Chapter THREE

Cali didn't even look at the crepe. She swept her arm across the stone pillar, sending the silver saucer and the food clattering onto the marble floor.

The sound of expensive metal hitting stone echoed like a gunshot, but no one rushed out to see what happened.

The guards at the balcony entrance simply turned their heads, their faces as blank as statues.

"Is that it?" she yelled at the empty air, her voice cracking with a mix of fury and exhaustion.

"You buy my agency, you stalk my family, and you send me breakfast at midnight? You're pathetic!"

She didn't wait for a response. She marched back into the ballroom, her heels sounding like a death march.

The crowd parted for her like she was carrying a contagious disease. She saw her mother, Elena, in the corner, laughing with a group of men in sharp suits.

Cali grabbed her mother's wrist, her grip bruisingly tight. "We're leaving. Now."

"Cali, don't be dramatic!" Elena hissed, trying to pull away while maintaining her social smile. "Do you know who these people are? That's the underboss of the-"

"I don't care if it's the Pope," Cali snapped, her eyes flashing with a mean, jagged light.

"If you don't walk out that door with me, I'm calling the police and telling them exactly where you hid those jewelry boxes you stole from Aunt Maria." Elena's face went pale.

She knew Cali wasn't bluffing. Cali didn't do bluffs she did scorched earth.

They reached the front of the estate, but the black Rolls Royce was gone. In its place stood a sleek, matte-black motorcycle and a line of SUVs. The driver from earlier stepped forward, holding out a helmet.

"The CEO suggests you take the scenic route home, Miss Cali," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. "He says the city looks better when you're in control of the speed."

Cali looked at the helmet, then at the driver. She took the helmet and, without a word, threw it as hard as she could at the windshield of the nearest SUV. The glass spiderwebbed with a satisfying crunch.

"Tell your CEO to go to hell," she said, her voice a low, grumpy growl. "I'm walking."

"Cali, it's five miles!" Elena wailed.

"Then start walking, Mom. It'll help you sweat out the gin."

Cali kicked off her designer heels, picking them up by the straps, and began walking down the long, winding driveway in her bare feet.

The gravel bit into her skin, but the pain was grounded. It was real. It wasn't a shadow or a text message.

She hadn't gone half a mile before the streetlights above her began to flicker and die, one by one, in perfect synchronization with her footsteps.

She stopped, her breath hitching. The silence of the woods surrounding the estate was absolute. Then, from the darkness behind her, came the slow, rhythmic sound of a heavy engine idling. No headlights.

Just the low, predatory purr of a car following her at a walking pace.

Cali didn't run. She turned around, standing in the middle of the dark road, her sheer black dress billowing in the wind. She looked like a vengeful spirit.

"Come on then!" she screamed at the darkness. "Do it! Kill me or kidnap me, but stop watching me!"

The car stopped.

The door opened. A man's silhouette stepped out, but the darkness swallowed his features, leaving only the glow of a cigarette and the faint, suffocating scent of sandalwood.

"I could never kill you, Cali baby," a voice drifted through the night, rich, smooth, and terrifyingly calm.

"You're the only thing in this world that actually has a pulse." Cali's heart hammered against her ribs.

"Who are you?"

"I'm the man who's going to make sure you never have to walk in the dark again," he whispered.

Before she could respond, he stepped back into the car and sped off, leaving her standing in the sudden return of the streetlights.

When she looked down at her hands, she realized she was holding a small, black velvet box that hadn't been there a second ago.

Inside was a key. Not to a house, but to a city.

Cali stared at the key in the velvet box. It wasn't a standard house key it was a heavy, silver skeleton key with a small, stylized S engraved on the bow.

The Santoro crest.

"Great," she muttered, her grumpy facade returning as she snapped the box shut. "Now I'm collecting heirlooms from a sociopath."

She didn't wait for her mother, who was likely still puffing her way down the driveway in four-inch heels.

Cali started walking again, her bare feet hitting the cold asphalt with a rhythmic slap-slap-slap. She ignored the stinging in her soles. She ignored the way the wind whipped her sheer dress around her legs.

By the time she reached the main road, a taxi was already waiting. Not a black SUV. Not a Rolls Royce. A yellow, dented, everyday city cab.

The driver looked terrified. He didn't even ask for her destination. "Miss Cali? I'm supposed to take you to the loft."

"My apartment is on the North Side," Cali said, sliding into the back seat and crossing her arms over her chest not a loft.

"The... the gentleman said the loft, Miss," the driver stammered, his eyes darting to the rearview mirror as if he expected a ghost to appear in the backseat.

"He said you'd have the key."

Cali looked at the black box in her lap. Her jaw tightened. "Fine. Take me to the damn loft. Let's see what kind of museum he's built for me tonight."

The drive was silent.

The city lights blurred past, a neon smear of red and blue. Cali watched her reflection in the window, smudged eyeliner, tangled hair, and an expression that could wither a rose garden.

She looked like a disaster, and yet, she knew Devi was probably watching through some hidden camera, thinking she looked like a goddess.

The cab pulled up to a converted industrial building in a part of town that was rapidly being gentrified mostly by Santoro money.

The driver didn't even wait for a tip he sped off the moment her feet touched the sidewalk. Cali looked up at the top floor.

The windows were dark, but the penthouse balcony jutted out like a throne.

She walked to the heavy steel door of the building. There was no buzzer. No intercom. Just a single, silver keyhole.

She slid the key in. It turned with a smooth, expensive click.

The elevator took her straight to the top. When the doors opened, the lights flickered on automatically, revealing a space that was less of a home and more of a sanctuary.

It was minimalist, cold concrete, floor-to-ceiling glass, and a single, massive velvet sofa in the center of the room.

But it wasn't the furniture that caught her eye. The walls were covered. Not with art, but with her. Every campaign she'd ever done.

Every candid shot she didn't know was taken. There was a photo of her at ten years old, eating an ice cream cone with a grumpy scowl.

There was a photo of her yesterday, looking out her apartment window. In the center of the room, on a pedestal, sat a single item a pair of her favorite worn-out sneakers she'd thrown away six months ago because the soles were falling off.

They had been meticulously repaired, the leather polished to a shine.

"You're a sick man, Devi," she whispered to the empty room.

She walked to the window, looking out at the city she thought she knew. Tucked into the frame of the glass was a small, handwritten note.

You don't need to walk barefoot anymore, Cali baby. I've paved the streets for you. Sleep well. I'm right downstairs.

Cali didn't scream. she didn't cry. She just sat down on the floor, right there in the middle of the shrine he'd built for her, and pulled her knees to her chest.

"I hate you," she said to the hidden microphones she knew were tucked into the walls. "I hate you more than anyone I've ever met."

In the apartment directly below her, Devi leaned back in his chair, his eyes fixed on the monitor showing Cali sitting on the floor.

He took a slow sip of his whiskey, a dark, understanding smile playing on his lips.

"I know, baby," he whispered. "But you're finally home."