Chapter 5: in her cage

The first thing I felt was pain. A dull, persistent ache that throbbed through my ribs and spread toward my spine. It felt like something inside me had been torn open and stitched back together with fire. A low hum vibrated around me. When I forced my eyes open, the ceiling above me came into view. It was old, stained in places, with a faint water mark curving like a bruise across the plaster. I blinked slowly, disoriented.

This wasn’t the Romano mansion.

I wasn’t in Dante’s bed. I wasn’t wrapped in silk sheets or surrounded by guards. I was lying flat on a metal hospital cot with straps across my wrists and ankles. Panic surged through my chest as my breath hitched.

Then I heard it.

A soft chuckle. Feminine. I turned my head to the right, and there she stood. Lucia. Alive and breathing, with her black hair draped loosely over one shoulder, her red lips curved into a smile that was both beautiful and chilling.

Her presence filled the dim room with a cold, venomous energy. She stepped closer, and the faint light revealed dark smudges beneath her eyes. The kind of shadows born from obsession and sleepless nights.

“You are awake,” she murmured. “I was beginning to wonder if the doctor had overdone the sedative. That would have been disappointing. I went through a lot of trouble to get you here.”

I swallowed hard. My throat felt dry and rough. “Where am I?”

“In my world,” she answered, her smile deepening. “Far away from Dante. Far away from his precious estate. And far, far away from anyone who might come running to save you.”

My heart pounded as I tugged weakly against the straps. “You won’t get away with this.”

Lucia leaned forward until her face hovered inches from mine. Her perfume was floral but sharp like hidden thorns. “Dante thought the same. Yet here I am. I died for him once. Now he will die for me.”

She brushed a strand of hair away from my forehead as if she were comforting me, but her touch made my skin crawl.

“You survived the first bullet,” she said thoughtfully. “That surprised me. I aimed for your heart. A direct hit. But at the last second Dante moved. The shot grazed your side instead. If he hesitated even a heartbeat, you would be lying in a morgue right now.”

For a moment, she looked almost irritated by that fact.

I stared at her with confusion creeping into the edges of my fear. “If you hate him so much, why shoot me?”

Her expression hardened. “Because you are the reason he hesitated. You are the reason he lost focus. He was never supposed to care about you. You were supposed to be a transaction. A pawn. Something he could discard without a second thought. Yet the moment I aimed at you, his mask cracked.”

Lucia stood straight again and folded her arms. Her eyes glinted with poisonous resentment.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to change.”

My breathing grew shallow. “I don’t understand any of this. Why are you doing this?”

Her laugh was bitter and sharp. “Because I loved him. Because I was meant to be his wife. I was meant to be Mrs. Romano. But he took everything I gave him and crushed it beneath his heel. He left me for dead. Buried me with his own hands. And then he replaced me with you.”

Her voice cracked for the first time. A small, broken sound slipped through her lips before she swallowed it back and straightened her posture.

“He will look for you. He will storm the city to find you. And when he does, he will walk right into the trap I prepared for him.”

A cold shiver slid along my spine. “Lucia, listen to me. Dante is dangerous. You know that. You can’t outplay him.”She tilted her head, her smile returning. “I already did.”

Before I could respond, the door of the room opened. A man entered wearing a white medical coat stained with something dark at the hem. His expression was blank and distant, like he existed entirely to follow orders. He carried a tray of bandages, needles, and a metal bowl filled with water.

Lucia stepped back. “Check her wound. I need her alive.”

The doctor approached me without a word. He lifted my hospital gown on one side, and cold air brushed against my bare skin. When he peeled away the bandage, I hissed in pain. The wound was fresh and ugly, a jagged cut just above my waist. Deep, but not fatal. The doctor cleaned it without gentleness, and I grit my teeth.

Lucia watched the entire procedure with a calm curiosity, as though I were nothing more than a project she was studying. When the doctor finished, she waved him away and returned to standing beside my bed.

“You will stay here until Dante comes for you,” she said. “And then you will watch him die. I want you awake when it happens. I want you conscious enough to understand that you led him to his end.”

Tears pricked my eyes, but I refused to blink them out. “He will kill you. He will tear apart anyone who touches me.”

Her smile widened. “That is the point.”

She walked toward the door, but before she reached it, she paused and looked over her shoulder. “Rest while you can. You will need your strength.”