13. Victoria
VICTORIA
The bathroom door opens, and steam slips into the bedroom before I do.
I stop with one hand holding the towel at my chest.
Lorenzo is in my room.
He stands near the desk with his coat still on, rain darkening the shoulders. The door behind him is closed. He is not sitting, not pacing, not pretending this is an accident.
For a second, neither of us speaks.
Water drips from the ends of my hair onto my bare shoulder.
“There is a thing called knocking,” I say.
His eyes lift to mine. “I know.”
“Then you chose not to do it.”
“Yes.”
The answer is so plain that I almost forget to be angry.
Almost.
I tighten the towel around myself and look toward the keycard lock on the door. “Do all your guests get this treatment?”
“You are not a guest.”
“No. Guests can leave.”
He does not deny it.
The room is colder than the bathroom. The steam thins around my legs, leaving me aware of the towel, my wet skin, and the fact that Lorenzo Nero is standing between me and the only door.
“You should leave,” I say.
“I came to see how you handled your first day.”
“You could have asked from the hallway.”
“I could have.”
“But that would require manners.”
His mouth moves slightly. “You still have energy.”
“I spent the day weighing poison. Anger helps.”
That removes the trace of amusement from his face.
His attention stays on my eyes. Not the towel. Not my legs. Not the line of water running down my throat.
Somehow, that makes the room worse.
“You knew what it was,” he says.
“I know exactly what it was.”
“And you still did the work.”
“I was not offered a moral alternative.”
The rain taps against the window behind him.
He looks at me for a long moment, then says, “Most people cry on the first day.”
“I cried years ago. I’m done wasting water.”
Something changes in his face, too small to name and gone before I can read it.
He glances toward the bathroom, then back at me. “Are you frightened?”
“Yes.”
“You are still standing.”
“Do you want praise for not breaking me on schedule?”
His eyes narrow.
“No,” he says. “I want to know what you are going to do next.”
A dry laugh leaves me. “That makes two of us.”
“You already know.”
I hate that he is right.
The badge sits on the desk beside him, its plastic face catching the weak light. My name is printed beneath a number.
Victoria Vitale. Temporary access.
Just a name someone can deactivate from a computer.
I walk toward the desk.
Lorenzo does not move.
I stop close enough to take the badge without letting the towel brush his coat.
“I know chemistry,” I say.
“I was told.”
“No. You were told I taught it.” I pick up the badge and hold it between us. “That is not the same thing.”
His gaze drops to the badge, then returns to my face.
“Explain.”
I keep my voice even. “You have an expensive operation downstairs.”
“That is not an explanation.”
“No. It is an observation.”
His eyebrow lifts.
“Most illegal operations fail because the people running them only understand fear and profit,” I continue. “Yours is different.”
“Careful.”
“I am being careful.”
“You are standing half-dressed in a locked room, insulting my business.”
“I am standing half-dressed in a locked room because you entered without permission.”
For the first time, he says nothing.
The silence stretches.
His gaze drops.
Only for a second.
To my mouth.
Then back to my eyes.
The look should frighten me.
It does.
But not enough.
I should step back. I should return to the bathroom and close the door. I should remember that this man killed someone by the river while I sat inside his car unable to move.
Instead, my fingers tighten around the badge.
“Don’t,” I whisper.
His face stills. “Don’t what?”
“Look at me as though you are deciding whether I am a problem or a temptation.”
His eyes remain on mine.
“And which would you rather be?”
The answer comes too quickly inside my head.
Neither.
Both.
Anything that keeps me alive.
I do not say it.
Lorenzo takes one step closer.
I should move back.
I don’t.
“Victoria.”
My name leaves his mouth low and quiet, not gentle, not threatening. A warning dressed as restraint.
The towel slips slightly beneath my fingers.
His hand closes around my wrist.
Not hard or forcing.
Just stopping the small tremor I can no longer hide.
For one breath, I can only stand there. His fingers circle my wrist, my hand trapped between the towel and my chest. Rain taps steadily against the window, but all I can hear is the wild, reckless rhythm of my own heartbeat.
Then I move first.
My fingers catch the front of his coat, and the distance between us disappears.
The kiss is not soft.
It is not sweet.
It is the answer to every silence we have both been pretending not to hear.
His mouth claims mine with a force that makes my knees weaken, and I hate the sound that escapes me because it sounds needing than angry.
His hand releases my wrist and grips my waist through the towel, steadying me, holding me there while I kiss him back with all the fury I should be using to push him away.
For a moment, there is no past.
No pride.
No pretending this means nothing.
Only his mouth, the rain, and the heat burning through every warning in my head.
Then his hand shifts higher to cup my breast.
The towel loosens.
Cold air strikes my skin.
