(Leonardo POV)
Collateral.
The word hung in the stale air of the Rossi apartment like incense at a funeral mass. I should have dismissed it out of hand. A woman offering herself in place of her father's debt? Foolish sentiment. Currency that held no value in my world of concrete and steel.
And yet, I found myself considering it.
She stood there with her chin tilted at that defiant angle, as if she understood the rules of this game better than soldiers who'd served me for decades. No tremor in her voice. No tears tracking down her cheeks like the wives and daughters who'd pleaded for mercy before her.
Just steel wrapped in skin.
It should have infuriated me. Instead, it fascinated me like a puzzle missing crucial pieces.
"Do you even understand what you're offering?" The question came out rougher than intended, scraped raw by something I couldn't name.
Her lips curved—barely perceptible, but there. "I understand enough."
Enough. The word lodged between my ribs like a blade. Enough to meet my stare without flinching when grown men pissed themselves under less pressure. Enough to gamble her freedom for a father who'd proven himself a lying thief. Enough to stand in my path like she had every right to be there.
There was strength in her that went bone-deep. Dangerous strength. And danger had always been my weakness.
Behind me, Rico shifted his weight. The subtle creak of leather, the whisper of fabric against concealed steel. My men were restless, confused. This wasn't how collections went. This wasn't business.
They were right to be uneasy.
I gestured to Rico without breaking eye contact with her. "The contract."
He hesitated—a fraction of a second, but I caught it. Rico never hesitated. In the fifteen years he'd served me, through bullets and blood baths, through the long climb over other men's corpses to build this empire, he'd never questioned an order.
Until now.
But he reached into his jacket anyway, withdrawing a sheet of parchment-colored paper. The kind we used when agreements weren't meant for courthouse filing cabinets. These contracts lived in safes and private collections, sealed with more than ink.
"Write it," I said.
The silence that followed had weight. My men exchanged glances—Sal's jaw tight, Matteo's good hand clenched around his weapon, the new kid looking like he wanted to bolt for the door. None of them spoke, but their disapproval filled the cramped space like smoke from a toxic fire.
They didn't understand. How could they? They saw a woman, small and breakable. They saw sentiment, weakness, distraction.
I saw something else entirely.
Rico uncapped his pen with deliberate slowness, spreading the paper across the coffee table's scarred surface. Waiting for terms that would bind more than legal obligation.
I dictated each word like carving stone. "Marco Rossi's debt shall be held in abeyance. His daughter, Isabella Rossi, will remain in my custody until full restitution is made." I paused, watching her face for cracks in that perfect composure. Found none. "Should she attempt escape or fail to comply with the terms of her confinement, the debt will be called in full, with compounded interest."
Her expression never wavered. If anything, those dark eyes sharpened with something that might have been approval. As if she were evaluating my terms and finding them acceptable.
The audacity should have been insulting.
Instead, it sent heat crawling down my spine.
Rico finished writing, his usual precise script looking strained. He set the pen down with the careful control of a man handling explosives.
I signed first. My name cut across the page in bold strokes—no hesitation, no flourish. Just the signature that had condemned men to graves and elevated others to power. Then I drew the blade from my jacket, a thin stiletto designed for precision rather than brutality.
The steel parted my palm like silk. Blood welled, bright as fresh cherries against my skin. I pressed the cut to the paper, leaving a crimson seal beside my signature. Old tradition. Older than courts and laws and civilized pretense.
Blood made promises absolute.
I slid the pen toward her across the table's surface. The scrape of metal on wood seemed unnaturally loud in the suffocating quiet.
She took it without hesitation. Her hand trembled—not with fear, I realized, but with the effort of holding herself so perfectly still. Control stretched to its breaking point.
She signed her name in fluid script that belonged in boarding school yearbooks, not contracts sealed in blood. Isabella Maria Rossi. Each letter formed with care, as if she were signing a marriage certificate instead of binding herself to a man who collected debts in screams.
Then she reached for the blade.
I hadn't offered it. Hadn't explained the ritual. But she understood anyway, fingers closing around the handle with surprising certainty.
"Wait." The word escaped before I could stop it.
She looked up, eyebrows raised in question. For a moment, we stayed frozen—her with my blade in her hand, me with something dangerously close to concern tightening my chest.
I should have let her cut herself. Should have watched her blood join mine on the paper and felt nothing but satisfaction at another debt secured. But the thought of that blade biting into her skin made something twist in my gut.
When had I last cared about another person's pain?
Before I could examine that unsettling question, she drew the edge across her palm with quick efficiency. No hesitation. No flinch. Just clean determination that left a thin line of red across her lifeline.
She pressed her bleeding hand to the paper beside mine. Our blood mingled in abstract patterns, dark against the pale parchment.
The room felt different now. Heavier. As if the air itself had thickened with the weight of what we'd just bound between us.
She lifted her hand, examining the cut with clinical detachment. A few drops of blood decorated the coffee table like scattered rubies.
"It's done," she said quietly. Not a question. A statement of fact delivered with the same calm she'd shown since I walked through her door.
It's done. The words echoed strangely in my head. Victory usually tasted like silence—the hush that followed a rival's execution, the quiet satisfaction of debts collected and enemies buried. Clean. Final. Complete.
This felt like the opposite of complete. Like the opening notes of a symphony I'd never heard before.
I looked at her—really looked—and saw myself reflected in those steady dark eyes. Not the monster everyone else saw, but something more complex. More dangerous.
She saw me, and she wasn't running.
For the first time in decades, I wanted something I couldn't simply take. Something that had to be earned, claimed piece by careful piece.
The realization should have been warning enough to walk away.
Instead, I found myself already planning how to keep her.