"Stefan." His voice was patient in a way that was somehow more threatening than anger. "I can do this the easy way or the hard way. The easy way, you cooperate. The hard way, I rip that pretty shirt off you and you go home to daddy wearing nothing but shame. Your choice."
I unbuttoned the silk shirt with fumbling fingers and let it fall to the floor.
Matteo's eyes tracked over my bare chest, cataloging. Assessing. There was nothing sexual in his gaze—or maybe there was, but it was buried under layers of professional evaluation that made me feel like livestock being inspected.
"The makeup," he said.
I found tissues on the desk and scrubbed at my face until the contouring came off in streaks of beige and brown. My real face emerged, softer than the disguise, younger.
Matteo studied me for a long moment.
"There," he said finally. "That's the real Stefan Romano."
"Congratulations. You've humiliated me. Can I go now?"
"No."
He pulled out his phone and made a call. "Bring something up to holding room three. Medium... Yeah, now."
He hung up and grabbed my wrist—not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough that I couldn't pull away. "Let's go."
"Where?"
"Somewhere you can't cause any more trouble."
He led me out of the office, past the security guards who didn't even blink at the sight of their boss dragging a half-naked young man through the hallway. We went through a door marked "Staff Only" and up a flight of stairs I hadn't known existed.
The second floor was nothing like the club below. No velvet, no strategic lighting, no beautiful people. Just stark hallways with concrete floors and fluorescent lights that hummed overhead. It looked like the back rooms of a warehouse. Utilitarian. Cold.
Matteo stopped at a door with a keycard reader. He swiped his card and the lock clicked open.
"Inside."
The room was small but not uncomfortable. A bed bolted to the floor. A bathroom with a sink and toilet visible through an open door. A single chair. A bookshelf with paperbacks that looked untouched. A TV mounted on the wall.
It was a cell pretending to be a guest room.
"You're keeping me here?" I asked, hating how small my voice sounded.
"Until I decide what to do with you."
"This is insane. You can't just—"
"I can." He stepped closer, crowding me against the wall. "You broke into my club. You tried to spy on us. You compromised our security. In my world, that has consequences."
"My father—"
"Your father sent you here to die, Stefan. Or did you think Giuseppe actually believed you'd succeed? You're the pretty one. The soft one. The one he parades at charity functions because you make the family look respectable." Matteo's voice was brutal in its honesty. "This wasn't a mission. It was a test you were supposed to fail."
The words hit like physical blows because some part of me had known. Had suspected. Giuseppe had seemed almost amused when he'd given me this assignment, like he was watching me walk into a trap and curious to see how long I'd last.
"So what?" I managed. "You're going to kill me to prove a point?"
"I haven't decided yet."
Someone knocked on the door. Matteo opened it and accepted a bundle of dark fabric from whoever was outside. He tossed it at me.
"There's a shower in the bathroom. Use it. Someone will bring you food later."
