The unlocked door was a louder presence than any lock had ever been. It sat there, a sliver of shadow between the frame and the jamb, screaming its silent invitation. Elara didn’t move for a full ten minutes after Lorenzo’s footsteps faded. This had to be a test. A new, more sophisticated form of psychological torture. Step outside, and a dozen guards would descend. Prove you’re the flight risk we think you are.
But the house remained silent. No shuffling guards, no approaching footsteps. Just the low hum of the mansion’s central heating and the frantic thump of her own heart. The drawing had worked better than she’d dared hope. It hadn’t just intrigued him; it had short-circuited him. He’d forgotten to lock the door.
A laugh, breathy and disbelieving, escaped her. It was the most uplifting moment she’d had since waking up in that van. The great Lorenzo Moretti, so unnerved by a crayon sun that he’d broken his own protocol. The surprise was a potent cocktail of terror and triumph.
She crept to the door, her ear pressed against the cool wood. Nothing. Slowly, carefully, she turned the handle. It moved without a sound. She pulled the door open a fraction, just enough to peer out.
The hallway was empty, illuminated by soft sconce lighting. It was just past dawn; the household was still mostly asleep. This was her window. This was the chance to do what she’d been desperate to do since she arrived: reconnoiter. Knowledge was her only weapon, and she was starving for it.
She slipped out, closing the door silently behind her. The marble floor was icy under her bare feet. She moved like a ghost, sticking to the runner carpets, her senses on high alert. She knew the basic layout from her previous life, but that knowledge was five years out of date. Things changed. Safes were moved. Offices were relocated. Weaknesses were patched.
Her first target was Lorenzo’s study. The inner sanctum. In her past life, she’d never been allowed inside. It was where he conducted his most private business. If there was a ledger, a plan, a clue to how he’d bring down the Rossos—or how he might be vulnerable—it would be there.
She found it at the end of the east wing. The door was massive, dark oak, with an intimidating modern electronic lock. A keypad glowed with a soft blue light. Her heart sank. Of course. He might forget a bedroom door, but not this.
“Looking for a tour guide?”
The voice, quiet and laced with amusement, came from behind her. Elara jumped, her hand flying to her mouth to stifle a scream. She spun around.
Alessio leaned against the wall a few feet away, arms crossed. He wasn’t in his usual suit; he wore dark, comfortable trousers and a simple black sweater, a cup of coffee in one hand. He looked like he’d been there for a while. Watching her.
“I… I couldn’t sleep,” she stammered, her mind racing for an excuse. “I thought I’d… explore.”
“At 5:47 in the morning? You’re an early riser for a captive,” he remarked, taking a sip of his coffee. His eyes were alert, missing nothing. “The study is off-limits. As is most of this wing before Don Moretti wakes. It’s for your own safety. The motion sensors are less forgiving out here.”
He was warning her. Casually, but unmistakably. He could have sounded the alarm. He could have dragged her back to her room. Instead, he was having a conversation.
“I noticed the door was open,” she said, deciding on a sliver of truth.
“I noticed that, too,” he replied, his tone neutral. “A rare oversight. One might almost think it was intentional.” He pushed off from the wall and took a step toward her. “What did you hope to find in there, Elara?”
The use of her name, without title or contempt, felt like a significant shift. She looked at the keypad on the study door, then back at him. A reckless idea formed. “The code. It’s his father’s birthday, isn’t it? But not the year. Just the day and month. He’s sentimental like that.”
Alessio froze, the coffee cup halfway to his lips. His casual demeanor evaporated. He slowly lowered the cup. The look he gave her was utterly unreadable, a mask of perfect calm over sheer, seismic shock. She was right. She’d gambled on a memory, a throwaway comment Lorenzo had made once in a rare, unguarded moment years from now, and she’d hit the jackpot.
“You are…” he began, then stopped, shaking his head slightly. “You are a very dangerous woman.”
“I’m a woman who pays attention,” she countered, her voice soft. “And I think you do, too. You noticed the door was open. You’re here. You’re not dragging me back. You’re… curious.”
He didn’t deny it. He just watched her, his brain visibly working, recalibrating his understanding of the world to include her impossible presence in it. “Curiosity is a luxury men in my position can’t often afford,” he said finally. “It gets people killed.”
“Loyalty is a luxury, too,” she shot back. “Especially when it’s given to a man who sees people as tools or threats. Where does that leave you, Alessio? The sharpest tool? Or the most predictable threat?”
It was a direct hit. She saw it land in the slight tightening around his eyes. He was the brains, the strategist, but he was still just an employee. A highly paid, highly respected one, but disposable all the same. In her past life, his fate had been… ambiguous. He’d simply disappeared one day after a major deal went south. She’d always wondered.
“You should go back to your room,” he said, his voice losing its warmth. “Before the day shift starts. Their orders are less… nuanced than mine.”
It was a dismissal, but it was also more information. He was on the night watch. He was the one who had found her. That was no coincidence.
She nodded, taking a step back. “Thank you. For the coffee smell. It’s nice. Better than cold oatmeal.”
