An option, not an order

I didn't call Matteo. I told myself that for a week, right up until the night someone tried to break into the Romano Shield office.

It happened at 2 a.m. The alarm system I'd installed myself did exactly what it was supposed to — cameras rolling, silent alert to my phone, the intruder gone before the police even turned onto the street. Nothing was taken. Nothing was damaged except the back door lock.

But someone had left a folder on my desk. Inside it: photographs. Of me. At the hotel, at the café with Matteo's card in my hand, at my parents' estate. Someone had been watching me for longer than a week.

I called my father first, out of habit, and immediately regretted it — not because he wasn't helpful, but because his first reaction was to reach for his own men, to handle it the way Romanos always handled things.

"I can protect myself," I told him. "That's the whole point of what I built."

"This isn't about pride, Isabella. Someone is sending a message."

"Then I'll answer it my way."

I didn't call Dante either, though every instinct told me he'd want to know. Instead, I sat with the folder until sunrise, cataloguing every photo, every angle, trying to identify the photographer's vantage point the way I'd trained myself to. Professional. Patient. Someone with resources.

By morning, I had a short list of who benefited most from frightening me: rivals of my father's who'd always resented the Romano name, business competitors jealous of Romano Shield's fast success, or someone inside Dante's world who didn't want me anywhere near his hotel.

Or Valentina. Her name sat at the bottom of the list, underlined twice, though I had no proof — only the particular chill I remembered from her voice at that dinner, the sense that she saw people as pieces to be moved rather than as people at all.

I called the number on Matteo's card before I'd fully decided to.

"Ms. Romano." His voice was unhurried, like he'd expected the call. "I assume this isn't social."

"Someone broke into my office last night. They left photos. Of me, going back weeks."

A pause, longer than I expected. "Are you hurt?"

"No."

"Good." Something in his tone shifted, harder now. "Send me copies. Not the originals — keep those for yourself. I have people who can trace where a photograph was likely taken from, sometimes even who processed the film if it wasn't digital."

"Why would you help me?"

"Because someone frightening a competent woman out of a business she built alone offends me more than it should," he said. "And because I told you I respect competence. I don't offer that lightly."

I hesitated. "This isn't me choosing a side, Matteo."

"I didn't ask you to. I asked to help. There's a difference, even if some men in this city have forgotten it."

Dante found out about the break-in anyway — of course he did; nothing that touched me stayed hidden from him for long, not when half the city still thought of me as his. He showed up at Romano Shield's office two days later without calling first, dressed down, tie loosened, looking like a man who hadn't slept.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, before I'd even said hello.

"Because it's not your business anymore."

"You work in my hotel."

"I work at your hotel. There's a difference." I gestured at the chair across from my desk, more out of habit than warmth. "Sit, if you're going to yell at me. I'd rather Elena not hear it through the wall."

He sat, but the anger didn't leave his shoulders. "Someone photographed you for weeks and you didn't think that was worth a phone call?"

"I handled it."

"How?"

I debated lying. I decided against it. "I called Matteo Moretti."

Something went very still in his face — not the cold, controlled stillness I remembered from our marriage, but something rawer, something that looked almost like fear dressed up as anger.

"You called Moretti."

"He offered to help identify where the photos were taken from. I took the help."

"He's using you, Isabella. Whatever kindness he's showing you, it's not free. Men like him don't do anything without calculating the return."

"And you do?" The words came out sharper than I intended, years of frustration behind them. "Every kindness I ever got from you had strings attached too, Dante. At least Matteo tells me up front there aren't any."

He flinched like I'd struck him. For a moment, neither of us said anything.

"I'm not trying to control you," he said finally, quieter. "I'm trying to keep you safe. There's a difference, even if you don't believe me."

"Then help me find out who broke in. Not because you own me. Because you actually care."

He looked at me for a long moment, something unreadable moving behind his eyes. "I already have three men on it," he said. "I had them on it before you called Moretti."

That, somehow, hurt more than

anything he could have said in anger.