Chapter 3

The morning felt like a judgment. Evelina woke up feeling heavy and cold, the weight of the enormous silk comforter doing nothing to warm her. The first thing she saw was the crooked pen from last night. It was still sitting on the marble counter in the next room, exactly where Dante had left it. A tiny, pathetic flag of her failed rebellion.

She finally dragged herself out of the bed. The silk pajamas they had laid out for her felt slimy against her skin, a soft mockery of comfort. She hated the texture. She missed the feel of her worn-out cotton t-shirts, the ones that had been washed so many times they were thinner than paper.

She went to the kitchen. The gleaming espresso machine was intimidating, a silent challenge. She refused to touch it. Instead, she found the kettle and some instant coffee packets tucked away in a drawer near the service entrance a low-class oversight the staff must have made. The cheap, bitter smell of the instant coffee was the first genuinely comforting thing she’d experienced in Dante’s palace. It smelled like home, like poverty, and like real life.

She carried the chipped mug, which she found buried behind a stack of perfect porcelain to the living area. The whole apartment was silent. The noise of the city, which should have been deafening at this height, was filtered out by layers of expensive, thick glass. It was suffocating.

Around nine o’clock, the service door slid open. It wasn't Dante, but the silent assistant, Maria, from the night before. Maria didn't speak. She pushed a cart into the room a single, silver tray holding a plate of fruit she didn't want and a thin stack of papers. She dropped them on the counter and left, closing the door softly, perfectly.

Evelina ignored the fruit and picked up the papers. They were Dante’s demands for the day.

1. Collection Audit Prep. Review and categorize the existing digital inventory.

2. Collection Acquisition. Draft an initial comparative analysis on three potential acquisitions (two 17th-century Baroque pieces, one contemporary abstract).

3. Apparel Consultation. You will meet with the staff tailor at 14:00.

It was actual work. Real, difficult curatorial work. The only thing she genuinely loved.

A rush of feeling not freedom, but purpose hit her. If he wanted a curator, she would be the best, most frustrating curator he had ever hired. She could fight him on the battleground of intellect. He might own her body and her time, but he couldn't own her brain.

She retreated to the small office area attached to the suite. It was a space designed for brutal efficiency: dark wood, a massive, curved monitor, and the secure laptop Maria had mentioned. She powered it on. The screen showed a single, simplified dashboard: the Valenti Collection database.

She started working. The inventory was a mess. Dante's collection was vast and expensive, but poorly cataloged. The digital files were incomplete, titles were misspelled, and provenances were often missing key auction data. It was the work of a rich man who bought things on advice, not passion.

She found a rhythm. She pulled up the Baroque pieces. One was a verifiable masterpiece, the other a questionable fake that had been passed around discreetly for decades. She could save Dante millions by advising him correctly. She spent the next three hours in a state of focused, quiet rage, using her intellect to clean up his chaos. The work felt like a small, private victory.

At 13:50, the intercom buzzed. It was Dante. His voice was sharper than ever. “Apparel Consultation now. Do not be late.”

She walked into the main living room to find Maria, another silent aide, and a tall, thin man with a measuring tape draped around his neck. The tailor.

“Mr. Valenti requires professional and formal attire,” the tailor said, his voice clipped and precise. “We are starting with evening wear for the Sforza gala next week.”

Evelina crossed her arms. “I have clothes that are appropriate.”

Maria’s face didn't change, but her expression felt like a punch. “Mr. Valenti requires that you wear the clothes he provides. They reflect the required standard of the Valenti name.”

Evelina didn't want the silk slips and the high-end designer clothes. She knew this was another act of erasure. Another way to tell her that her old life, her old self, was dead. She was now a decoration, a frame for his expensive collection.

“If I am a curator, I need professional, functional attire, not gowns for social events,” Evelina argued, keeping her voice low and steady.

The tailor looked at her with professional pity. “Mr. Valenti’s companion often attends social events. He has requested three dozen items to start.”

The fitting was brutal. She was forced to stand still for nearly an hour while the tailor poked and prodded, measuring her every dimension. He touched her with the detached professionalism of someone measuring a statue. But every touch felt like a violation. It wasn't sensual; it was clinical ownership.

When they tried to put her into the first gown.. a heavy, black silk dress meant for the Sforza gala she felt a wave of claustrophobia. The fabric was beautiful, suffocatingly so. It was designed to make her look untouchable and perfect. It was designed to make her look like she belonged entirely to Dante Valenti.

As the tailor adjusted the bust, she bit down hard on her inner cheek, a painful habit she hadn’t been able to shake since her father got sick. She wanted to scream, to rip the dress off, but she knew that would only give Dante the satisfaction of seeing her break. She needed to save her breaks for when they mattered.

Finally, the tailor finished. Maria and the other aide began gathering the pins and tape measures.

Just then, the outer door opened and Dante walked in.

He stopped, as always, just past the threshold, letting his presence fill the air. He didn’t look at the tailor or the silent women. His gaze went straight to Evelina, standing paralyzed in the black silk gown.

He walked a slow, deliberate circle around her, his eyes taking in the perfection of the fit. It felt like an inspection.

“Adequate,” he finally decreed, his voice devoid of any genuine admiration, which was worse than if he had praised her. He didn’t view her as attractive; he viewed her as a successful piece of property.

“The dress is for the Sforza event,” the tailor explained nervously.

Dante didn’t acknowledge the tailor. He spoke only to Evelina. “I saw your work on the Collection Audit. You missed several key provenance details on the Austrian acquisitions. Sloppy.”

She stiffened, rage overriding her fear. “There were no provenance details to miss. Your files contained placeholders. I flagged them and cross-referenced the auction houses in the system notes. It’s an incomplete inventory, not sloppy work.”

His eyes narrowed, approvingly but coldly. He liked that she stood up for her work, but he hated that she challenged him.

“You are correct,” he conceded, the rare admission cutting deeper than any insult. “But you used an inefficient tagging system. Fix it.” He walked past her to the kitchen, stopping dead at the counter.

He was silent for a full, terrifying minute.

Evelina’s heart pounded. She knew what he was looking at: the cheap mug, the instant coffee packet still sitting beside it, a messy, low-brow splash of reality in his perfect steel and marble kitchen.

He picked up the empty coffee packet between two fingers, as if it were contaminated waste. “This is garbage, Evelina. You will use the espresso machine. You will drink the provided water. You will adhere to the standard of this apartment.”

“I prefer this kind of coffee,” she managed, her voice barely a whisper.

He looked at the tiny packet, then at her. “You prefer the things that remind you of your past. Your past is dead, Evelina. Your life is here now. The things you prefer are irrelevant.”

He crushed the packet in his fist and dropped it into a silver trash receptacle under the counter. He didn’t say another word. He just turned and walked out.

Evelina stood in the expensive black silk, watching the empty space where he had been. Her first full day had taught her a profound and sickening lesson: she could not fight him with defiance, nor could she fight him with silence. He would simply crush the things she loved or deny her the things she needed until she was empty. The gilded cage was tightening.

The only thing she had left was her intelligence, and tomorrow, she would use that to find the weaknesses he didn't even know he had. She walked back to the office, the silk whispering around her ankles like a chain. The work was waiting. The war was on.