Chapter 5 Stefan
FIVE DAYS INTO captivity and I was losing my mind.
The room was comfortable—I had to give them that much. The bed was decent. The bathroom had hot water and soap that smelled expensive. The bookshelf had a surprisingly good selection ranging from literary fiction to thrillers to philosophy. The TV got basic channels plus streaming services.
But it was still a cage.
I'd read three books. Watched two seasons of a show I didn't care about. Paced approximately ten thousand miles across the small space. Planned escape routes that all ended the same way: locked door, no keycard, no way out.
I had no contact with the outside world. No phone. No internet. No way to tell my family I was alive—not that Giuseppe would care. He'd probably already written me off as dead or a failure. Maybe both.
No way to escape.
The isolation was worse than the confinement. I'd always been alone in some ways—the youngest son, the different one, the one who didn't fit the family mold. But I'd had friends. Acquaintances. People I could talk to about things that didn't matter.
Here, I had nothing. No one.
Except Matteo.
He visited twice a day. Morning and night.
Like clockwork. Sometimes he brought food—meals that were better than I'd expected, actually good cooking instead of prison slop.
Sometimes he just sat in the chair by the window and watched me like I was something fascinating.
A puzzle he was trying to solve. A problem with no clear answer.
We didn't talk much. I refused to give him the satisfaction of conversation.
Refused to make this easier for him or more comfortable for me.
If he wanted to keep me locked up, fine.
But I wouldn't pretend we were friends. Wouldn't act grateful for the decent food or the comfortable bed or whatever the fuck he thought he was doing by keeping me alive.
But I was starting to notice things about him despite my best efforts not to.
The way he moved through the room like violence was his first language. Every gesture economical. Every step purposeful. Like he was always two seconds away from a fight and his body knew exactly what to do when it happened.
The scars on his knuckles. Fresh ones overlaying old ones overlaying ancient ones. A lifetime of fights written on his hands in white and pink lines. I found myself wondering about each one. Who he'd hit. Why. Whether they'd survived.
The careful way he set down plates of food.
Like he was trying not to startle me. Trying not to scare me.
It was at odds with everything else about him—the violence he carried like a second skin, the reputation that preceded him, the cold efficiency with which he'd caught me and stripped away my disguise.
The intelligence in his dark eyes. That surprised me most of all. I'd expected a thug. Muscle. Someone who followed Sandro Vitale's orders without question because he lacked the brains for anything else.
But Matteo was smart. I could see it in the way he watched me.
The way he cataloged my reactions. The way he asked questions that seemed casual but were designed to extract information.
He was strategic. Thoughtful. Someone who thought ten moves ahead even if his preferred method of solving problems involved his fists.
I hated that I was noticing these things.
Hated that I'd started to anticipate his visits even though they made my pulse race and my palms sweat. Hated that I was bored enough that Matteo's presence broke up the monotony even if we just stared at each other in hostile silence for twenty minutes before he left.
Hated that some part of me—small and shameful and impossible to ignore—was starting to look forward to seeing him.
Morning of day six, I woke up before Matteo arrived and realized I was waiting for him.
Actually waiting. Sitting on the bed with my back against the wall, watching the door, counting down the minutes until the lock would click and he'd walk in with breakfast or coffee or just that dark intense stare that made me feel like I was the only thing in the world that mattered.
Fuck.
I was losing my mind. That was the only explanation. Isolation was making me crazy. Making me crave any human contact even if it came from the man who'd kidnapped me. Even if it came wrapped in silence and weighted stares and the constant awareness that Matteo could hurt me if he wanted to.
He hadn't, though.
That was the thing I couldn't figure out. Five days and he hadn't laid a hand on me except to cup my jaw and touched my throat that first night. Hadn't hit me. Hadn't threatened real violence. Hadn't done any of the things I'd expected a man like him to do with a captive enemy.
He'd just... watched me. Fed me. Sat with me in silence.
Like I mattered.
Like keeping me comfortable and safe was the entire point of this imprisonment.
The lock clicked at seven AM exactly.
My heart jumped. I hated that it did.
Matteo walked in carrying something I didn't immediately recognize. Not food. Not cleaning supplies. Something wooden and square.
A chessboard.
He set it on the table and began arranging the pieces with practiced efficiency. Black on his side. White on mine.
"Do you play?" he asked without looking up.
I stared at him. At the board. At the invitation implicit in the setup.
"Yes."
"Good." He finished arranging the pieces and sat down. "Your move."
I should refuse. Should maintain my distance and my anger. Should tell him to fuck off and take his chess set with him.
Instead, I found myself standing up. Crossing to the table. Sitting in the chair across from him.
