Chapter 11
“Tommy.”
The name drops from Alessandro's lips like a blade while I'm rifling through his desk drawer, searching for a phone, a key, anything that might connect me to the outside world.
I freeze, my fingers still wrapped around a letter opener that now feels pathetically inadequate.
He's been standing in the doorway watching me, fully dressed in a charcoal suit while I'm wearing nothing but his shirt from last night.
The morning light slices through the curtains, painting harsh lines across his face.
"You talk in your sleep, Emma." My real name follows Tommy's like a punch to the gut. "Fascinating what people reveal when they think they're safe."
My heart hammers so hard I'm sure he can hear it across the room. The gala confrontation still echoes in my bones: Blair Wollstonecraft's screams, Alessandro's bloodied knuckles, my shameful arousal at his protection.
I don't know how many days have passed since I told him everything. Time doesn't move in straight lines here, not in this tomb of glass and steel, not when I'm waiting for the axe to fall with every footstep in the hallway. Maybe three days. Maybe five.
I keep expecting him to walk in and say, "Marco knows," and then I'd be dead, or gone, or maybe finally free, but so far there's only been silence.
Alessandro doesn't look at me the same way he did before; the heat is gone, replaced by something that feels like a gloved hand around my throat.
Every night I lie awake in his shirt—never my own clothes—and the cold air pulses from the vents like it's trying to suffocate me.
It's almost funny, how the only thing warmer than the moon is the man I should fear most.
I try to comfort myself by remembering the way he shielded me at the gala, physically inserting his body between mine and Blair's.
But every time I replay it in my mind, I get stuck on the way his hands lingered at my waist, the way he steadied me like I was something rare and breakable.
I get stuck on the things I felt in that moment, the shameful, sick thrill as Alessandro's violence became my sanctuary.
Now, in the crisp light that exposes every bruise and flaw, I realize how little control I've had over anything since I walked into his world. Even now, with the letter opener in my hand, I know I'm not a threat to him. I never was.
He says my name again, softer this time—Emma—and I flinch, unable to hide the raw edge in my voice when I finally speak.
"Tommy who?" I ask, swallowing hard, my fingers still clutching the letter opener like it's my only lifeline.
Alessandro crosses the room with measured steps, each one deliberate. The sound of his expensive shoes against the hardwood floor feels like a countdown to my execution.
"Quit lying, servant," he says, stopping just out of my reach. His voice is dangerously soft. "Tell me who Tommy is, and why he's worth destroying both our lives."
The question hangs in the air between us. I could lie again, but what's the point? Alessandro already knows I'm not Frances. He knows I'm living a borrowed life in borrowed skin. The only card I have left is Tommy, and I can see in Alessandro's eyes that he won't stop until he knows everything.
I abandon the letter opener, knowing it's useless. Against what? Against him? Against the truth? I don't know anymore. My legs feel weak, so I lean against the desk, trying to look casual when there's nothing casual about being cornered by a man who breaks fingers for sport.
"He’s my brother," I finally say, the words scraping my throat raw. "Tommy is my brother."
Something flickers across Alessandro's face—surprise, then calculation. He wasn't expecting this.
"Your brother," he repeats, testing the words. "Not a lover."
"God, no." The idea is so absurd I almost laugh despite the tension.
Alessandro stops, reassessing me with those cold eyes that miss nothing. "Your brother," he repeats, testing the words like he's tasting them for lies. "The leverage Mrs. Hewson held over you."
I nod, swallowing against the tightness in my throat. "He's in prison. She promised to get him out if I… if I became Frances."
"And if you refused?"
"She'd make sure he never saw daylight again." The memory of her cold smile makes me shiver. "She has judges in her pocket. Police chiefs. Prison wardens. Guards who would hurt him, kill him if I didn't agree to marry you."
I watch his face, searching for judgment. Instead, something shifts in his expression, curiosity transforming into something more complex.
"You've been having nightmares about him every night," he observes. "Screaming that you'll be good, that you'll work harder. What did they threaten to do to him?"
"Everything." My voice breaks. "The guards there are brutal. Mrs. Hewson had connections, could make his life hell or provide protection with a single call. She made it clear: play Frances perfectly or watch my brother die in a prison riot."
