Chapter 7

The house was quieter than it had ever been. Even the floorboards, usually so quick to betray footsteps, seemed to hold their breath. Emilia had barely left her room in days—only  when hunger managed to rise above the dull fog in her chest.

But tonight, there was a knock. Soft. A second later, the door creaked open anyway.

Her mother stood there, framed by the golden hallway light, looking older somehow in her cardigan and slippers. 

“Noona Peppi?” she said as she sat up from her bed.

“I’m sorry about how our last conversation went Milicorn, my strong girl. Your father and I were wrong to have shut you out all those years.”

These words were what she had searched and waited for almost all her life, finally hearing it from her mother, it felt like healing from within, it felt like she was finally loved. Emilia didn’t look up from the patch of blanket she’d been staring at. The air in the room was stale, thick with old tears and unspoken words.

“I know you don’t feel like talking,” her mother added gently, stepping inside. “I only want what’s best for you my child, and you being here with Luca isn’t safe.” 

You think he’s your savior, don’t you?” her mother said, not looking up. “Luca.”

Emilia blinked. “I never said that.”

“You don’t have to. You’re in his house. Eating his food. Wearing clothes bought with his money.” Her voice cracked slightly, but she didn’t stop folding. “The same family that took everything from us.”

Emilia’s stomach sank. “What are you talking about?”

Her mother turned, the dishcloth clenched between her fists like it had betrayed her. “You were too young to understand. Your father didn’t just allow me leave. He was cornered. Blackmailed. Silenced. And it all started the day Luca’s father walked into his office with a contract and a warning.”

“Papa never said—-,” Emilia whispered. 

“He had no choice!” her mother snapped. Then, quieter: “I wanted to protect my children from that filth. From them. But now you’re under their roof.

Emilia sat up from her bed, “Why now?”

“Because he’ll break you too my milicorn if you let him. You need to find something. Anything. A secret. A weakness. Leverage.” Her mother’s eyes locked onto hers, fierce and trembling. “If you ever want to leave this house on your terms — and not theirs — you’ll need to make sure Luca can’t stop you.”

The silence that followed was thick, broken only by the faint ticking of the kitchen clock and the faint murmur of the wind outside.

“And what if I can’t find anything?”

Her mother’s voice was barely above a whisper now. “Then pray he never finds out who you really are.”

“Mama……….. Luca adores you, he treats you well, respects you and you love him like your own.”

“ I’ve been surviving, I survived his father, and now I’m surviving him. You need to do the same.” Her mother stood up, ready to leave

“……mama?………did you advise Isa to do the same thing?”

“Your sister came on her own terms, we only saw each other the night she fled.” 

She stood there for a moment longer, as if waiting for Emilia to say something. But there was only silence, the same silence that had wrapped itself around the girl for weeks now like a second skin.

Her mother touched her shoulder gently, a fleeting press of warmth, and then left her to her thoughts.

The next day, the door to Luca’s office clicked shut behind her with the soft finality of a sealed vault. Emilia stood for a moment, allowing her eyes to adjust to the dim amber glow from the desk lamp. The space smelled like leather and old paper, with a faint trace of Luca’s cologne—sharp, clean, and unnervingly composed.

Luca didn’t look up immediately. He was seated behind a polished walnut desk, reviewing a stack of documents with the kind of precision that made Emilia feel like she was already intruding.

“You said you wanted to talk,” he said without lifting his eyes. “So talk.”

Emilia hesitated. “It’s about your father. And...your family.”

That got his attention. Slowly, he set the papers down and met her gaze, dark eyes unreadable. “What about them?”

She stepped further into the room, feigning a confidence she didn’t feel. “You never talk about the past. Not really. I’ve heard things, Luca. And I want to know what’s true. The people your family hurt.”

His jaw tightened, just slightly. “You think you’ll find answers in old stories or gossip among the workers?”

“I think I deserve to know whose house I’m living in.”

Before he could respond, Emilia’s eyes drifted toward the papers and pictures he had put on the table — a tall man with pale eyes and a deceptively calm smile stood beside a black rolls royce, smoking a cigar. The name surfaced like a breath rising from deep water.

“Dimitri Volkov.”

The room faded for a moment. In its place: a noisy summer evening, the clatter of cutlery, and warm lights strung along the patio of a coastal restaurant where she had worked one summer—when she was seventeen and furious with her father. She had dyed her hair copper, lied about her name, and waited tables under the sticky heat of rebellion.

Dimitri had sat at Table Four, alone but watchful, and tipped well. She had brought him wine, and when he asked where she was from, she lied without thinking.

He didn’t press. Instead, they spoke for twenty quiet minutes — about family, about loyalty, and the strange burden of being born into a world already defined by other people’s mistakes. He’d looked at her like he knew the feeling too well.

“Do you know him?” Luca’s voice pulled her back.

Emilia blinked. “What?”

Luca followed her gaze to the photograph. “Volkov.”

She hesitated. “I’ve seen him before. Years ago. At a restaurant I worked in, down by the coast.”

Luca tilted his head slightly. “You were waiting tables?”

“For a few months. My father didn’t approve.”

He gave a humorless smile. “Of course he didn’t.”

