Chapter 20
An hour later, the heavy door of Rodrigo's suite clicked shut behind Giana, sealing her into the darkness.
The sudden silence was a physical relief after the roaring cacophony of the engagement dinner.
Her ears still rang with the clink of glasses, the boom of laughter, and the thunderous applause that followed the kiss.
It was late, and Giana had slipped away as the others had begun to get distracted in their own private conversations. She was wrung out and on edge and couldn't think straight in the same room as Rodrigo.
She leaned back against the solid wood, the coolness seeping through the thin silk of her dress, and closed her eyes. She hadn't expected Rodrigo to kiss her, and sure as hell she hadn't anticipated the shockwave of surprise and desire that had gone through her. Or that she would kiss him back.
One moment of weakness. That's all it had been. One devastating second of pure, unguarded desire had changed everything.
Giana lifted her left hand, the ring catching the low light from the single lamp Rodrigo had left burning. The Colleoni heirloom.
Nonna's ring, Leo's shocked whisper echoed in her mind, underscoring the weight pressing down on her knuckle. It was obscenely beautiful, ancient, and heavy. It was a shackle forged in steel and blood, a symbol of a dynasty built on ancient warriors for hire.
My queen, Rodrigo had declared before them all. Yet here she stood, her body still bearing the marks of being prey, her nerves jangling from a kiss.
With a shuddering breath, Giana moved further into the room. The carpet muffled her footsteps as she crossed the large, starkly beautiful sitting room and entered the bedroom.
Rodrigo's space. Bare except for the storm over Venice photograph. Why only that picture when he had the money to buy any art he wanted? She stopped before it, drawn to the turbulent beauty, the dark clouds swallowing the city.
Giana's lips tingled and sent unwanted heat pooling low in her belly.
Stop it. She was supposed to be playing a role. Performing for the cameras. That was all. The kiss had been part of the act. Nothing more than a convincing flourish.
Rodrigo Colleoni was a master strategist and knew how to sell a lie, but the vulnerability in his eyes, the tremor in his hand… Had that been part of the performance too? And what of her own traitorous response?
He's the monster who watched you for years and helped cage you. Pull yourself together. The old mantra clashed violently with the man who slept on a couch so she could have his bed. The man whose kiss had felt like more than the lie they were trying to sell…
"Fuck," she choked, part frustration, part despair. She needed air. The confines of the room, even this large, elegant space, were suffocating.
Giana stalked toward the wardrobe, shedding the heavy dress. It pooled on the floor at her feet, a puddle of blood-red luxury. She kicked it aside in frustration.
She caught her reflection in the full-length mirror mounted on the wardrobe door. The woman staring back was a stranger. Flushed cheeks, swollen lips, eyes wide and dark with turmoil. The ruby on her finger gleamed with malevolent fire.
She stared at the fading bruises from Izmir, the healing scrapes, the lean muscle definition beginning to show from Rodrigo's relentless training. It was a map of violence and survival.
Yet, beneath the marks of the prey, something else was stirring. The presence of someone beginning to believe she might not be broken from all the violence and trauma she had endured.
Queen. The word echoed again, not as a taunt, but as a challenge. Could Giana dare to claim it? Was she strong enough?
Her gaze drifted past her reflection to the wardrobe itself.
Rodrigo's impeccably tailored suits hung neatly on one side, and on the other were her clothes.
The practical, comfortable things she had worn in Bodrum, mixed with the new soft sweaters, tailored trousers, and silk blouses.
Rodrigo thought of everything. The practicality of it, the unspoken care beneath the provision, pricked at her defenses.
Then she saw her laptop bag on a shelf, partially obscured by a stack of sweaters. She opened it and pulled the device free. It was the custom-made, encrypted laptop Rodrigo had secretly given her years ago.
Relief, sharp and sweet, washed over her. She reached for the nearest clothing, pulling on one of Rodrigo's soft, oversized T-shirts and a pair of loose cotton sleep shorts, then grabbed the laptop and its bag and carried them back into the sitting room.
Sinking onto the deep, comfortable couch facing the fireplace, she flipped open the lid.
The screen sprang to life, bathing her face in its cool blue glow, but she was certain that one of the kidnappers had broken it.
She had heard the glass break, but Rodrigo must have had it fixed.
Not only that, with a few clicks, she found that Leo had granted her full access to surveillance feeds, comms, financials, and the joint operations folder.
Giana needed to focus. The digital world was a landscape she understood, unlike whatever she might be feeling about Rodrigo. Running from it was better than having to face it.
Giana navigated first to the internal surveillance feeds. Leo's diversion was active, a feed loop of innocuous footage of empty corridors and quiet common areas for the external watcher.
The real feeds, however, showed the aftermath of the dinner party. In the grand salon, Altun and Julian were deep in conversation near the fireplace, Altun's expressive hands weaving patterns as she spoke.
