The poker room off Via Toledo smelled like sweat, spilled beer, and panic. Cards slapped, chips clicked, and the ceiling fan did nothing but push the heat around. Domenico Marcelli sat hunched at the end of the table, a trembling cigarette glued to his fingers, eyes shot with red. He'd been losing for hours. Everyone could see it. Everyone was waiting for the fall.
"Call," he muttered, as if the word could change his luck. It didn't. The river card hit like a small funeral. Laughter rolled down the table from men who knew better than to laugh too loud in a Rosselli den.
From the corner, Angelo watched without blinking. Tall, lean, precise—he didn't need to raise his voice to be obeyed. Beside him, Carlo leaned on a pillar, arms like cinder blocks folded across his chest, knuckles forever bruised. Marcello stood near the door, stocky and restless, a wolf pacing his square of floor. Matteo had taken a chair at the back, suit uncreased, attention cool and patient as a banker waiting for a signature.
Domenico pushed back from the table. "Give me a minute," he said to no one and everyone.
"You've had a lot of minutes," Carlo said, voice gravel on concrete.
Angelo checked his watch and then the room. "Another hand won't change the math."
Domenico's eyes flicked to the cashier's cage, to the exit, to the men at the back whose jackets hung heavy on the right side. Guns. There were always guns. He swallowed.
Marcello flicked ash off his sleeve. "You ran out of credit last week, old man."
"Please," Domenico said. "I can get it. I just need—"
"You needed last Thursday," Carlo cut in. "You promised Friday. It's Tuesday."
Matteo glanced down at a neat list in his notebook. "Principal plus interest," he said mildly, "is ninety-two thousand. Today."
"Madonna." Domenico's cigarette shook. "I'll pay it. I will. You know me. I've always—"
"Paid late," Angelo said. He didn't say foolish, but the word hung there anyway.
The dealer, a kid with sleeved tattoos and careful hands, cleared the table. The other players dispersed to the bar like birds that sensed a storm.
Domenico's gaze snagged on the door just as it opened. Isa slipped in on a wind of street noise and frying oil from the trattoria next door. She was small only in height. Everything else about her announced itself—the ginger hair braided back off a fierce face, the green eyes that grabbed a room like a claim. Eighteen and already walking like she'd survived worse than insults.
"Papà," she said, finding him in two heartbeats. "What did you do?"
He flinched like she'd slapped him. "Isabella, go home."
She took in the men near the walls. The suits. The bulk under their jackets. Her gaze slid over Marcello and Carlo and stopped on Angelo. For a flash of a second, his expression softened. She moved closer to her father.
"You called me," she said, voice low.
"I just—" Domenico's mouth worked. "I needed—"
"Money?" she asked. "Food? Rent? Or another miracle at the table?"
Marcello snorted. Carlo's jaw ticked once.
Angelo stepped forward, smoothing the situation with a look. "We're finishing a conversation, signorina."
"We're not done," Isa said. "My father isn't leaving with empty pockets for you to hunt later."
"Your father isn't leaving," Carlo said plainly.
Domenico swallowed the last of a lie and couldn't get it down. "I'll fix it," he went on, desperate now. "Rosselli… he'll—"
"Rosselli isn't a charity," Matteo said. "He is a ledger. It balances."
Isa looked at the four men again, weighing them. Then she slid her hand into her father's pocket and pulled out his crumpled phone. The screen, spiderwebbed with cracks, showed a missed call from her and six frantic texts she'd sent in the last hour. She put the phone on the table between them. Her hands were steady. "How much?"
"Ninety-two," Matteo said. "Today."
She let out a breath that wasn't surprise so much as a confirmation of dread. "You can't pay that," she said to Domenico.
"I can talk to—"
"Talk doesn't pay interest," Angelo said. "And we have been patient."
Domenico turned, cornered. He saw options that weren't options. "There's… there's a way," he said, and his voice broke in the middle of it.
Isa's head whipped toward him. "No."
"Isa—"
"You are not putting me in this."
"It's just—" He looked at Angelo like he was asking a priest for absolution. "Collateral."
Marcello grinned, mean and fast. Carlo's eyes didn't move. Matteo's pen stilled on the page.
Angelo's jaw tightened once; he didn't look away from Isa. "We don't take people as collateral," he said, flat enough to cut.
Domenico seized on that. "You see? See? I didn't mean—"
"We don't call it that," Matteo corrected quietly. "But a guarantee of performance is standard. Especially when the debtor has proven unreliable."
