The dining room behind Sergio was massive, all dark marble and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. Breakfast had already been laid out across the table like something from a luxury hotel. Fresh fruit. Pastries. Espresso. Silver trays still steaming.
It should’ve looked warm. Instead it felt like another prison inside Leo’s kingdom. Another cage.
Sergio finally slipped his phone back into his pocket. “Doctor’s on his way.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “Did either of you actually listen to me?”
“No,” Sergio replied easily.
Leo stepped closer before I could respond again. Not enough to touch me, but enough that the heat of him wrapped around my body anyway.
“You’re injured,” he said quietly. “That makes it my business.”
“It’s not your business.” I raised my chin. “I don’t want a fucking doctor.”
“The mouth on this one,” Sergio muttered, still on his phone.
“It became my business the second I put that ring on your finger,” Leo reminded me.
“The ring I never asked for,” I hissed. “Call off the doctor or I’ll… kill you.”
Sergio let out a laugh, making me even angrier. I took a step closer to Leo, ignoring what his closeness was doing to my heart. “I mean it. Call it off. My father already had me treated for the snake bite, and so have you. I’ve been putting those salves on.”
“If I call it off,” Leo replied easily. “You sleep in my bed tonight.”
My stomach tightened violently. God, I hated when he talked like that. Like ownership was inevitable. Permanent. Like he truly believed every part of me already belonged to him.
Sergio pulled out a chair at the table and looked between us with visible exhaustion.
“I’m begging you both,” he muttered. “Please sit down before the sexual tension gives me a fucking migraine.”
Leo didn’t laugh. That somehow made the threat between us feel more real. His eyes stayed on mine, dark and steady, like he was already imagining exactly how that would play out. Me in his bed. Beneath him. Trapped there by my own stubborn mouth.
Then, calmly, he reached into his pocket and took out his phone.
“Sergio,” he said without looking away from me. “Cancel the doctor.”
I blinked. Sergio looked up slowly. “Seriously?”
“She says she’s fine.” Something victorious flared briefly in my chest. Then Leo added smoothly, “If she collapses later, I’ll carry her to my bed myself.”
The victory died. Sergio muttered something in Italian under his breath before texting whoever he’d contacted. “You’re getting soft.”
“I’m getting a headache,” Leo bit back.
“Yeah, me too,” his loser friend sighed.
Leo finally moved around me toward the table, and I hated how aware I was of him passing behind me. The heat of his body. The expensive scent of his cologne. The sheer size of him. “Sit down, Chiara.”
I stayed standing just to annoy him. Sergio leaned against the chair across from me, studying me with open skepticism now.
“You know,” he said casually, “I still don’t understand why he picked you.”
I frowned, glaring at him with so much rage it should’ve ignited him on the spot. No such luck.
“You’re tiny. Mouthy. Spoiled.” His gaze dragged over me. “Too young.”
“I’m eighteen,” I hissed.