Alessandro's jaw tightens. He closes the distance between us, trapping me against the desk. I can smell his cologne, feel the heat radiating off him.
"So all this—" he gestures between us, to the rumpled bed visible through the adjoining door, to my body in his shirt "—was just part of your sacrifice for Tommy?"
There's something raw in his question, something I can't quite name. I should lie. I should tell him yes, that everything I've done—every touch, every gasp, every moment of surrender—was just to protect my brother. But I'm tired of lies.
"No," I whisper. "Not all of it."
His eyes darken. He lifts his hand, and I flinch, expecting violence. Instead, his fingers brush my cheek with surprising gentleness.
"What parts were real, Emma Pitt?" His voice drops lower, rougher. "Tell me exactly what wasn't a lie."
My breath catches. The truth feels dangerous, more dangerous than any knife or letter opener.
"The way I responded to you," I admit. "That night at the gala, when you hurt Blair… I should have been horrified. But I wasn't."
His thumb traces my bottom lip. "What else?"
"When you touch me," I continue, heat flooding my face. "I forget to pretend. I forget to be Frances."
Alessandro's eyes never leave mine, searching for deception. Finding none, his expression shifts into something hungrier, more possessive.
"A servant who sacrificed everything." He says it slowly. His voice carries no judgment, just observation. "Your identity, your freedom, your future. All to protect your brother."
"He's all I have left." The admission costs me something. "Our mother died when we were young. Father disappeared. Tommy and I, we only had each other. And now he's locked up because he tried to protect me from…" I stop, swallowing the rest.
"From what?"
"It doesn't matter. What matters is he needs me alive. And I need him."
Alessandro studies me for a long moment, his thumb absently rubbing his jaw where my scratches have healed. "How long is his sentence?"
"Three more years." The number feels like a lifetime. "Mrs. Hewson promised to get him protection, maybe early release, if I played my part well enough."
"And you believed her?"
"What choice did I have?" My voice cracks. "She had all the power. I had nothing except a face that looked enough like her daughter's to fool a chapel full of mafia families."
He extends his hand abruptly. "Come with me."
"Where?"
"Just come." There's something different in his voice now. Not anger, not calculation. Something I can't quite identify.
I take his hand reluctantly, letting him pull me away from the wall.
My fingers find his like they're magnetized, like my body has already chosen what my mind still fights.
The calluses on his palm, from guns, from violence, somehow feel like safety against my own servant-worn hands.
He doesn't comment on my bare legs or the way his shirt barely covers me.
Instead, he grabs his suit jacket from the chair and drapes it over my shoulders, the gesture unexpectedly gentle.
"Slippers," he says, pointing to a pair by the door. "The floors are cold."
The consideration confuses me more than anger would. I slip them on and follow him through the quiet mansion, up the service stairs I discovered that first night. My heart pounds as we climb toward the rooftop, toward my sanctuary.
When he opens the door, I gasp.
There, among the roses and jasmine of the garden, stands a telescope. Not just any telescope: a vintage brass beauty from the 1960s, the kind I've only seen in astronomy books my grandmother left me. The kind I dreamed about while describing constellations to Tommy through our fire escape.
"How did you…"
"You told me about the stars that night in the rain." He guides me forward with a hand on my lower back. "About watching the Perseids every year since you were seven. About how it was all you had."
I approach the telescope with trembling hands, running my fingers over the smooth brass, the pristine lenses. It's been perfectly restored, positioned to face east where the morning planets are still visible.
The telescope gleams in morning light like a beautiful trap.
I want to smash it, to reject this kindness that will cost me everything.
But my traitorous hands are already caressing the brass, my heart already calculating which stars I'll show him tonight.
When did I become someone who trades her soul for brass and glass?
"Alessandro, this is…" Words fail me.
"I had it delivered last night while you slept. Took some doing. Vintage telescopes aren't easy to source on short notice." He adjusts the angle slightly, his movements surprisingly confident. "I also had them leave these."
He hands me a leather-bound journal, pages blank and waiting. Inside the cover, a note in his handwriting: 'For your observations - A.R.'
"You listened." The words come out wondering. "That night on the rooftop, you actually listened."