Isa stepped between her father and the men as if that could make the wall thicker. The room shifted—the bartender went still; the dealer held his breath.
"You want the money?" Isa asked. "I'll get it."
"You don't have time," Carlo said. "You had time. You don't anymore."
"Then give me two weeks," Isa said, eyes on Angelo. She'd picked the one who listened. "You know Naples. I can find work."
"What kind of work pays ninety-two thousand in two weeks?" Marcello asked, laughing.
Isa didn't blink. "The kind you don't get to know about."
Angelo almost smiled. Almost. "Even if I believed you, it's not my call."
A hush followed—a weight settling in the room just before the door at the far end opened on a slice of night and the sound of a car idling outside. The conversations at the bar collapsed into silence. Two men in black stepped through and held the door; the air cooled. Footsteps sounded on the stairs down: measured, unhurried, like the owner of the house taking his time.
Darius Rosselli entered the room as if everything in it was already his. Dark suit, no tie, the top button of a white shirt undone. He wasn't the tallest man in Naples, just the one who made everyone stand a little straighter. His eyes—cold blue, attentive without seeming to—took in the table, the ledger, the girl. The girl held his attention.
"Domenico," he said, voice smooth as a blade sheath. "You've been busy."
Domenico folded in on himself. "Signor Rosselli, I—"
Darius lifted a hand and the apologies died. He looked at Angelo. "We're at ninety-two?"
"Yes."
He looked at Isa. She looked back. No drop of the eyes. No bow. There was a flicker—the tiny narrowing of his gaze a man makes when his map includes a mountain he didn't expect.
"And you are?" he asked.
"Not yours," Isa said.
Marcello choked on a laugh and turned it into a cough. Carlo's mouth might have twitched. Angelo kept his face like glass.
Darius ignored the chorus. He stepped closer by a measured foot. "What's your name?"
"Isa."
"Isabella," Domenico squeaked.
"Isa," she repeated, not looking away from Darius.
He considered that, the nickname like a line drawn between them. "Your father owes me ninety-two thousand euros, Isa."
"My father owes you," she said. "Not me."
"But he has nothing left," Darius said. "Except you."
Angelo cut in gently. "We don't take—"
Darius lifted two fingers and Angelo went silent.
"Collateral," Darius said, eyes never leaving Isa's. "Is an ugly word for what this is. Let's call it insurance. You come with us. He gets two weeks to pay. If he pays, you walk out. If he doesn't, you won't."
Domenico gasped like he'd been promised heaven. "Two weeks, Isa! I can—"
Isa turned on him so fast the room thought she might hit him. She didn't. She just stared until his words died in his throat.
"And if I don't go?" she asked Darius.
He looked past her at Carlo and Marcello, then back. "You'll go."
"You think pointing guns at me makes me obedient?" she shot back.
"No," Darius said, and a tiny smile cut his mouth. "I think pointing guns is lazy. I have better methods."
"Such as?" she demanded.
"Courtesy," he said. "For now."
He held out a hand as if inviting her to a dance. Isa did not take it.
The room waited to see what kind of girl she was. She looked at the door. The path between here and there was paved with men who'd break bones without raising their voices. She looked at her father. He couldn't meet her eyes. She looked back at Darius and hated that he was beautiful, because it made hating him feel complicated.
"You said two weeks," she said at last. "Not a day more."
He inclined his head an inch. "Two weeks."
"And he stays alive while I'm gone," she added.
Darius's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Your father's luck improves as long as you follow instructions."
"Define 'instructions.'"
"Don't run," he said. "Don't lie. Don't interfere with my business. Don't make me hurt people to teach you manners."
Her jaw flexed. "Anything else?"
"Eat," he said. "Sleep. Don't make Angelo's job harder than it has to be."
Isa glanced at Angelo. He gave the barest nod, respect without softness. She hated that something about it steadied her.
"Fine," she said. "But you should know something."
"What am I about to know?" Darius asked.
"I don't break," Isa said.
Something like interest—real interest, not the bored kind men in suits wore to scare you—flashed in his eyes. "We'll see."
Angelo stepped forward, careful. "We'll go now," he said. "Before the street fills with eyes."
Domenico scrambled to his feet, reaching for Isa's arm. "Figlia—"
She pulled away. "You did this," she said. No heat in it, just a fact laid on the table like the losing hand he'd played. "Two weeks, Papà. If you have anything like love left, find the money. Don't drink it. Don't bet it. Find it."
"I will," he said, and it sounded like he was promising himself.
