tick of the wall clock, footsteps muted in the corridor where the guards rotated posts every fifteen minutes. From down the hall came the low murmur of two voices — Marco briefing another man; the rustle of a tablet case being unzipped; the scrape of a chair as someone sat. Efficient noise. Loyal noise. None of it changed the picture in her hands.Adriano stood at
Morning in Milan arrived like a careful intruder — slipping through the blinds in narrow shafts of pale gold, brushing across the dark oak floors of Adriano’s safe apartment without disturbing the silence. The air inside was still, untouched, holding onto the faint scent of last night’s rain.Beyond the reinforced windows, the city was waking up. A tram’s low rumble passed somewhere in the distance. Car horns flared and died away. Somewhere down on the street, the metallic clink of a shopkeeper rolling open his shutters carried faintly upward.Inside, the building was locked down as always — guards posted in the corridor outside, two more at the main entrance, cameras running in a continuous loop. This was Adriano’s stronghold in Milan, a place built for shadows and safety.From the bedroom, Siena stirred. Her eyes opened to the muted light pressing through the curtains, the sound of Lucia’s laughter filtering in from the next room — a soft, high melody, the kind only a child could ma
The rooftop was quiet.Too quiet for a city that never slept.Milan, in all its splendor, stretched beneath them — a glimmering mosaic of power and decay. The rooftop of the Castello Rosso Hotel offered a view few ever earned: a city split between gods in suits and ghosts in leather jackets.Siena stood near the edge, the wind brushing against her like a whispered warning. Her hair fluttered behind her, raven-black and wild against the silver sky. Her heels clicked once against the stone, then stilled. She didn’t move again.Adriano stood a few feet behind her, suit jacket undone, shirt unbuttoned at the throat. He wasn't looking at the skyline. He was watching her. Always her.Below, sirens wailed in muffled cycles — in and out like tides. Red and blue lights ricocheted across car windows, alleyways, statues older than the republic. Shadows moved fast between buildings, motorcycles weaving through the dark like sharks sensing blood. The city was breathing differently tonight.And the