(Isabella POV)
Three nights. Three dinners in that cavernous room with a man who watched me like I was a code he was trying to crack.
The first night, I'd walked out before he dismissed me. A small rebellion that earned me nothing but the sound of his low, dark laugh following me up the stairs.
The second night, we'd eaten in silence. I'd counted the candles. Twelve. All of them burning down to nothing while we pretended the other didn't exist.
Tonight was different. Tonight, the silence felt like a living thing between us, coiled and waiting.
I cut into the roast on my plate. The meat was perfect, tender, probably cost more than my monthly rent used to. It tasted like ash in my mouth.
Across the table, Leonardo ate with that same deliberate precision. Each movement economical, controlled. Nothing wasted. Nothing accidental.
He was wearing a different suit tonight. Charcoal instead of black. It made his eyes look darker, harder. Made me wonder if he chose his clothes the way he chose his words—as weapons.
"You're not eating," he observed.
"I'm not hungry."
"Then why come to dinner?"
I set down my fork, the silver clinking against porcelain. "Because you said I had to. Those were the rules, remember?"
His mouth curved. Not quite a smile. "And you always follow the rules?"
"When the alternative is worse."
He leaned back in his chair, wine glass dangling from his fingers. The candlelight caught the red liquid, turned it to blood. "What do you think the alternative is?"
"You tell me. You're the one who makes the rules."
"And you're the one testing them at every turn."
Fair point. I'd spent the last three days mapping the house when Elena wasn't watching. Counting guards. Noting their shift changes. Testing locked doors to see which ones had the oldest mechanisms, the ones that might give if I knew how to pick them.
Not that I was planning to escape. Not yet. But I needed to know I could if I had to.
"Elena says you met with your accountant today." He swirled the wine, watching it coat the glass. "How did that go?"
"He doesn't like me."
"Marcus doesn't like anyone. Did you impress him?"
"I found three discrepancies in his books within the first hour."
Leonardo's eyebrows rose. "Did you."
"Small things. Rounding errors that add up over time. Either he's sloppy or he's skimming."
"And which do you think it is?"
I met his gaze across the table. "Sloppy. If he was skimming, he'd hide it better."
Something flickered in his eyes. Approval, maybe. Or calculation. With Leonardo, it was hard to tell the difference.
"So you're saying my accountant is incompetent."
"I'm saying your accountant is overwhelmed. You need two people doing that job, not one."
He considered this, sipping his wine. "And I suppose you're volunteering?"
"I'm saying if you want me to be useful instead of ornamental, that's where I'd start."
The word hung between us. Useful. The bargain I'd offered three nights ago when I'd walked out of this room. Prove I was worth more than the debt my father owed, and maybe I could negotiate my way out of this cage.
"You want purpose." His voice was thoughtful. "Most women in your position would be content with comfort."
"Most women in my position probably had a choice."
His jaw tightened. A nerve struck. Good.
"You think you didn't have a choice?"
"Did I? You would have killed my father. My mother would have died alone, wondering where her daughter went. That's not a choice. That's a gun to my head dressed up as an offer."
Leonardo set down his glass with deliberate care. "And yet you signed your name. Pressed your blood to paper. Walked out of that apartment with your head high."
"Because someone had to fix what he broke. Someone always does."
"The dutiful daughter." The words carried an edge. "Sacrificing herself for family."
"Says the man who keeps his mother's locket like a relic."
The moment I said it, the air in the room changed. Went cold and sharp as a blade.
Leonardo went very still. Not the stillness of calm, but of a predator deciding whether to strike.
I'd gone too far. Pushed too hard. Elena had mentioned the locket once, whispered it like a secret. Said the Don had torn apart half the city looking for it after it was stolen. That men had died for less than touching it.
And I'd just thrown it in his face like a taunt.
But I didn't take it back. Didn't apologize. Because I needed to know. Needed to understand what made this man capable of building an empire on violence while keeping a piece of jewelry like it was sacred.
"You want to know about the locket." His voice was quiet. Dangerous.
"I want to know why it matters so much. Why you came to my apartment yourself instead of sending your men. Why you're keeping me here for something worth more than money."
He stood, pushing back from the table. For a moment, I thought he would leave. Retreat the way he had that first night.
Instead, he walked toward me. Slow steps that echoed in the cavernous room. Stopped beside my chair.
Close. Too close.
I could smell his cologne. Something dark and expensive. Could feel the heat of him, the barely controlled violence coiled beneath that perfect suit.
"You want answers?" His voice was low, intimate. "Then you'll earn them."
"How?"
"By being useful. By proving you're worth the air you breathe in my house." He leaned down, hands braced on the arms of my chair. Caging me in. "By remembering that curiosity is dangerous, Isabella. Especially about things that don't concern you."
My breath caught. Not from fear. From something else. Something that felt like electricity running under my skin.
"Everything about you concerns me now. Whether you like it or not."
His eyes darkened. We were close enough that I could count his eyelashes, see the faint scar at his temple. Close enough that if either of us moved an inch, we'd be touching.
"Why do you keep my mother's locket?" The question came out barely above a whisper.
And just like that, his expression shuttered. Went cold and blank as marble.
He straightened, putting distance between us. "Dinner's over. Go to your room."
"Leonardo—"
"Now, Isabella."
I stood, my legs unsteady. Walked toward the door because staying would be pushing him past whatever line I'd already crossed.
But at the threshold, I stopped. Looked back.
He stood by the table, backlit by candlelight, looking more shadow than man.
"One day," I said quietly, "you're going to have to stop running from anything that makes you feel something."
His hands clenched into fists at his sides. But he didn't respond. Didn't follow me.
I left him there, standing alone in a room built for thirty people, surrounded by ghosts only he could see.
And I wondered which one of us was really the prisoner in this house.