9. Adriana
ADRIANA
The silence wakes me the next morning before anything else, and for a moment I lie perfectly still in the unfamiliar bed, my heart already racing before my mind has fully caught up to where I am.
The room is more luxurious than what I've slept in for years—Gio made sure I wasn't enjoying the comforts that my name and our family wealth should have entitled me to.
And, as much as I hate to admit it, I slept better than I have in a long time.
But now, the wrongness of it all crawls over my skin again, the fear flooding back in. Gio will find us.
My pulse starts to race. He'll find us, and when he does, he'll kill Lachlan slowly, make me watch, make Matteo watch, and then he'll take us back to that estate and everything will be worse than it was before.
I can almost see Gio's face when he realizes we're gone, the rage that will consume him, the resources he'll mobilize to track us down.
He has connections everywhere, and Chicago isn't far enough.
Men like my brother don't let go of what they consider theirs.
I push myself up and look around the room that's supposed to be mine now. After Lachlan kidnapped us and brought us here, I was surprised that he didn't demand I share his bedroom. The fact that he's giving me this much space is a relief.
The bedroom itself is beautiful, even though I can tell an interior designer picked everything out.
It's all done in neutral creams and golds, with a gleaming hardwood floor, and the ensuite bathroom is done in silver and marble.
It reminds me of my room when I was younger, and I wonder if Lachlan gave them any instructions to make it so.
He saw my room on occasion, when we were both brave enough to sneak a few minutes with him inside it.
It's beautiful, but it's still a gilded cage, just like the one I left behind. The only real difference is the man holding the key.
I force myself out of bed, my bare feet silent on the hardwood floor as I make my way to the bathroom. I splash cold water on my face, trying to shock myself into the present moment. Droplets run down my neck and soak into the collar of the T-shirt I slept in, making me gasp at the chill.
You're alive, I tell myself, gripping the edge of the sink hard enough that my knuckles go white. Matteo is alive. You're both here, both safe as of right now, and you need to keep it that way.
I put on a pair of jeans and a loose T-shirt from the closet, feeling uneasy about wearing anything even slightly revealing around men I don't know.
I'm not even sure I'm comfortable showing skin around Lachlan.
I feel reassured after our not-wedding night that he won't touch me without my consent, but that doesn't mean I didn't see how hungrily he looked at me.
I don't want to make that tension worse.
I hope that the clothes stocked in the room are something he instructed an assistant to buy.
I don't like the idea of Lachlan choosing a wardrobe for me like a doll he's outfitting.
When I emerge from my room, I can hear sounds—the soft clink of dishes from the kitchen and the low murmur of male voices.
I follow the sounds toward the kitchen and find Matteo sitting at a massive island, his legs swinging as he eats pancakes that someone has made for him.
One of Lachlan's men—I remember his name is Rian—stands nearby, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed.
He's watching my son with an expression that's partially protective and partially uncomfortable.
He looks like he's not quite sure what to do with a nine-year-old boy but is determined to make sure he's safe and watched out for anyway.
Weirdly, as uncomfortable as I am here, I appreciate that. It does seem like Lachlan and his men are invested in us being kept safe, even if I'm not happy about how they're going about it.
"Mama!" Matteo's face lights up when he sees me, and he scrambles down from the stool and runs to me, throwing his arms around my waist. I hold him close and feel some of the tension in my chest ease slightly, just enough to let me breathe.
"Did you sleep well?" I ask, pulling back to look at him while my hands automatically check him over the way they always do, looking for signs of harm or fear—anything wrong.
It became a ritual in my old home, and I can't break it.
His eyes are bright though, his smile genuine, and there's a lightness to him that I haven't seen in so long it makes my heart ache.
"Yeah!" The excitement in his voice that catches me off guard. "Rian showed me the TV room, Mama. It's huge, like a real movie theater, and there's a pool on the roof that's heated so you can swim even when it's cold outside. Can we go swimming later? Please?"
A pool on the roof. Of course there is. Lachlan has built himself an empire here, a fortress high above the city where he can have anything he wants, including a pool that defies the weather and the season.
I glance at Rian, who's watching us, and I wonder what he sees when he looks at me.
A victim, a prize… a problem to be managed?
"Maybe," I say to Matteo. Lachlan said the house was ours to explore, but I'm not sure how far that stretches. "We'll see."
Rian clears his throat, and I force myself to meet his gaze.
"Lachlan said you and the boy can go anywhere in the penthouse," he says, like he's reciting instructions he's been given.
"There's food in the kitchen, or we can order whatever you want.
The pool is fine if you want to use it. Just...
don't try to leave without telling someone first."
Don't try to leave. The words hang in the air between us, a threat disguised as concern.
I understand what he's really saying—you're not prisoners, but you're not free either.
If you try to run, we'll stop you. It's the same dynamic I lived with at the estate, and the familiarity of it makes something cold settle in my stomach.
"Understood." My voice comes out colder than I intend, sharp enough that Rian's expression shifts slightly. Something that might be sympathy flickers across his face before he schools it back to neutrality.
He nods and steps back, giving us space.
I realize he's trying to be respectful in his own way, trying to make this easier somehow.
But there's no way to make this easier—no way to make kidnapping and forced marriage feel like anything other than what it is, no matter how polite the jailer or how beautiful the cage.
"Come on," I say to Matteo, forcing a smile that I don't feel. "Let's finish your breakfast, and then maybe we can explore a little. Would you like that?"
He nods enthusiastically and climbs back onto the stool, attacking his pancakes with a single-minded focus.
I sit beside him, watching him eat while my own stomach churns too much to even think about food.
He looks so much like his father it makes my chest ache.
He has my dark hair, but he has his father's features, stronger than mine, and his blue eyes.
I wonder what Lachlan sees when he looks at him, if he sees himself or me. I wonder if he remembers, like I do every time I look at my son, that night in the garden when we were young and stupid and thought love was enough to save us.
The morning passes in a strange, surreal haze as Matteo and I explore the penthouse together.
The media room is enormous, with rows of plush seating and a screen that takes up an entire wall.
There are shelves of movies and video games, what look like every console imaginable, although I'm no expert, and when we turn on the screen, pretty much every streaming service is available.
The library has floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with leather-bound volumes and a near-endless variety of other books, and I have to admit that there's enough in this house just in these two rooms to keep us occupied for a long, long time.
But that's not the point. The point is that we can't leave even if we wanted to.
When we finally make it as far as visiting the gym, I can see it's clearly well-used. I try not to imagine Lachlan in here. The thought of him sweaty, muscles flexing, is a distraction I can't handle right now, and a conflict I can't reconcile.
Everywhere we go, I feel eyes on us, even though there are no guards actually following us through the rooms. But I can sense the surveillance after a lifetime with it.
We're being kept track of like valuable possessions that might try to escape, and the knowledge makes my skin crawl.
It makes me hyperaware of every movement, every word, every expression that might be recorded and analyzed.
By early afternoon, the sun is streaming through the windows as the morning clouds recede.
Matteo is practically vibrating with energy, asking again about the pool.
I hesitate, not wanting to be exposed and vulnerable in a swimsuit.
I don't want to give Lachlan or his men any more access to my body than they already have.
But Matteo is looking at me with those big blue eyes, pleading without words, and I realize he hasn't had a chance to just be a kid in so long.
Gio rarely allowed him to have fun with the pool or anything else that could entertain a child in the mansion.
Getting to play and swim, do something normal and fun, is a true luxury to him.
"Okay," I say finally. The way his face lights up makes the decision worth it, even though my stomach is knotted with anxiety. "Let's go swimming."