Not to Giuseppe. Not to anyone.
He was mine now.
And I'd burn down the entire Romano family to keep him safe.
CHAPTER 5: STEFAN
FIVE DAYS INTOcaptivity and I was losing my mind.
The room was comfortable—I had to give them that much. The bed was decent. The bathroom had hot water and soap that smelled expensive. The bookshelf had a surprisingly good selection ranging from literary fiction to thrillers to philosophy. The TV got basic channels plus streaming services.
But it was still a cage.
I'd read three books. Watched two seasons of a show I didn't care about. Paced approximately ten thousand miles across the small space. Planned escape routes that all ended the same way: locked door, no keycard, no way out.
I had no contact with the outside world. No phone. No internet. No way to tell my family I was alive—not that Giuseppe would care. He'd probably already written me off as dead or a failure. Maybe both.
No way to escape.
The isolation was worse than the confinement. I'd always been alone in some ways—the youngest son, the different one, the one who didn't fit the family mold. But I'd had friends. Acquaintances. People I could talk to about things that didn't matter.
Here, I had nothing. No one.
Except Matteo.
He visited twice a day. Morning and night. Like clockwork. Sometimes he brought food—meals that were better than I'd expected, actually good cooking instead of prison slop.Sometimes he just sat in the chair by the window and watched me like I was something fascinating. A puzzle he was trying to solve. A problem with no clear answer.
We didn't talk much. I refused to give him the satisfaction of conversation. Refused to make this easier for him or more comfortable for me. If he wanted to keep me locked up, fine. But I wouldn't pretend we were friends. Wouldn't act grateful for the decent food or the comfortable bed or whatever the fuck he thought he was doing by keeping me alive.
But I was starting to notice things about him despite my best efforts not to.
The way he moved through the room like violence was his first language. Every gesture economical. Every step purposeful. Like he was always two seconds away from a fight and his body knew exactly what to do when it happened.
The scars on his knuckles. Fresh ones overlaying old ones overlaying ancient ones. A lifetime of fights written on his hands in white and pink lines. I found myself wondering about each one. Who he'd hit. Why. Whether they'd survived.
The careful way he set down plates of food. Like he was trying not to startle me. Trying not to scare me. It was at odds with everything else about him—the violence he carried like a second skin, the reputation that preceded him, the cold efficiency with which he'd caught me and stripped away my disguise.
The intelligence in his dark eyes. That surprised me most of all. I'd expected a thug. Muscle. Someone who followed Sandro Vitale's orders without question because he lacked the brains for anything else.
But Matteo was smart. I could see it in the way he watched me. The way he cataloged my reactions. The way he asked questions that seemed casual but were designed to extract information. He was strategic. Thoughtful. Someonewho thought ten moves ahead even if his preferred method of solving problems involved his fists.
I hated that I was noticing these things.
Hated that I'd started to anticipate his visits even though they made my pulse race and my palms sweat. Hated that I was bored enough that Matteo's presence broke up the monotony even if we just stared at each other in hostile silence for twenty minutes before he left.
Hated that some part of me—small and shameful and impossible to ignore—was starting to look forward to seeing him.
Morning of day six, I woke up before Matteo arrived and realized I was waiting for him.
Actually waiting. Sitting on the bed with my back against the wall, watching the door, counting down the minutes until the lock would click and he'd walk in with breakfast or coffee or just that dark intense stare that made me feel like I was the only thing in the world that mattered.
Fuck.
I was losing my mind. That was the only explanation. Isolation was making me crazy. Making me crave any human contact even if it came from the man who'd kidnapped me. Even if it came wrapped in silence and weighted stares and the constant awareness that Matteo could hurt me if he wanted to.
He hadn't, though.
That was the thing I couldn't figure out. Five days and he hadn't laid a hand on me except to cup my jaw and touched my throat that first night. Hadn't hit me. Hadn't threatened real violence. Hadn't done any of the things I'd expected a man like him to do with a captive enemy.
