Chapter 11
Three days. Seventy-two hours. Four thousand three hundred and twenty minutes.
That was exactly how long I’d been living inside a Scandinavian minimalist architecture catalog.
The routine in Cassian Varro’s penthouse was as precise as a Swiss watch mechanism, and about as exciting as watching beige paint dry.
He left before I woke up. The only proof he even lived in the same space as me was the espresso cup, washed and dried in the dish rack, and the residual scent of sandalwood and ice that lingered in the hall until nine in the morning.
He came home late. Sometimes at eight, sometimes at ten.
I’d hear the elevator arrive. The beep of the security code.
The heavy, silent footsteps. He’d pass through the living room.
If I was there, he’d nod—an economical greeting, as if he were acknowledging a doorman or a potted plant—and lock himself in his office.
He didn’t eat with me. He didn’t talk to me. I was a ghost haunting his perfect machine. And his indifference was starting to scrape at my sanity like coarse sandpaper on sunburned skin.
I dragged my bare feet across the polished concrete floor of the living room. The air conditioning was set to sixty-four degrees. Always sixty-four degrees. Cold enough to preserve corpses. Cold enough to force me into cardigans over my silk dresses.
I stopped in the center of the room and turned slowly. Gray. Black. White. Glass. Steel. It was beautiful, in an objective, soulless way. It was the kind of place where you couldn’t have a messy human emotion without feeling like you were violating the interior design code of conduct.
“I’m going to die of boredom,” I announced to the black leather Le Corbusier sofa. “And my corpse will look great matching the graphite rug.”
The sofa didn’t respond. I looked at the black Centurion card left on the marble island. His metal “shut up.” Cassian thought I’d use it to escape to the mall, to numb myself with Gucci bags and lunches with friends who were now afraid to answer my calls because my husband was the boogeyman.
He was wrong. If I couldn’t leave the cage without his gorillas’ escort, then I’d bring the world inside the cage. And not his world. Mine.
I walked to the intercom on the wall. “Franco?” I called.
The security chief’s voice crackled through the speaker from the lobby downstairs. “Signora Varro. Is there a problem?”
“No problem, Franco. Just a heads-up.” I smiled, a wicked smile no one could see. “There’s a delivery coming. Send it up. Everything.”
“Delivery? Mr. Varro didn’t authorize...”
“Mr. Varro gave me an unlimited card and told me to keep myself occupied. I’m keeping myself occupied. Unless you want to explain to him why his wife is having a nervous breakdown in the lobby, I suggest you clear the service elevator. Now.”
There was a long pause. I could hear the gears of Franco’s tactical brain turning, weighing the risk of irritating Cassian against the risk of dealing with a hysterical D’Angelo. “Understood. The freight elevator is cleared.”
I clicked off the intercom. I went to the climate-controlled wine cellar (an entire glass wall).
Cassian only drank full-bodied reds, old vintages that cost more than a kidney.
No champagne. Nothing sweet. I grabbed a 2010 Barolo.
Didn’t bother with a corkscrew. I used the method I learned at a college party: banged the bottom of the bottle against the wall (protected by a towel) until the cork came out enough to pull with my teeth. The wine stained my lips purple.
I drank straight from the bottle. “Cheers, Cassian. To coexistence.”
Fifteen minutes later, the freight elevator opened. Three sweating men in blue coveralls pushed carts covered in bubble wrap.
“Where do you want this, ma’am?” the foreman asked, looking around the monochromatic room with apprehension, as if afraid of dirtying the air.
I pointed to the exact center of the room, right in front of the panoramic view, blocking the perfect flow of Cassian’s feng shui. “There. Right in the middle. Push that horrible black sofa into the corner.”
They obeyed. The black leather creaked in protest as it was dragged into the shadows. In its place, they unwrapped my masterpiece.
It wasn’t just a sofa. It was a statement. A curved Art Deco piece, upholstered in hot pink velvet. A pink so vibrant, so offensive, it seemed to vibrate against the gray walls. I draped white faux fur blankets and gold sequined pillows over it.
“The rest too,” I ordered.
Vases. Not Cassian’s minimalist vases. Hand-painted Sicilian ceramics with lemons and baroque faces.
And inside them, lilies. Hundreds of Stargazer lilies.
The smell invaded the apartment instantly.
The sweet, heavy, almost funereal scent of the flowers overwhelmed the clinical sterility.
Now the place smelled like a mafia funeral and grandma’s perfume. It was perfect. It was suffocating.
When the delivery guys left, leaving behind the colorful chaos, I stepped back to admire my handiwork. It looked like a unicorn had vomited in a James Bond villain's office.
It was horrible. I loved it.
I checked the clock. 6:50 PM. He'd be here soon. His punctuality was pathological.
One element was missing. The visual was set, the smell was set. But the sound was missing. I walked over to the Bang anger is hot. This was cold. A clinical assessment of a structural problem.
“You want attention, Solaia,” he diagnosed, his voice flat. “You feel ignored, so you act like a five-year-old who paints the walls with shit so her parents will look at her.”
I felt my face burn. His precision was surgical. “I’m not a child!”
“Then stop acting like one.” He took the bottle from my hand.
I didn’t even try to resist. “You want to change the furniture? Change it. You want to listen to bad music? Use headphones. But don’t test my patience with performative tantrums. I deal with psychopaths and killers all day.
You and your pink couch don’t scare me. You just wear me out. ”
He went to the sink and poured the rest of the wine—my precious liquid shield—down the drain. The smell of fermented grapes rose. “Tomorrow, I’ll have someone clean up this mess,” he said without looking back. “And Solaia?”
He stopped at the hallway door. “If I come home and find you on top of the furniture again, I’ll treat you exactly like the child you’re pretending to be. And I guarantee you won’t like the discipline.”
He left. The office door slammed. Click. The lock turned.
I stood in the middle of my colorful revolution. The pink couch looked ridiculous now. The flowers seemed excessive. The silence had returned, heavier than before.
He didn’t yell. He didn’t lose control. He just made me feel small. Insignificant. I looked at the hot pink couch. I wanted to cry. But I choked it back.
“You’re tired, Cassian?” I whispered to the closed office door. “Good. Because I’m just getting started.”
I sat on the pink couch. It was soft. It was warm. It was mine. I crossed my legs and stayed there in the dark, surrounded by the smell of lilies, planning my next move. He couldn’t ignore me forever. Eventually, he would have to look. And when he did, I’d make sure he couldn’t look away.