Reality comes back hard.
I pull away.
Lorenzo releases me at once.
We stand there breathing, too close and not close enough, staring at each other across the thin distance we have just rebuilt.
There is no apology.
There is no pretending it did not happen.
I secure the towel with both hands.
He straightens his coat.
“Business,” I say, because if I do not say it first, I may say something worse.
His expression settles again. “Business.”
“You can’t keep me here forever.”
“Everyone leaves eventually.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It was not meant to be.”
I swallow and force my mind back to safer ground. Not safe. Just less dangerous.
“The work downstairs,” I say.
His attention sharpens. “What about it?”
“I am uncomfortable with it.”
“You are not here for comfort.”
“No. But I am here with a mind that understands exactly what I am being asked to do.” I hold his gaze.
“I spent years teaching students what substances like that do to families, neighbourhoods, bodies. I do not forget that because I have been put in a room where men weigh it under fluorescent lights.”
“And yet you worked.”
“Because I intend to survive.”
He studies me.
This time, he is not looking at the towel either.
He is looking for the shape of an offer.
I place the badge back on the desk.
“You brought me downstairs as if I were useful for paperwork and measuring.”
“You were useful.”
“I can be more useful.”
His face gives nothing away.
I continue before I lose courage. “Your setup is better than most legitimate laboratories I have seen.”
“Flattery? Go on.”
“You are making money,” I say. “A lot of it. But you are losing product to purification issues where you do not have to.”
The room stills.
There.
Now I have him.
His eyes remain on mine, but the air changes. He’s calculating now.
“That’s a dangerous statement right there,” he says.
“An accurate one.”
“You saw that in one day.”
“I saw enough.” I continue.
“Your methods are outdated. Not enough to hurt business. Just enough to leave money on the table.”
Lorenzo’s focus fixes on me.
“I specialise in stereochemistry, crystallography, and molecular structure. Your purification pathway is losing yield at multiple critical stages. You are stabilising your product at a suboptimal purity because your methods are outdated, not because it is necessary.”
He steps closer to the desk but does not touch the badge.
“Explain it without teaching me chemistry.”
“I can improve consistency. Reduce waste. Raise quality without increasing volume.”
His gaze holds mine.
I choose my next words carefully.
“I am not giving you a classroom lecture. I am telling you that your people know procedure, not science. They repeat what works because it has always worked well enough.”
“And you can make it better.”
“Yes.”
“How much better?”
“Enough that you will notice.”
A faint smile touches his mouth, but it does not soften him.
“Confidence suits you.”
“Survival suits me better.”
He walks to the window and looks out into the rain.
For a moment, I think he is dismissing me.
Then he says, “Francesco is losing money every twelve hours.”
The change in subject lands hard.
“My people shut down his diesel routes. No fuel deliveries. No access to suppliers. No way to move product.”
“You blocked him.”
“I took away his options.”
His voice remains calm, which somehow makes the words worse.
“People think power is about pulling a trigger,” he continues. “Most of the time it isn’t. You take away their money. Then their business. Then the people who work for them start looking elsewhere. Their allies disappear. Their protection disappears. Eventually, they’re standing alone.”
I look at him.
“And then?”
His eyes meet mine.
“Then they become vulnerable.”
The answer is simple.
So is the message.
Lorenzo isn’t talking about Francesco anymore.
He’s telling me what happens to people who choose the wrong side to double-cross him.
I understand immediately why that matters.
“Do you know why he’s desperate to marry you?”
I remain silent.
“He gains access to your father’s southern rail yards,” Lorenzo says, “Russian interests gain a route we’ve spent years controlling.”
The pieces finally fit together.
This was never only about me.
It was also about what my marriage would give Francesco.
“And keeping me here stops that.”
It changes the outcome. Letting me go also puts him at risk of what I know. The murder at the riverside.
Nothing in his expression suggests guilt. Or regret.
He’s simply stating a fact.
Lorenzo glances at the badge in my hand before looking back at me.
“You’re asking me to place one of my most profitable operations under the supervision of someone who had every reason to work against me.”
I lift my chin.
“I’m asking you to stop losing money. If only I oversee the work”
For a moment, I think I see amusement in his eyes.
His gaze drops briefly to the badge in my hand.
“And in return?”
“There will be conditions.”
His eyes return to mine.
“Conditions.”
“Yes.”
The room goes quiet.
“Careful, Professor. Most people do not enter negotiations with me by making demands.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m not most people.”
For a few seconds, neither of us speaks.
Lorenzo stands between the desk and the rain-dark window, his coat still damp, his hands relaxed at his sides.
He has not agreed to anything or given me safety. He has not opened the door.
But he is listening.
And right now, that is the first piece of ground I have managed to take since I woke up in this house.