The pieces were beautiful. Hand-carved wood, weighted perfectly, smooth from use. Someone had played with this set for years. Maybe decades. There were small imperfections in the carving—a knight's ear slightly asymmetrical, a bishop's miter chipped—that spoke of age and care.
I moved my king's pawn forward two spaces.
Matteo mirrored the move immediately.
We played in silence.
I'd learned chess from my grandfather. Nonno Giuseppe—my father's father, dead now for eight years.
He'd been a grandmaster in his youth, competing in tournaments across Europe before age and family obligations brought him back to New York.
He'd taught me the game when I was seven, showing me not just the moves but the strategy.
The psychology. The art of reading your opponent and predicting their choices three moves before they made them.
Chess was the only thing my grandfather and I had shared. The only time he'd looked at me like I was worth his attention instead of just another pretty grandson to parade around.
I'd been good. Really good. Good enough that Nonno had talked about getting me a coach, entering me in tournaments, maybe seeing how far I could go.
Then he'd died, and my father had forbidden me from "wasting time" on games when I should be learning to look good at family events, since I clearly wasn't suited for anything else.
I hadn't played seriously in years.
But the strategies came back like muscle memory. The patterns. The rhythms. The way you had to think not just about your own pieces but your opponent's intentions.
Matteo was good.
Better than I'd expected. Better than most casual players. He didn't just react to my moves—he anticipated them. Set traps. Created pressure across the board that forced me to choose between defending and attacking.
We traded pieces carefully. A knight for a knight. Bishops. Eventually a rook.
The game stretched on. An hour. Two.
I forgot about the locked door. Forgot about being a prisoner. Forgot about everything except the board and the pieces and the man across from me whose dark eyes tracked every move I made.
Matteo played aggressively but not recklessly. He took risks but calculated ones. And he was reading me the same way I was trying to read him—watching for patterns, for tells, for the moment I'd make a mistake he could exploit.
We were evenly matched.
The realization was strange. Unsettling. I'd been evenly matched with my grandfather, but that had been years ago. I'd played casually since then but never against anyone who pushed me like this. Who made me work for every advantage. Who saw through my feints and forced me to adapt.
Finally, inevitably, we reached stalemate.
I stared at the board. My king was trapped but not in check. No legal moves left for either of us. A draw.
Matteo leaned back in his chair and studied the board. Then his eyes lifted to mine.
"You're good."
"So are you." The words came out before I could stop them. Before I could remember I was supposed to be hostile and angry and refusing to engage.
His lips curved slightly. Not quite a smile. "We'll play again tomorrow."
It wasn't a question. Wasn't an invitation. Just a statement of fact.
I should say no. Should tell him I had no interest in playing games with my captor. Should maintain whatever dignity I had left by refusing to participate in this... whatever this was.
Instead, I found myself nodding.
"Tomorrow," I agreed.
Matteo stood. He didn't reset the board. Just left the pieces where they'd fallen in that final stalemate position. Like he wanted to study it later. Figure out where we'd both gone wrong or right.
He walked to the door, then paused with his hand on the handle.
"Your grandfather taught you," he said. Not a question. An observation.
I stared at him. "How did you know that?"
"The way you play. It's old-school strategy. Classic Italian style. And you moved the pieces like someone taught you to respect them." He glanced back at me. "Giuseppe doesn't have the patience for chess. Your brothers don't have the discipline. Had to be someone else."
"He was a grandmaster. Before..." I trailed off. Before he got old. Before family obligations trapped him. Before he died and left me alone with a father who saw me as decorative and useless.
"He taught you well."
Matteo left.
I sat at the table staring at the chess board for a long time after he was gone.
The pieces were frozen in their final positions. My king trapped but safe. Matteo's queen dominating the center but unable to deliver checkmate. A perfect stalemate.
Like us.
Neither winning. Neither losing. Both trapped in this strange dynamic that made no sense but felt inevitable.
I should hate him for keeping me here. Should be planning escape or revenge or something productive.
Instead, I was looking forward to tomorrow.
To sitting across from Matteo again. To the silence that felt comfortable instead of hostile. To the game that let us communicate without words, strategy and counter-strategy, move and countermove.
To two hours where I forgot I was a prisoner and he forgot to be my captor and we were just... two people. Playing chess. Evenly matched.
I stood up and moved to the bed. Lay down on top of the covers and stared at the ceiling.
Five days ago I'd been terrified. Certain Matteo would hurt me or kill me or break me down until there was nothing left of Stefan Romano except a shell that did what it was told.
Now I was playing chess with him. Anticipating his visits. Noticing the scars on his knuckles and the intelligence in his eyes and the careful way he set down plates so he wouldn't startle me.
I was losing my mind.
Or maybe I'd already lost it.
Either way, tomorrow couldn't come fast enough.