Chapter Five - Maria's Pov

His mouth was hard against mine and for a second I forgot how to think. I forgot that this

man had held a gun to my throat only hours ago. My hands came up to push him away but

they curled into his shirt instead, betraying me.

Then his phone buzzed against the desk and he pulled back.

He stared at me, his gold eyes darker now, almost black at the edges. His jaw was tight. For

a moment I thought he would say something, explain himself or apologize even. But he just wiped his thumb across his bottom lip like he was wiping away a mistake and turned away from me.

"Get some rest," he said. "You start tomorrow."

"Start what?" I asked, my voice hoarse.

"You'll see."

He walked out of the study without looking back, leaving me standing there with my lips still burning and the contract sitting on his desk.

The same woman who'd shown me my room, was waiting outside the door. Her name was Greta, she told me on the way back upstairs. She didn't ask why my cheeks were flushed or why I was breathing like I'd run a mile. She just walked me to my room and told me breakfast

would be at seven.

I didn't sleep. I lay in that huge, unfamiliar bed and stared at the ceiling and thought about Sophie's face when the fever climbed, and Sienna's eyes when she raised the knife, and the way Alessandro's mouth had felt against mine.

By the time the sun came up I still didn't have any answers, only more questions crowding on top of the ones I already had.

Greta knocked at exactly seven. She'd brought a tray with eggs and toast and a cup of coffee I didn't touch, my stomach too knotted to hold anything down.

"Don Martinez wants you in his office in twenty minutes," she said. "Wear something appropriate."

I pulled a plain black dress from the wardrobe, plain enough that it wouldn't draw attention, and twisted my hair back. My palm still ached under the fresh bandage Greta had wrapped that morning. I studied my reflection for a moment. The girl staring back at me didn't look like someone who'd witnessed a murder less than a day ago. I looked tired and drained but steady, in a way I didn't understand.

I found his office on my own this time. The door was open. He was standing behind his desk, sleeves rolled up, a phone pressed to his ear, speaking low and fast in Italian to someone on the other end. He didn't acknowledge me until he'd hung up.

"Sit," he said, nodding at the chair across from him.

I sat.

"Your duties," he said, sliding a folder across the desk, "start with my schedule. You'll organize my calendar, screen my calls, and accompany me to meetings when I require it.

You'll learn how this business runs. Not the parts that don't concern you. The parts that do."

"And what parts concern me?" I asked.

"Whatever I decide concerns you."

I opened the folder anyway, just to have something to do with my hands. Pages of appointments, names I didn't recognize, numbers that made my head spin. I flipped through them slowly, aware of him watching me the entire time.

"This is insane," I said before I could stop myself. "You expect me to manage all of this? I served drinks at a casino two days ago."

"I expect you to try," he said. "If you fail, I'll find someone else."

"Then find someone else now and save us both the trouble."

Something flickered behind his eyes, like he was almost entertained by my defiance.

"No," he said simply. "I don't think I will."

"You asked me something last night," he continued. "In this office. Before you signed."

My pulse quickened. I remembered.

"You didn't answer," I said.

"No," he agreed. "I didn't."

"Are you going to?"

He studied me for a long moment, like he was weighing how much rope to give me before he

yanked it back.

"Not today," he said. "Today you learn the schedule."

I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw the folder at his smug, unreadable face and demand he treat me like a person instead of an asset he'd acquired. But I thought of Sophie, pale and sweating in that bed, and Sienna somewhere being treated for whatever madness had taken hold of her, and I swallowed the anger down until it sat like a stone in my chest.

"Fine," I said instead. "Teach me the schedule."

For the first time since I'd met him, something like approval crossed his face. It didn't last. He turned back toward his desk, already reaching for another folder, already done with whatever moment had passed between us.

"Meeting at ten with the Council," he said. "You'll sit in the back and say nothing.

Understood?"

"Understood."

"And Maria."

I looked up.

"Don't ever underestimate yourself again," he said, not looking at me. "You survived a night most people wouldn't have. There's nothing weak about that."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I said nothing at all. I just watched him, this man who had held a gun to my throat and then kissed me like his life depended on it, and wondered how many more sides of him I was going to have to survive before this year was over.

At ten, Greta led me down a corridor I hadn't seen before, past two men in dark suits who didn't so much as glance at me, and into a room with a long table and a dozen empty chairs. Men filed in one after another, older men with cold eyes and rings on their fingers, a woman with silver hair who looked at me like I was a stain on the carpet.

I took the chair in the back corner just like Alessandro had told me to. I tried to make myself small.

He walked in last. The room shifted the second he crossed the threshold, shoulders straightening, voices dropping. Whatever this Council was, they feared him the way I had

feared him in that alley two nights ago.

Maybe they had reason to.

"Let's begin," he said, taking his seat at the head of the table.

I understood almost nothing of what followed. There were numbers, territories, a shipment that had been delayed at the docks, and a name, Carlo, I remembered that name. The tattooed man in the alley had said it too, right before he pulled the trigger.

‘We have to make sure Carlo doesn't find out we know he's a spy.’

My stomach turned over. I kept my eyes down and my hands folded in my lap and tried to look like furniture.

Halfway through, the doors opened again. A man walked in without knocking, without waiting to be announced. He was dressed too well for a place like this.

"Apologies for the interruption," he said, though nothing in his voice sounded apologetic. "I heard the Martinez table finally had an interesting guest."

Every head in the room turned. Including Alessandro's. His jaw went tight in a way I was beginning to recognize.

"Luca," he said, and the name came out like something bitten off. "You weren't invited."

"I don't need an invitation to admire something new." The man let his gaze slide across the table and landed on me, and it stayed there a beat too long.

Alessandro rose halfway out of his chair, and for a moment I thought he might come across the table.

"Get out," he said quietly.

Luca only smiled wider, unbothered, like he'd gotten exactly what he came for.

"We'll talk soon," he said, and I couldn't tell if he was speaking to Alessandro or to me.

He turned and left as easily as he'd arrived, the doors swinging shut behind him. The room exhaled all at once, but Alessandro didn't sit back down. He stood there, gold eyes fixed on the closed doors, his hands curled into fists at his sides.

Then he turned and looked straight at me, and for the first time since he'd dragged me out of that alley, I saw something on his face that looked almost like fear.

"How does he know who you are," he said. It wasn't a question.

I didn't have an answer. I didn't even know who Luca was. But before I could open my mouth, Alessandro was already moving toward the door, and I understood, with a cold drop in my stomach, that whatever had just walked into that room had changed everything.