Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Eleonora
It’s been two days since the pool incident, and I haven’t seen or heard from Nico once.
Every morning I go down to breakfast, telling myself I’m only going because I’m hungry, but the truth is I keep hoping he’ll be there. Sitting at the table, drinking his coffee, looking at me with those intense whiskey eyes. But he’s never there. The chair at the head of the table stays empty.
In the evenings, I linger as long as I can before going to bed, secretly waiting for the sound of his footsteps or the click of his bedroom door. Nothing. The light in his room never comes on.
I hate that I feel this way.
I hate that my chest feels tight and hollow every time I realize he might be avoiding me.
I don’t even know what I expected after what happened between us, but I didn’t expect him to ghost me inside his own damn house.
After the way he touched me, the way he made me come apart on his tongue and fingers… I thought we had crossed some kind of line. That maybe things between us would shift, even a little.
God, I’m such a fool.
I shouldn’t have let him get that close. I shouldn’t have moaned his name. I shouldn’t have begged him. Now I feel dirty and stupid and embarrassingly needy, and he’s probably regretting every second of it.
After dinner tonight, I retreat to my bedroom and pace the floor like a caged animal. All I can think about is leaving. Getting as far away from Nico Lombardi as humanly possible.
I need to find my sisters. I need to know they’re okay. I need to make sure Sienna is safe and far away.
I’ve been listening carefully for the past two days. His bedroom is right next to mine, and I haven’t heard the door open once. No lights have come on.
He hasn’t been home.
Good.
I wait until midnight. By then, Daniel is usually gone from his post outside my door. I crack it open slowly, heart pounding, and peer into the hallway.
Empty.
I head back inside and put on black leggings, and because I have a penchant for pain, the black polo Nico had given me. The fabric still smells faintly like him.
I ignore the way my stomach tightens as I tug it over my head and smooth it down my body. I need to blend into the night.
I slip out, and gently close the door behind me. My pulse is racing as I move down the hallway, keeping close to the wall.
My heart pounds so hard I can feel it in my throat. I’ve spent the last few days memorizing every corner of this house, the blind spots, the camera angles, the times when the guards change rotation.
I know the servants’ staircase at the far end has fewer eyes on it at this hour. I know the motion sensor near the east corridor flickers for exactly twelve seconds after someone passes.
I move quickly but carefully, sticking to the shadows I’ve mapped in my mind. Down the back stairs, through the narrow service hallway that the staff use, past the laundry room where the cameras don’t reach the far corner.
My sneakers are silent on the marble. I’m almost out.
I can see the side exit door that leads toward the garden wall. If I can make it through the hedges and reach the outer gate before the next patrol—
“Going somewhere?”
The deep voice stops me cold.
I scream, spinning around so fast I nearly lose my balance.
Marco, Nico’s scarred, terrifying friend, stands a few feet behind me, arms crossed, watching me with a mixture of amusement and surprise. His face is half-hidden in shadow, but I can still see the jagged scar cutting through his eyebrow.
“I—I was just going for a walk,” I stammer, hating how weak my voice sounds.
He raises one brow. “Indeed.”
I look around desperately, but there’s nowhere to run. He’s blocking the only clear path back inside, and I know I won’t make it past him.
“Come back inside,” he says, not unkindly, but with clear authority. He gestures with his chin toward the house.
Defeated, I walk ahead of him. Every step feels heavier than the last. I couldn’t even make it twenty minutes outside. I feel so stupid. So useless.
Marco follows close behind, silent until we reach my bedroom. He opens the door and waits for me to step inside. Then, without a word, he closes it and locks it from the outside.
I stand there for a long moment, staring at the door like it might magically open again. Then my legs give out. I slide down to the floor, back against the wall, and bury my face in my palms. Defeated.
I’m back to square one, locked in this beautiful cage, no closer to freedom, no closer to my sisters, no closer to knowing if Sienna is safe.
I’m tired. So incredibly tired.
Nico
She tried to run.
She actually tried to fucking run.
I shouldn’t be surprised, I’ve seen the way she’s been studying every camera angle and guard rotation from day one. But I’m still shocked. And pissed. Really fucking pissed.
When Marco called me to tell me she slipped out after midnight, I left the meeting with Nikolai mid-sentence and drove straight back to the estate.
My hands haven’t stopped gripping the steering wheel like I want to choke it.
Since that night in the jacuzzi, I haven’t been myself. I’ve been avoiding her like she’s poison.
I can’t even sleep in my own bedroom anymore because hers is right next door. One thin wall separating me from the woman I can’t stop craving.
I keep thinking about how she tasted, sweet, addictive, flooding my tongue when she came. I keep remembering how tight she was around my fingers, how she moaned my name.
I’m like an addict now. She’s my drug, and I’ve been white-knuckling it for days, trying not to go back for another hit. Because if I touch her again, I won’t stop. I’ll bury my cock so deep inside her she’ll feel me for weeks.
And now she tried to run?
Marco is waiting for me in the foyer when I storm in.
“She almost made it out,” he says, arms crossed. “Caught her before she could do anything stupid.”
I drag a hand through my hair, jaw tight. “Where is she?”
“Back in her room. Locked in.”
Marco studies me for a second, then sighs. “We need to make her understand she can’t run, Nico. We’ve been treating her like a guest instead of a prisoner.”
I glare at him. “We are treating her like a prisoner. She’s locked in.”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it,” he says. “You’ve been too loose with her. Ever since she got here, you’ve barely left the house. You’re not thinking straight. For fuck’s sake, you took her to the club two days ago. What the hell were you thinking? Anyone could’ve seen her.”
“They didn’t,” I snap.
Marco gives me a long look. “You’re mixing business with pleasure, brother. And I think you like the girl.”
“I don’t,” I say immediately, voice cold.
He opens his mouth, but I cut him off.
“Know your place, Marco. I’ll go talk to her.”
I turn and head upstairs before he can say anything else.
She tried to leave me. After the way she came on my tongue, after the way she begged and fell apart for me… she still tried to run. Doesn't she know she belongs to me?
I stop outside her door, fists clenched at my sides.
Time to remind Eleonora Caruso exactly who she belongs to.
I unlock her bedroom door and stop short as I step inside.
Eleonora is curled up on the floor beside the bed, knees drawn to her chest, head bowed against them. She looks small. Defeated. Nothing like the fiery, defiant woman who’s been driving me insane since the moment I took her.
Something twists hard in my chest. Seeing her like this, broken on the floor because of me, should satisfy the part of me that wants her to understand she belongs here. Instead, it pisses me off even more. She shouldn’t look like that.
I shut the door behind me with a quiet click. “I heard you tried to run,” I say, voice low.
She lifts her head slowly. Her eyes are red-rimmed, but dry now. She shrugs like it doesn’t matter.
“Apparently I didn’t do a very good job,” she mutters, “since I got caught.”
I walk closer, stopping just a few feet away from her. “Where did you think you were going?”
“Home,” she answers, voice flat. “In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t my home.”
I crouch down in front of her so we’re eye-level. I see the exhaustion in her gaze.
“I was willing to cut you some slack,” I tell her quietly.
“But after tonight, you’ve ruined every privilege you had.
No more leaving this room. You don’t step foot outside that door unless I personally allow it.
No more walks around the house. No more breakfasts downstairs.
No more conversations with the staff. You stay in here. Locked in. Until I decide otherwise.”
Her lips press into a thin line, but she doesn’t argue.
I stand up, turning toward the door.
Something flies past my head, missing my face by barely an inch, and hits the wall with a thud. Her sneakers.
“Fuck you, Lombardi!”