“What do you actually do?” I ask as we climb toward what looks like a terrace. “And don’t say ‘it’s complicated’ or ‘import, export.’ I’m tired of that answer.”
He’s quiet for a beat too long.
“Import and export cover most of it.”
“Drugs?” I push. “Weapons? Trafficking?”
He stops walking. The look he gives me is shocked. Hurt even, flickering across his face before he controls it.
“You think I traffic people?”
“You kidnapped me.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it?”
He turns to face me fully. In the moonlight, his eyes are black pools. “I draw the line at women and children. I wouldnever—” he breaks off. Jaw tight. “The fact that you could think that of me?—”
He doesn’t deny drugs. Doesn’t deny weapons.
“You kidnapped me,” I repeat. “You were willing to let me starve. Those facts exist, Elio. Whatever line you think you won’t cross, you’ve already crossed plenty.”
His expression softens.
“If you hadn’t yielded, I had a doctor ready. IVs. Nutrients. Six days was the limit I set on watching you hurt yourself.”
I stare at him.
“You had alimit?”
“I’m not a monster.” Then, a ghost of dark humor, “Or not completely.”
“Six days of watching me suffer before you stepped in.”
“Six days of watching you prove you were strong enough to survive in my world.”
He frames it like a test. Like my starvation was preparation, not torture. Like the kidnapping was a rescue.
I don’t buy into the framing. But I file away the information. The limits he set for himself. What that says about him.
When we get to a large stone terrace, it takes my breath away.
From here, the entire estate spreads below us like a map. The fortress rises behind us, ancient stone and modern security blended seamlessly. Gardens fall away in terraced levels—the rose beds, the orange grove, the dark mass of the maze. And beyond the walls, the distant gleam of sea.
It’s breathtaking.
It’s also completely inescapable.
The beauty is part of the containment. A gilded cage is still a cage.
We stand at the stone railing. His cologne threads through the jasmine and night air. Citrus and wood, maddeningly familiar now. His hand rests near mine on the sun-warmed stone.
Not touching. But close enough that I could close the distance. Choose the contact.
For a moment, I want to. The pull is physical, gravitational.
I stop myself.
