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As I leave, my footsteps echo down the empty hall, each one sharp against marble.

Izzy waits, a wine glass dangling from her painted nails, her silk nightwear glowing under the candlelight. Legs bare. Perfume thickens the air. She relaxes against the doorframe and laces her words with honeyed venom. “Stay. Drink with me. Forget him. Remember us.”

She leans close, warm and inviting. Her fingers trail down my arm, and her nails dig softly into my flesh. The invitation is clear and desperate.

Disgust blazes hotter than temptation. “No.”

Naked fury and longing flash across her face. She knows my mind is elsewhere. Not with her. Not anymore.

I walk into the dark where the cold air bites my lungs, but Sophia’s touch still tingles in my palm. That frightens me more than anything Gabi could threaten.

Chapter 5

Sophia

Even in late afternoon, the basement feels like midnight. I can’t believe I’ve been in captivity for two days already.

The place doesn’t exactly scream prison. I’m not in chains or locked behind bars, but the concrete walls echo every breath, the cot sitting at the corner looks allergic to comfort, and a single light buzzes overhead like it’s angry to be alive.

The door’s locked from the outside. Stale air bleeds through the vents, carrying damp stone and cigar smoke, along with the stench of men who make brutal decisions from comfortable rooms. I glimpsed them through the doorway as the guards dragged me past.

Down here, there’s nothing but silence, the cold, and my own thoughts.

I find the dark, vaguely Texas-shaped water stain on the ceiling quite funny. I smooth my skirt again. The familiar twitch of nervous fingers tugging fabric flat keeps my mind from the abyss.

A cot is no throne, but a girl can pretend she’s not falling apart if she sits just right.

I try to remember the drive here, how dizziness overcame me as I breathed in expensive leather seats. Panic churned in my gut. Enzo didn’t say a word the entire time.

He didn’t curse or threaten or even glance at me. Just drove with one hand on the wheel and the other flexing like he wanted to strangle a memory. That silence was worse than shouting.

Now I’m stuck here, and no one knows. The school doesn’t open until Monday, and my mother’s stuck in a hospital bed.

Mama.

She’s probably confused, waiting for me and checking the door every few minutes the way she always does. Or worse, she could be that glassy-eyed kind of calm that says she’s disconnected again and floating somewhere I can’t reach her.

If she slips deeper into her fog because I disappeared…

Hot tears prick behind my eyes, threatening to spill over. No, I’m not thinking about that. I can’t afford to.

Only one man has answers about why this nightmare is happening to me…Enzo Ricci. The name coils in my gut like barbed wire. Once, it was just a word my father whispered in dark corners. A rumor. The Benedettis’ blade. The man who’s killed more than he can count.

I’d have believed he was conjured from folklore—a legend meant to scare children into obedience—if he hadn’t become real five years ago on the highway and then again two years back in my classroom. And now he’s got me locked in here, with my life in his hands.

My hands ball up in my lap. Footsteps in the hallway—heavy, unhurried—grow closer.

My breath comes faster, and part of me wants to run to the corner, the bathroom, anywhere that might offer even the illusion of safety. Another part—the traitorous, foolish part that should know better—leans forward slightly, waiting.

The man in my thoughts enters, balancing a tray like it’s an offering in a negotiation, like we’re civilized people instead of captor and captive.

There’s food on the tray…pasta, bread, water…all simple and freshly prepared.

Thank God for that small mercy at least.

My abductor-turned-waiter doesn’t speak, just places the meal on the desk beside the cot and stands back like he’s a student who’s submitted an assignment and is waiting for a grade.

He’s in a dark shirt with rolled sleeves. His strong, veiny forearms belong on magazine covers, and his wolf-cut salt-and-pepper hair’s tied back with a few silver strands loose at his temple.