Silas sat on a sofa nearby with Iz, his hand lightly resting in her thick hair at the base of her neck, chatting with Dante.
Iz was tapping furiously on a tablet, likely already digging into something.
Kon and Athena were nowhere to be seen, probably checking perimeter defenses or making out somewhere.
Dario and Frederica were engaged in what looked like a tense discussion near the bar, Frederica's arms crossed, Dario running a hand through his messy curls in frustration. Leo was still at the dining table talking with Rodrigo while working on his laptop, his brow furrowed in concentration.
Safe. They were all safe for now.
Giana minimized the feeds, her restless fingers hovering over the keyboard. She should be analyzing Falcone's known associates, cross-referencing the facial recognition Iz had run on the scarred man from Izmir, checking dark web chatter for any whispers about the engagement or retaliation.
Work. That was what she needed. Not this hungry desire that was eating her alive.
Instead of digging into files, Giana opened a new digital canvas. A blank, white space. Her fingers twitched.
The impulse that had struck her the night before, seeing Rodrigo emerge from the shower, surged back with unexpected force. The lines of his body and the intricate tapestry of ink on his skin had imprinted themselves on her mind.
Capture him, the muse whispered.
Her hand trembled as she selected a digital pencil tool, and took her stylus from her bag. She started with rough, hesitant lines, mapping the angles: the strong line of his jaw, the sharp cut of his cheekbones beneath the closely trimmed beard.
Giana sketched the intensity of his brown eyes, the way they could shift from glacial command to smoldering heat in an instant. She roughed in the broad shoulders and the powerful body, usually concealed beneath tailored suits.
Then, tentatively, she began on the tattoos. The stone architectural designs coiling around a bicep were rendered in stark, black lines. The raven on his chest, wings half-spread, an eye forever watchful. She shaded it, trying to capture the dark gloss of feathers she had only glimpsed.
As she worked, losing herself in the flow of creation for the first time in years, the conflicting images collided in her mind.
Rodrigo, cold and implacable, and watching her every move.
Handing her the laptop that became her key to freedom.
Pinning her to the mat in the gym, the flat of his knife against her throat, his body a hard weight holding her down.
Kissing her with a desperation that had stolen the breath from her lungs and cracked her constructed walls.
The lines on the screen grew surer, darker.
She added the scar above his left eyebrow, a faint white line she had noticed during training.
She sketched the way his mouth could curve into that rare smile, the one that transformed his face from harsh angles to something breathtaking.
She drew the storm in his eyes, the one that mirrored the photograph on his wall.
Giana was so absorbed, the world narrowing to the screen and the memories flashing behind her eyes, that she almost missed it.
Something flickered again on one of the minimized surveillance feeds she had left running in the corner of her screen. It was a tiny window showing the feed from a camera covering the service entrance at the back of the villa's east wing.
It was just a shadow. A brief, dark blur near the edge of the frame, there one second, gone the next. So fast it could have been a trick of the light, a bird, a stray cat.
Giana's instincts, honed by years under surveillance and sharpened by recent terror, screamed in warning. Her hand froze over the trackpad. The digital portrait of Rodrigo stared back at her from the screen.
She zoomed in frantically on the tiny feed window, replaying the last few seconds. The shadow didn't reappear. The service entrance area looked deserted under the weak glow of a security light.
One man is a coincidence. Rodrigo's rule echoed in her mind, cold and clear.
Two men are a pattern.
Three men are a plan.
Her gaze darted to the other feeds. The grand salon: Altun laughing now, Julian smiling indulgently, Silas, Iz, and Dante chatting.
The dining room: Leo still focused on his screens. The front entrance hall: empty. The corridors: quiet. No other anomalies. Just that single, fleeting shadow at the service entrance.
Coincidence? Paranoia gnawing at the edges of her exhaustion? Or the first whisper of the plan Vincenzo Falcone was undoubtedly hatching?
Giana stared at the screen, at the digital ghost that might be nothing or might be everything.
She didn't hesitate. She typed a message through the internal system to Leo about what she had seen and the camera it had been on. She sent it and looked at the camera in the dining room.
She watched Leo stop what he was doing and, a second later, got his response: Good catch. Someone is trying to leave the grounds undetected. Go to sleep, sorella. We will keep you safe. I will look into the person leaving and wake you if there is anything to report.
Sorella. Leo had called her sister. Giana rubbed at her temples. Her ex-fiancé was calling her sister.
"What the fuck is happening?" she muttered.
Seconds later, he was talking to Iz, and some of the tension disappeared from Giana's shoulders. They would find who had caused the shadow and see if they were a threat to her safety or not.
We will keep you safe.
Despite the promise, Giana still curled up on the couch, her eyes watching the feeds until the adrenaline fueling her all evening wore off. Darkness finally dragged her under, and she fell asleep cradling Rodrigo's pillow under her head.