Chapter Six
Vito
I sit in the security hut and watch Teresa on the monitors.
I have been watching since the moment she woke.
Not because I’m nervous. Not because I doubt what I’ve done now that it’s already done.
I watch because I want to see how she handles herself when the ground gives way beneath her. Facts on paper matter. Credentials matter. Degrees, licenses, professional reputation—all of that mattered when I chose her. But paper only says so much about a person. Pressure says the rest.
And Dr. Teresa Donato, so far, is doing exactly what I hoped she would do.
I lean back slightly in the chair and study the screens in front of me as she moves through the house. Bedroom. Closet. Hallway. Living room. Kitchen. She doesn’t wake up screaming. She doesn’t collapse into useless panic. She doesn’t start tearing the place apart in blind terror.
She looks.
She thinks.
She moves with caution and intelligence, even with the remnants of the drug in her system still clearly lingering in her body.
I can see it in the slight care she takes with her balance, in the way she touches walls and doorframes sometimes without even seeming aware of it, grounding herself while her mind works.
It pleases me more than I expected.
Now she is outside.
On the largest screen, Teresa steps across the sand in the same black dress she wore when she went out with her friends.
That little dress is still clinging to her frame in all the right places, though the evening breeze keeps catching the hem and fluttering it lightly around her thighs as she stands near the water.
Her hair moves with it, dark against her bare shoulders.
Even at a distance, even through glass and camera grain and the remove of a monitor, she is striking.
Too striking, maybe.
That thought comes and goes.
I watch her pause at the edge of the water, then turn her head one way and then the other, looking up and down the beach. She stays there for a while, not moving much, just studying what she can see. I suspect this is the moment she begins to understand it.
Not the whole of it yet, but enough. Enough to realize there is nowhere obvious to go. Enough to understand that stepping out of the house does not mean she has stepped free of anything.
Then she turns and looks back toward the house.
She doesn’t seem eager to walk back to it.
I can’t blame her for that. The house is beautiful, but beauty has never been the same thing as comfort. Not when a person wakes inside it without knowing how she got there.
Still, she isn’t panicking.
That’s good.
I find myself impressed with her and her nerves.
Truly impressed, which is not a feeling I reach often when it comes to other people.
Most people get loud when they’re scared.
Or stupid. Or both. They waste time with denial, hysterics, wild emotional flailing that changes nothing except the pace at which they lose whatever little edge they started with.
Teresa is not doing that.
She is processing. Assessing. Searching her surroundings with a calm that looks almost unreal under the circumstances.
I can’t imagine that many other women would so carefully and quietly examine the house, the rooms, the beach, the water, all without breaking down into screams or sobs or frantic, useless movement.
I had actually expected a lot more screaming.
A lot more hysteria.
Instead, she is reacting really well.
That makes me hopeful.
Just for the moment, anyway.
I’m not stupid enough to assume this is settled. Teresa may still scream the second she sees me.
She may still go rigid with terror or fury when she realizes exactly who brought her here and that I’m not going to let her go home just yet.
Calm in solitude is not always the same thing as calm in confrontation. I know that. I have seen enough people change the instant uncertainty becomes personal.
Even so, this is a good start.
A better one than I expected.
My gaze lingers on the monitor a second longer as Teresa remains near the shoreline, dress lifting in the evening wind, hair shifting, body held taut with tension she is managing better than most people ever could.
Then I look away from her and let my eyes move across the rest of the island as represented on the other screens.
Conti Cay.
Private, self-contained, and unlisted.
The security hut where I sit is on the far side of the island from the main house, tucked into its own place with the same careful discretion as everything else here.
It isn’t meant to draw the eye. None of the necessary parts of the island are.
They are built to blend in, to serve, to remain useful without becoming part of the scenery in any memorable way.
The island itself is laid out with deliberate separation.
Along one side are the guest rooms, a series of private luxurious huts built far enough apart to feel secluded while still belonging to the same compound.
Those are for family or friends when they are invited here. The accommodations are beautiful—open-air touches, polished wood, soft linens, private terraces, everything designed to feel indulgent without being vulgar. The sort of place people remember fondly and hope for yet another invitation.
On the other side of the island are the cabanas, arranged for quieter, more private use.
Relaxing. Drinking. Reading.
Escaping the direct heat while remaining close to the water. That whole stretch of the island was built for pleasure in the most ordinary sense of the word. Ease. Privacy. Luxury. Sun and shade, good alcohol, and no interruptions.
Then there is the house.
Big. Luxurious. Beautiful.
And still it blends.
That is one of the few aesthetic choices I have always respected here. The main house does not sit on the island like an intrusion.
It belongs to it in a palette of tropical earthy tones—stone, wood, warm sand-colored walls, deep green plantings, broad shaded overhangs, glass that reflects sky and water more than it announces itself.
It is large enough to hold the entire family when we get together, large enough for noise and meals and children and all the other things the Contis bring with them when we gather, but it never looks like a monument to itself.
It works for my stay.
No one else is using the island right now, and I planned that very intentionally. I didn’t want overlap. Didn’t want family arrivals, staff traffic, or any complication from ordinary leisure use.
This trip was never meant for pleasure.
Or for any of the other reasons people might use a private island that’s not on any map.
My mouth tightens slightly at that thought.
At one discreet end of the island sit the not-so-luxurious huts. They are kept separate on purpose. Functional rather than beautiful. Useful rather than inviting.
Those are never offered to family or friends. Those are for people who are not family and definitely not friends.
That area of the island is locked down from casual access. To keep people out.
And to keep people in.
I push away from the desk and stand.
On the monitor, Teresa is still outside, still near the water, still holding herself together.
Better get it over with now, I think.
No sense delaying the moment she sees me and understands that whatever this is, it has a face she knows.
I take one last look at the bank of screens before turning away and stepping out of the security hut.
The evening air is warm at once, even now with the island nearly at full dark. I start down the winding path that leads from the hut toward the main house, my mind already moving ahead.
Typically, there are guards on the island when no one is visiting or otherwise using it, or when it’s being used for business-related things that have nothing to do with family leisure.
But I dismissed them for this trip.
When the family uses the island themselves, we generally don’t want guards visibly present around us, although they still protect the island less conspicuously.
Seeing armed guards tends to spoil the illusion of ease and paradise.
Spoils the atmosphere we try to create here.
That doesn’t mean the island is ever vulnerable.
Security remains tight.
Patrol boats make their rounds out on the water.
The island is watched from every angle that matters. There is no part of it left uncovered by cameras, no stretch of house or sand or path entirely unobserved.
For the moment, I still have the camera in Teresa’s room on.
I plan to turn it off later, once she gets settled and once I’m sure she isn’t going to lose it completely when the reality of me standing in front of her finally hits.
The path curves ahead through palms and low plantings stirred by the wind, carrying me toward the house while the last of the evening light stretches long across the island.