Carlo moved to the door, opening the way. Marcello checked the hallway with his hand near the small of his back where the pistol lived. Matteo closed his notebook and rose like a shadow standing up.
Angelo didn't force Isa forward. He didn't need to. She walked under her own power, shoulders squared, chin up. Darius fell in behind her, not touching, but close enough that his presence felt like a pressure against her spine.
They hit the alley and the night hit back—streets humming, scooters whining past, the smell of oil and sea salt and too much life crammed into too little room. A sleek black car idled at the curb, a driver in a black cap watching the mirrors.
"Back," Angelo told Isa, opening the door. Isa looked at the open space as if it were a mouth. She got in.
Angelo slid in beside her; Carlo took the passenger seat. Marcello and Matteo loaded into the second car. Darius settled opposite Isa, his knee a line of heat an inch from hers. The door thudded shut and the city cut off like a radio. The car rolled into traffic, smooth as a knife through cloth.
Isa kept her eyes on the window. Naples flickered past: the neon wash of a bar; a couple arguing on a balcony; a child's soccer ball bouncing into the street and scooped up by quick hands. This was her home. She was leaving it in a car with men who thought they owned it.
"You live in the Spanish Quarter?" Darius asked, not looking away from her.
"Why," Isa said, "you sending me postcards?"
He didn't smile this time. "Knowing where you come from helps me predict where you'll try to run."
"I told you," she said. "I don't run."
"Everyone runs from something," he said.
"What do you run from, then?" she shot back.
He met her eyes. She felt the cold of his gaze like a glass of water set on fire. "Boredom," he said. "And incompetence."
"Must be exhausting," she said.
"Endlessly," he agreed.
Angelo's phone buzzed; he read a message and then said, "Two cars trailing. Not close."
"Leave them," Darius said. "They'll get a show at the gate and call it a night."
"DeLuca?" Carlo asked from the front.
"Everyone," Darius said. "It's a small city and gossip is cheap."
Isa's jaw tightened. "So I'm a rumor now."
"Rumors move markets," Matteo said from the second car, static crackling over Angelo's open call. "And men."
"Good," Isa said. "Maybe one of them will come for your throat."
"Careful," Carlo said, half-turning. "Talk like that starts wars."
"Wars start themselves," Isa said. "Men just pick flags."
They left the tangle of the quarter and climbed toward the hill where the rich walled themselves off from the noise. The car swung through a set of reinforced gates that looked like they'd stop a tank. The guards nodded them through. Cameras blinked red, recording everything.
The estate spread out in terraces of stone and glass. Light fell in clean lines. No laundry hung from balconies here. No neighbors peered through shutters.
The driver stopped under a portico. Angelo got out first and offered a hand. Isa ignored it and stepped out alone. The night air felt thinner up here, like the oxygen had been filtered for better people.
Darius came around the car and stopped in front of her. Up close, he smelled like expensive soap and something metal, like the inside of a vault.
"Two weeks," she reminded him.
He nodded once. "Angelo will show you the room."
"Cage," she said.
"Room," he repeated. "The difference is how you behave in it."
He turned and headed inside without checking that she followed. Power didn't look back to see if it was obeyed. Angelo gestured, and Isa went because not going would turn this into the kind of scene that ended with somebody bleeding.
They passed through a foyer where marble swallowed footsteps and a staircase curved like a promise. Isa's reflection flashed by in glass: hair like a warning, chin like a dare. She lifted it higher. Angelo led her down a hall and opened a door onto a bedroom with floor-to-ceiling windows, a bathroom bigger than her apartment, and a lock on the outside.
He stood in the doorway. "There's food in the fridge. Clothes in the closet. The windows don't open."
"Of course they don't," Isa said.
He hesitated, then: "If you need something, ask. Don't test the perimeter."
"Because you'd have to hurt me?" she asked.
"Because I'd rather not," Angelo said simply, and closed the door.
Silence fell like a new weight. Isa crossed to the window and stared out over a city that looked soft from this height. Somewhere below, in a room that stank of luck and debt, her father was counting minutes he didn't deserve. She pressed her palm to the cool glass until it warmed around the print.
Behind her, a small red light on the ceiling lens winked.
"Two weeks," she said to the camera. "I keep my word. You keep yours."
Her reflection met her eyes and did not blink.
Across the house, behind a desk the color of old whiskey, Darius watched the same red light on a monitor and the girl in the frame who refused to shrink.
"She doesn't break," Matteo observed quietly at his shoulder.
Darius's mouth curved, not a smile and not not one. "We'll see," he said, and killed the feed.