This isn’t a request.
It’s inevitability.
Fear curls low in my belly, cold and sharp, settling there like a living thing. But beneath it, coiled tight and burning, something else begins to stir.
Anger.
Resolve.
My father didn’t raise me to roll over and accept the verdict of powerful men. He taught me to look danger in the eye and decide, in that exact moment, whether I would kneel… or fight.
And I didn’t survive this long by waiting for men like Giovanni Dragoni, or Salvatore Bellandi, to decide my fate for me.
I lift my chin, even as my hands tremble.
I may be frightened. I may be cornered.
But I am not finished.
And as the knot in my stomach tightens with dread, one truth cuts through everything else with brutal clarity.
I will not sit back and let danger come for me.
I will meet it head-on.
Just like my father taught me.
7
LUCIA
Irefuse his nightcap.
Tell Giovanni I’m tired, that the day has wrung me dry and I need sleep more than I need another measured conversation in which my life is discussed like a hostile takeover.
He studies me for a moment too long, eyes sharp, assessing, but he lets me go with a faint nod that feels less like permission and more like postponement.
The moment the door closes behind me, the house swallows the sound.
Emerald House is too quiet at night.
Not the comforting hush of safety, but the deliberate stillness of a place designed to hear everything. Thick walls. Endless corridors. Security so subtle it feels organic, like the house itself is watching.
I pace.
Back and forth across the guest bedroom, bare feet sinking into the plush rug, then lifting again as if the floor might burn me if I stay still too long.
My thoughts race in ugly, overlapping loops.
There are no good options. No clever exits. No scenario where I walk away cleanly and intact.
Giovanni has already closed every door I can see, and several I suspect I haven’t found yet.
I stop by the window, stare out at the darkened grounds, then turn away again because looking at freedom from behind glass makes something inside my chest ache too sharply.
I pace again.
My hands curl, unclench. I tell myself to breathe… tell myself panic is useless.
