The digital pulse became Serena's secret obsession, a silent metronome keeping time since her imprisonment. For two days, the tablet was her sole affiliation; her world had actually shrunk to the glowing screen of the tablet. She mapped its repetition, its infinitesimal size, its perfect rhythm that never varied. It was a work of art in espionage-right under the nose of the average observer while demanding the most paranoid and skilled ones to see it. The betrayer was more than an unhappy soldier; he was a shadow, enmeshed in the very fabric of Damiano's digital kingdom. There was yet something more-his eyes had grown over the years with the knowledge of the interface-an interface Damiano fashioned while she was captive-was still useful for only so much. To understand the signal, intercept it, and perform her magic, she needed far more than guest tablet lockdowns; she needed administrative access. She'd need a proper machine. She absurdly considered the risks of socially engineering one of the guards when, suddenly, the disengagement of the lock jerked her back to reality. She swiped the diagnostics off the screen, leaving only the innocuous home view of the unlocked tablet as the door quietly swung.
Damiano stood in the threshold; a dark figure of authority. But this time he was not alone. Standing just behind Damiano's right shoulder was another man. Though similarly tall, he was much leaner. Almost still, this man gave the sense of having a coiled energy that was somehow more unnerving than his boss's open might. Dressed in a simple and perfectly tailored dark suit, his face was handsome in a severe, classical way, with dark, watchful eyes that appeared to absorb everything without reflecting a single signal. A man who had never been surprised, one would have assumed. The silence in that room was heavy with unspoken tension as the two men moved deeper in. "Serena," Damiano began, as smoothly as a polished piece of stone. "My introduction is then in order-Leonardo Rossi. My consigliere. My right hand." Leo offered a slight, almost imperceptible, nod. No smile came across his lips. His still, calm gaze glided across her, then roamed about the room, a silent and comprehensive appraisal that missed nothing. It was the fascinatingly calm, professional gaze of an executioner. "Leo handles the more... delicate aspects of my operations," Damiano continued, the hint of a warning in his tone. "From now on, he will be overseeing your security personally. Any requests you have will go through him." An interrogative power play designed to both intimidate her and place another wedge of insulation between her and himself.
This was her chance. It was scary and brazen, but it was the only shot she had. Staring straight into Damiano's eyes, she chose to ignore Leo for the moment and confidently said, "Then I guess I have a request. Your guard is right. I am getting restless. The isolation is..." She trailed off, almost hoping to sound a little vulnerable. "I need something to occupy my mind. Something other than fiction." Damiano raised his eyebrows mockingly. "And what does a restless mind like yours desire?" Serena inhaled. Books. And an unrestricted laptop. Leo's stillness finally, after some agonizing seconds, broke. Eyes narrowed fractionally. Meanwhile, Damiano's face morphed into one of dark humor. "A laptop?" he chuckled, a dangerous timbre. "You certainly have a high opinion of my sentimentality." "My father," she persevered, anchoring her request firmly to her cover story, "believed that the only way to be safe was to understand the systems that could harm you. He taught me everything he knew about network architecture, security protocols, cryptography. It's a... family trait. I need to keep my skills sharp. Letting them atrophy feels like a betrayal to his memory." She was banking on his arrogance, on the belief that no matter what tools he gave her, she was still in a cage in his hands, and he was the one who held the key.
Damiano walked about the room, trailing his fingers along the back of a velvet armchair. He came to a halt in front of her, looking at her face as if trying to decipher some complex code. The air crackled under the force of his scrutiny. Leo remained by the door, a silent statue of loyalty, but Serena felt his eyes on her, felt his mind calculating the potential threat she represented. Her heart was thundering. She had just outsmarted him, or she had signed her own death warrant. Finally, Damiano smiled, and it wasn't a kind look. It was more akin to the sharp, predatory smile of a shark that had just caught sight of an interesting new fish. "A princess who speaks in code. How very interesting." He turned to Leo. "Get her what she wants. A top-of-the-line laptop and a direct, firewalled connection to an external server. Load it with every text on cryptography and network theory you can find." Then he turned back to Serena, and the amusement drained from his eyes. "I'm giving you this, Serena, because I find you amusing. But don't you dare mistake this for stupidity. That line will be personally monitored by Leo. Should you try to contact anyone, any time at all-far be it from your little academic 'hobby'-this experiment shall come to an immediate end. And I strongly doubt you'd enjoy the process which would follow." Without so much as a glance back, he strode out of the room. Leo hung back for one last stare, his dark, unreadable eyes boring into hers. Within them, there was no warmth, no sympathy, only the unspoken assertion that he would be watching. Then he too was gone, the lock clicking shut behind him once more. Leaving Serena in the middle of the room, her entire body trembling with the aftershocks of that gamble. She had done it. She had gotten her weapon. Yet Damiano's last words rattled through her mind. He had bestowed her a key, yet he had also tethered her by the neck to his most dangerous man.