A faint smile touched his lips again, despite himself. “It’s a Guatemalan blend. Dark roast.” He said it like he was sharing a state secret.
She turned to go, then paused. “Alessio? The man on the motorcycle. Marco. Whatever Lorenzo is planning… it’s a mistake. Marco isn’t here for me. Not really. He’s here because someone told him to be.”
She left him with that, another seed planted, and padded silently back down the hall. She slipped into her room and closed the door, leaning against it, her breath coming in short gasps. The interaction had been terrifying and exhilarating. She had an ally. A reluctant, suspicious, dangerous one, but an ally nonetheless. The quotable line had been traded. The emotional payoff—that fragile, terrifying connection—was a lifeline.
She didn’t have to wait long for the catalyst. Two hours later, her door opened again. It wasn’t the silent woman with breakfast. It was Lorenzo.
He looked like he hadn’t slept. His eyes were shadowed, his usually impeccable appearance slightly rumpled. He held himself with a new kind of tension, a wary energy that hadn’t been there before. The drawing had clearly haunted him all night.
He didn’t speak. He just stood in the doorway and jerked his head, a clear command to follow him.
Her bare feet were still cold from her earlier excursion as she followed him through the mansion. This time, he didn’t lead her to her room or his study. He led her downstairs, through a series of corridors she rarely visited, to a plain wooden door. He opened it.
The room beyond was a sunroom, or what had once been one. Glass walls looked out onto a walled garden, now bleak and wintery. But the room itself was warm, filled with the scent of rich earth and growing things. It was a greenhouse within a house. And everywhere, in terracotta pots and hanging baskets, were roses. Dozens of them. But not a single yellow one. They were deep reds, vibrant pinks, pristine whites.
Lorenzo stood in the center of the room, his back to her, looking at a particularly vicious-looking crimson rosebush with thorns like daggers.
“My mother believes you’re a Rosso plant,” he said, his voice flat, devoid of its usual menace. It was the tone of a man stating a fact he no longer fully believes. “She believes the drawing was a plant, something you extracted from a former servant. A trick.”
Elara said nothing. She waited.
He turned to face her. The morning light through the glass walls softened the harsh lines of his face, making him look younger, more like the boy in the drawing. The confusion in his eyes was raw, unconcealed. “Alessio believes you’re being framed. That someone is manipulating events to make you look guilty.”
Still, she stayed silent.
“Gino believes you’re a witch and should be thrown into the sea,” he added, a hint of bleak humor in his tone that was entirely new.
She almost smiled. “And what do you believe?”
He took a step toward her, and for the first time, he didn’t feel like a predator closing in. He felt like a man desperate for an answer. “I believe you knew about the roses. I believe you knew about my father. I believe you knew the sun was red.” He stopped in front of her, close enough that she could see the faint scar on his eyebrow, the tired lines at the corners of his eyes. “I believe you know things you cannot know. And it makes no sense.”
This was the turning point. The moment the stakes shifted from physical captivity to something far more intimate and dangerous. He was vulnerable. He was asking.
She looked around at the beautiful, thorny garden he kept hidden away. “You ripped out all the yellow ones,” she said softly. “But you kept all the others. You hate the yellow, but you love the roses. You can’t get rid of them entirely.”
He flinched as if she’d struck him. She had seen right through to the core of his contradiction. His sentimentality warring with his ruthlessness.
“Who are you?” he asked, and the question was no longer a threat. It was a plea.
Before she could even think of how to answer, the door to the sunroom burst open. Gino stood there, his face flushed with excitement and malice. He barely glanced at Elara.
“Boss! We got him! The Rosso scout? He got brave. Came back for another look. Our boys on the perimeter snagged him. He’s in the garage. Singing like a canary already. Says he was sent by Marco personally to get a layout of the place. For a rescue mission.” Gino’s grin was triumphant. “The little mouse was a spy after all.”
The moment shattered. Lorenzo’s vulnerability vanished, sealed behind a wall of instant, cold fury. His eyes, which had been full of confused wonder, hardened into chips of flint. He turned his gaze from Gino to Elara, and the look was pure betrayal.
The cliffhanger wasn’t a revelation or a disaster. It was a look. It was the utter, complete collapse of the fragile understanding they had just built. The trap for Marco had sprung, and it had caught her in the crossfire. The unlocked door, the sunroom, the moment of connection—it was all gone, obliterated by Gino’s triumphant announcement.
Lorenzo took a step back from her, his expression closing down, becoming colder and more remote than she had ever seen it. “Bring him to my study,” he said to Gino, his voice like ice. Then his eyes locked on Elara. “And you. You’re coming with me. You wanted to see what happens to spies? You’re about to get a front-row seat.”
The engineered cliffhanger was a betrayal—not by a hidden enemy, but by cruel, perfect timing. The door to the greenhouse, which had felt like an opening, had become the entrance to an interrogation room. And she was no longer just a prisoner. She was a witness for the prosecution.
***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***
Updated 9 Episodes
Download
Like this story? Download the app to keep your reading history.
Comments