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ODESSA POV

I kept my head down, trying to steady my breathing. The room was spinning, but I couldn't let him see my fear. Alessino's voice was like a crack of thunder, making my skin prickle. I knew he was watching me, his eyes burning into my skin.

"Hello, Odessa," he said, his voice low and menacing.

I didn't respond. I didn't move. I just kept my eyes fixed on the floor, trying to process what was happening.

Alessino took a step closer, his eyes narrowing. "You don't talk? Fine. I'll make you talk."

He knelt down, his face inches from mine. I could smell the whiskey on his breath, the familiar scent making my heart race. His hand reached out, tracing the cut on my lip. "Who did this to you?" he asked, his voice dripping with anger.

The question was low. Too low. I kept my gaze on the floor. There was a crack in the marble, right beside my left knee. I focused on that. Counted the veins in the stone. One. Two. Three.

Then his hand. God, his hand.

He didn’t grab. He never grabbed, not when he wanted to scare me. He touched. Two fingers, rough from years of pulling triggers, brushing the corner of my mouth. Right where the skin split.

I flinched. I hated myself for it.

The copper taste of blood flooded my tongue again, but now it was mixed with him. Whiskey and cigars and that damn bergamot cologne he’s worn since he was twenty. The scent punched straight through five years of running.

He walks in a circle around me. Slow. Like a wolf.

My knees hurt. The floor is cold. My eyes are hot and tired.

He stops walking and just stands there looking down at me, and when he speaks his voice is so quiet it scares me more than if he was yelling because I know that quiet voice means he is hurt and angry at the same time.

“Five years,” he says, and the words sound broken when they leave his mouth, like saying them hurts him. “I buried you, Odessa. I stood by a grave and I mourned you, and for five years I believed you were gone and I had to live with that every single day.”

My heart beats hard. It hurts my ribs. I keep my attention on the floor. I stared at his shoes. Black. Shined. No blood on them. Not yet.

He crouches down again so he is close to me, and suddenly I can smell him and it hits me all at once, the whiskey on his breath and the smoke on his jacket and just him, that same smell I used to fall asleep to, and my chest aches in a way that has nothing to do with my bruised ribs and I hate that it still does that to me after everything.

“Look at me,” he says, and his voice is low and not asking, but I didn’t do it because I know if I look into his eyes right now I will either start crying or start screaming or try to run, and I can’t do any of those things with his men watching, so I keep my eyes down and stare at the floor instead.

His hand moved really fast as he grabbed my chin. Not hard enough to hurt more. Just hard enough so I can’t pull away.

He forces my face up.

His eyes are dark. Big. Angry. Hurt. Five years of hurt.

I know those eyes. They used to look at me softly. Now they look like they want to kill me.

“How?” he asks. His thumb is on my jaw. His voice shakes. “How are you breathing? How are you here?”

I don’t answer.

My lip is bleeding and I can taste it in my mouth, that sharp mix of copper and salt that makes my stomach turn, and he just waits there in front of me without saying anything while the whole room goes dead quiet around us because his men don’t move and don’t even seem to breathe, and all I can hear in the silence is the clock on the wall going tick, tick, tick like it’s counting down to whatever he’s going to do next.

“Who helped you?” he says. Lower now. Dangerous. “Who made me look like a fool? Who lied to me?”

I want to laugh. I want to spit blood at his feet. I want to tell him he did this to himself.

But I don’t. Not yet.

Instead I did the worst thing I could do right now and I smiled up at him, even though it pulls at the cut on my lip and makes it hurt worse and I can feel more blood sliding down my chin, but I smile at him anyway because I won’t give him the fear he wants to see.

His eyes go wide for just a second when I smile, like I caught him off guard, but then they narrow again and turn hard with anger, and he drops my chin fast like my skin burns him before he stands up in one sharp move.

“Get her up,” he tells his men. His voice is ice. “Clean her. Lock her in my room. No one touches her.”

He looks at me one last time. “You’re going to talk, Odessa. You’re going to tell me every damn thing. And when you do, you’ll wish you stayed dead.”

The room was silent except for the sound of my own ragged breathing. What was he planning?

His men moved closer, their hands rough as they grabbed me. I tried to struggle, but they were too strong.

"Don't touch me," I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

Alessino turned back, his eyes flashing with anger. "You don't get to give orders here, Odessa," he said, his voice cold. "Not anymore."

I glared at him, but said nothing. I'd play along, for now. But I'd get out of this. I always did.

He walks out and the door slams shut behind him, and only then, only when he’s finally gone and I know he can’t see me, Only then did I start to shake.

And the worst part? Some twisted part of me had missed him too.