Chapter 2

Evelina didn’t watch Dante as she left. She watched the perfect, silent heels of the assistant. The woman had no name, no expression. Just a black, tailored shell of a human being. The silence of the hallway was worse than the office; it pressed the air out of her lungs. She felt like a fish pulled onto a dock, still breathing but already knowing it was over.

Her hand was stiff, the muscles aching from the forced, steady signature she’d applied to the contract. She hadn't just signed a paper; she had signed away five years of her life, five years of being Evelina Thorne. Now she was just a placeholder, an asset, a line item in Dante Valenti’s ledger. The thought didn't make her cry. It made her feel brittle, like dry wood. If she broke, she knew Dante would use the sharp pieces to build something useful for himself.

The elevator ride down wasn’t long enough. They weren't going down out of the tower, but down to a lower residential level. The floors here were hushed. Thick, expensive carpet swallowed the sound of their shoes. They passed doors that looked like slabs of minimalist sculpture white, cold, and utterly anonymous.

The assistant finally stopped at one door, swiped a keycard, and the lock made a soft, sickeningly expensive click. “Suite 42A,” the assistant’s voice was flat, like she was reading a label. “Your quarters. You will find clothing, toiletries, and communication devices provided. Any requests are to be channeled through the internal comm system only. You are not permitted access to exterior lines or the internet, except via the work terminal in the main office.”

The woman turned to leave. Evelina stopped her, her voice a rough gasp.

“My sister. Chloe. I need to call her. Just once.”

The assistant paused, but didn't look back. Her polished reflection was barely visible in the dark glass wall. “All family contact is subject to Mr. Valenti’s approval and scheduling. You will be provided with a schedule.” Then she was gone. The heavy, soundproof door clicked shut behind her, the sound loud in the new, dead silence.

Evelina was alone. Completely.

The suite was vast. It was three times the size of her family's entire ground floor. It looked less like a home and more like a high-end, sterile museum exhibit. Everything was brutal shades of white, steel, and charcoal. The only color came from the city lights bleeding through the huge windows. The view was incredible, a sparkling, endless mess of lights and buildings, but it only served to emphasize that she was high up, isolated, and completely cut off from the noise of the real world. A gilded cage.

She walked through the living area, past a low, modular couch so enormous she could have slept a dozen people on it, and found the bedroom. It was worse. The walk-in closet was full. Not her clothes. New clothes. Soft silk slips, impractical cashmere sweaters, sharp, tailored jackets. Things that felt soft, useless, and wrong. She looked down at her old cotton shirt and worn denim skirt, still wrinkled from the office chair, and felt a rush of raw, cold panic. They had already erased her.

She needed something familiar. She needed the comfort of the cheap, strong instant coffee she used to make in her old, chipped mug. She found the kitchen. It was all stainless steel and seamless marble. No mugs. Just a chrome espresso machine that gleamed like a trophy. Dante had probably bragged about its price once.

She pulled out a chair at the immense island countertop and just sat down, letting the cold marble press against her forearms. She dug her fingers into the soft, worn leather of her handbag, finding the one thing she hadn't given up: her old, cheap ballpoint pen. It was blue, with a tiny crack near the clip. It was imperfect. It was hers.

The intercom buzzed before she had time to draw a full, deep breath. Dante.

He didn’t enter the suite. The door remained locked. He only used his voice, which was amplified through the hidden speakers, cutting through the silence like a knife.

“Five minutes, Evelina. I am coming up to finalize your operational schedule. I will expect you to be dressed appropriately.”

Appropriately. She looked down at her simple, resistant clothes. No. She was not putting on his silk yet. She was fighting him with small, stubborn choices.

When the lock clicked and Dante walked in, he stopped just inside the living room. His eyes swept over her sitting at the counter in her worn clothes, ignoring the passive luxury laid out for her. His lips tightened, a tiny, almost invisible shift of muscle that told her he noticed the defiance and hated it.

He carried a thick, dark leather-bound folder. He didn’t sit. He stood by the main window, making himself look even taller and more imposing against the backdrop of the massive, indifferent city.

“We are clarifying the terms of your captivity,” he began, his voice flat and professional. He spoke about her life as if reciting the contents of a shipping manifest. “Your primary function is curator and appraiser of the Valenti Collection. You will be given a secure work laptop. No personal use. No unauthorized installations. I will have full digital oversight.”

He paused, letting the scope of the total invasion of privacy hang in the dead air.

“You will attend all public functions I deem necessary. You will be introduced as my personal curator and companion. You will smile when required. You will speak when spoken to. You will never, under any circumstances, contradict me in public or private.”

Evelina kept her spine rigid. “And my family contact? My sister?”

Dante finally looked directly at her. His gaze was heavy, cold. “You will call her once per week. Same time, same duration. The call will be monitored and recorded. You will not discuss the nature of your employment, or any personal details about this building, the collection, or me. If you deviate, the contract clause concerning the cessation of Chloe’s funding is immediately activated.”

It wasn't a threat; it was a policy. He hated her enough to make her imprisonment sound reasonable and precise.

“And if I need to leave the building for work?”

“You don’t. The collection comes to you. If a rare exception arises, you will be escorted by my security team. You will not go anywhere alone. You are living collateral, Evelina. If you were lost, the debt returns instantly. I do not take chances.”

He finished, snapping the folder shut. He had systematically stripped away every last piece of her freedom.

He placed the folder down on the immaculate, white marble counter, right next to where she was sitting. On the corner of the folder, he had placed three pens, lined up exactly parallel to the edge of the paper. Two black, one silver. Perfect. Unmoving.

A stupid, raw impulse, driven by the panic of total surveillance, hit her. It was small. It was idiotic. But it was hers.

As Dante turned toward the window, gathering his thoughts for his next command, Evelina reached out her left hand. Casually. Slowly. She nudged the middle black pen one inch to the left, so it was crooked, resting at a slight diagonal. Then she pulled her hand back and gripped her cheap ballpoint pen under the table.

The atmosphere in the room changed immediately. It went from merely cold to arctic. He hadn't needed to turn around to know what she had done. He could feel the disruption of his order like a physical blow.

He finally turned back. His eyes went directly to the crooked pen. The tiny, one-inch disturbance in his perfect world.

He didn't raise his voice. He simply stared at Evelina, his jaw tight.

“You find comfort in chaos,” he stated, his voice a low, chilling promise.

“I find comfort in control,” she shot back, meeting his gaze, hating that her heart was hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.

Dante gave her that thin, empty smile again. “You mistake a childish gesture for control. There are no secrets here, Evelina. There is no privacy. If you disrupt the small things, I will simply take away the bigger things. Do you understand the difference?”

He didn't wait for her answer. He just walked to the door, the crooked pen still resting on the counter. He hadn't bothered to fix it. He wanted her to look at it and remember her powerlessness.

The door clicked shut. She was alone again, left with the dead silence, the cold perfection of the room, and the tiny, crooked pen. The debt was settled, but the war had just begun. Her small, stupid act of defiance was the only thing that felt real.

She finally allowed her head to drop onto the cool marble of the counter. She hadn't won. But she hadn't broken either. Not yet.