“Leone.”
He stops, hand on the door frame.
“If I’m right,” I say, “if Renzo is your mole—what happens to him?”
He doesn’t turn around. “You don’t want to know.”
“Yeah,” I say softly. “I figured.”
The door closes behind him. The lock clicks.
I lie back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and try to feel bad about the fact that I handed a man a death sentence.
I can’t.
Maybe that means I’m adapting. Maybe it means I’m becoming like them. Maybe it means I was always capable of this, and I never had the opportunity to find out.
I close my eyes and see Viktor’s face.
The debts aren’t meant to be paid.They’re meant to own you.
My father. My mother. The eight years I spent trying to save a man who didn’t want to be saved.
Leone, the violence, control, the unexpected gentleness. The way he looks at me like I’m a problem he can’t solve. The way he keeps coming back, even when he doesn’t have to.
You haven’t hurt me.You could have. But you didn’t.
It’s not enough. Not nearly enough to trust him, or this place, or any of the monsters who run it.
But it’s something.
And right now, something is all I’ve got.
Sleep doesn’t come easy.
I toss and turn for hours, tangled in sheets that cost more than my monthly rent, brain refusing to shut off. Every time I close my eyes, I see Renzo Marchetti’s face. Those dead eyes staring at me from the photograph, daring me to look closer.
I did look closer. And now a man is going to die because of it.
The ceiling offers no answers. Neither does the window, or the bathroom, or the ridiculous orchid that someone waters every day even though I’ve never seen them do it. The room is a stage set, and I’m the only actor who doesn’t know her lines.
Around 3 AM, I give up on sleep entirely. I sit cross-legged on the bed and do what I always do when my brain won’t stop spinning: I make lists.
Things I know: The Castillo’s wanted me badly enough to burn Viktor. Leone is protecting me for reasons he won’t explain. There’s a mole in the Bonaccorso organization. Renzo Marchetti is probably that mole. My father’s debts started this whole chain of events. I am, technically, still a prisoner.
Things I don’t know: What the Castillo’s actually wanted from me. Why Aurelio ordered his men to keep me alive and comfortable. What Leone’s deal is—why he watches me, why he keeps coming back, why he looks at me like I’m more other than a problem to solve. How to get out of here. If I even want to anymore.
That last one stops me cold.
Do I want to leave?
Three days ago, the answer would’ve been obvious. Hell yes. First chance I got, I’d be out the window or through the door or down a drainpipe, whatever it took. Freedom at any cost.
But now?
I look around the room. The burgundy walls. The soft bed. The documents spread across the desk, evidence of the work I’ve been doing. Work that matters. Work that could save lives—or end them, depending on how you count.
Out there, I was a courier. A nobody. A girl drowning in her father’s debts, taking shadier and shadier jobs to keep her head above water.
