What did Matteo want from me?
I rolled onto my side and stared at the door.
The lock was electronic. The walls were solid. The window was too high and too small. There was no way out except through that door, and Matteo controlled the only key.
I was trapped.
Completely and thoroughly trapped.
The realization settled over me like a weight. This wasn't temporary. This wasn't going to end with me escaping or being rescued. This was my reality now. However long Matteo decided to keep me, I was his.
The thought should have terrified me.
It did terrify me.
But there was something else underneath the fear. Something I didn't want to examine. Something that had sparked to life when Matteo's hand had cupped my jaw last night. When his thumb had brushed my cheekbone with surprising gentleness. When he'd looked at me like I mattered.
Like I was worth protecting.
No one had ever looked at me like that before.
My father saw me as decorative. My brothers saw me as the weak one. The men at those auctions saw me as a commodity. Even my friends—the few I had—saw me as Giuseppe Romano's pretty youngest son who'd never amount to anything.
But Matteo looked at me and saw... something else.
I didn't know what. Didn't understand it. But I knew I'd seen it in his eyes during that silent staring contest. Recognition. Possession. Something dark and hungry that should have scared me more than it did.
I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.
Failed.
My mind kept replaying the day. The humiliation of cleaning up the mess I'd made. The defeat of eating the sandwich when I'd sworn I wouldn't. The strange intimacy of sitting across from Matteo in silence while he studied my face like he was memorizing every detail.
Tomorrow would be worse, probably.
Matteo would push harder. Test my boundaries. Find new ways to prove he was in control.
And I'd fight him.
Because that's all I had left. My defiance. My refusal to break. The stubborn pride that had gotten me into this mess in the first place.
I might be trapped in this room, but I wasn't defeated.
Not yet.
Not ever, if I could help it.
I'd find a way out. Or I'd find a way to make Matteo regret keeping me. Or I'd find a way to survive until someone—anyone—came looking for me.
But I wouldn't give up.
Even if every day looked like today. Even if Matteo kept visiting me with that dark intensity in his eyes. Even if some part of me was starting to wonder what would happen if I stopped fighting.
I shoved that thought away violently.
I was Stefan Romano. I'd been sold at auctions and paraded at functions and treated like property my whole life. I knew how to endure. How to survive. How to keep pieces of myself hidden where no one could touch them.
Matteo DeLuca might control my body. He might control this room. He might control whether I ate or starved.