Emilia stepped closer to the photo. “What’s he to you?”

Luca’s expression shifted — not quite a frown, but the mask slipping just slightly. “An enemy. A liar, always and who I believe has been the reason behind some recent setbacks in business.”

She looked at the image again, heart caught between curiosity and unease. “He seemed kind.”

Luca chuckled, low and humorless. “That’s his most dangerous quality.”

She closed her eyes, and the summer came flooding back.

It had started with curiosity. Dimitri Volkov was charming in a way that didn’t demand attention but drew it anyway. Quiet smiles. Deep, unhurried conversations. He would sit on the restaurant’s terrace in his tailored shirts and dark sunglasses, sipping espresso like he had all the time in the world. He listened to her. Really listened — or so she’d thought.

The first time he struck her, it was because she laughed.

Not at him, not really. He had said something about power, about control, and she had smiled — reflexively — the way you do when someone says something absurd.

He didn’t like that.

It had happened in the alley behind the restaurant. A short, sharp slap that caught her across the face and stole the air from her lungs.

She remembered the sting more than the pain. The disbelief.

“You don’t laugh at me,” he had said, low and cold. “You’re not that clever.”

She’d gone back to work that night without telling anyone. Covered the bruise with powder she borrowed from another waitress. Told herself it was a one-time thing. That she’d misread something.

It wasn’t.

The second time came two weeks later, when she hesitated before getting into his car. Just a flick of his hand across her face, but this time harder, quicker, like he’d done it before — many times — to other girls.

“You think names protect you?” he hissed. “You think you’re special? You’re no one.”

But he didn’t know her real name.

She’d used “Sara.” Short, simple, forgettable. A safety net from the start, though she hadn’t understood then how much she’d need it.

After that night, he stopped coming. No calls. No notes. Nothing.

She should have felt relief, but for months she woke with his voice echoing in her head. She never went back to that restaurant.

Only two people ever knew: Isa, and Nico, her older brother.

Nico had gone silent when she told him — still as stone, his eyes burning. He didn’t ask for details. He just nodded once and left the room. He never brought it up again.

And Isa… Isa had held her hand and cried with her, made her tea, helped her wash the blood from her lip the second time and swore, with a fury Emilia didn’t know she had, that if he ever showed up again, she’d take a knife to him herself.

Now, years later, the man in that photo on Luca’s table looked like a ghost she’d almost forgotten — until now.

“Trust me I know” she responded to Luca’s statement, igniting his curiosity. 

“How so” he asked

“He hit me. Twice. I told my brother and Isa, and never heard from him again, until now.”

Before Luca could say anything, Marco stepped into Luca’s office without knocking — as usual. The heavy door creaked slightly on its hinges, and his presence, as always, seemed to press against the walls like the room was a size too small for him.

Luca didn’t look up from his laptop. “Parla.”

Marco slipped a file onto the desk. “Il ballo annuale sarà a Praga quest'anno. Il primo weekend di luglio. Gli inviti sono già stati inviati a tutti i membri principali, ma… c'è stato un cambiamento nei protocolli di sicurezza. Dimitri sarà presente.”

("The annual ball will be in Prague this year. The first weekend of July. Invitations have already been sent to all the key members, but… there’s been a change in the security protocols. Dimitri will be present.")

Luca’s fingers paused over the keyboard. “Praga. Interessante.”

From the armchair by the window, Emilia’s head tilted slightly. She’d been reading, pretending not to listen. But that word — Dimitri — had caught her like a hook to the spine.

Then, to both men’s surprise, she spoke — clear, smooth, and confident:

“Sarà un evento diplomatico più che una festa, allora.”

(So it’ll be more of a diplomatic event than a party.)

Silence.

Luca’s eyes finally lifted, expression unreadable. Marco blinked at her like she’d grown wings.

“Tu... parli italiano?” Marco asked, slowly.

Emilia set the book down and met his gaze. “Not perfectly,” she admitted, “but I’ve had some help.”

She didn’t say it had come from dusty dictionaries and long nights alone in the library, whispering conjugations until her eyes blurred. She didn’t mention the late hours after everyone else had gone to bed, or how she’d read news articles out loud just to hear the rhythm of the language in her own voice.

Luca leaned back slightly in his chair, regarding her with the faintest flicker of something she couldn’t place. Approval? Annoyance? Amusement?

“Sei piena di sorprese,” he murmured.

(You’re full of surprises)

Emilia gave a small, unapologetic shrug. “I’ve been under your roof. I figured it was time I understood the language spoken behind closed doors.”

Marco smirked. “She’s dangerous, this one.”

Luca didn’t smile. “She’s learning to be.”

There was a beat of silence, heavy with implications neither of them dared speak aloud. Then Marco cleared his throat, gave a curt nod, and exited, muttering something about updated itineraries and logistics.

As the door shut behind him, Luca looked back at Emilia.

“Did you really understand everything we said?” he asked, almost casually.

She met his eyes. “Enough.”

He nodded once, slowly, like making a private note of her growing sharpness.

Then he went back to his work. But this time, she saw the shift — the tiniest, quietest change.

He was watching her now. Differently