By her second week, Alessia had identified a pattern. Enzo touched his father's ring before decisions that could not be undone. She needed to know if she could push before he touched it.
Thursday dinner. His hand rested on the table, the ring glinting in the candlelight. He had not touched it once.
"The man you killed. The debtor," Alessia said.
Enzo's fork paused mid-air. "What about him?" he asked.
"Did he have a family?"
His hand moved toward the ring and stopped. His fingers hovered an inch from the silver, then retreated. "A daughter. She is protected now. The debt died with him," he replied.
"You protect the families of men you kill?"
"I protect what is mine." His dark eyes held hers. "Is that what you wanted to know? Whether I kill children?" he asked.
"No." She met his gaze steadily. "I wanted to know if you had a line you would not cross."
"And have you decided?"
"I am still observing," Alessia said.
He leaned back in his chair, his hand still away from the ring. "You are always observing."
"It is the only thing I can do."
"You could rage. Plead. Seduce. Escape. You choose to watch. That is strategy." He paused. "Why do you watch?"
"To find the door. I do not know how to survive here. So I learn," she said.
He was silent for a long moment. Then he spoke again, his voice quieter. "You are the most dangerous person in this villa. You learned my tell in three days. My own captains have not noticed in years." Her pulse quickened. "You are not a prisoner. You are a weapon I have not yet learned to aim."
"If I am a weapon, you cannot fire me without my consent. I do not obey a trigger," Alessia said.
"No. You do not," Enzo agreed.
She stood to leave. His voice stopped her.
"Alessia."
She turned. He was already moving. One step, then another, until she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. The scent of him, dark spice and cold air, filled her lungs. Her breath caught. Heat pooled low, nothing to do with fear.
"You pleased me tonight," Enzo said, his voice low. "Do you know what happens when you please me?"
She could not speak. Her pulse was a hammer.
He leaned in. His lips stopped a breath from hers. Not touching. Just there. She felt the warmth of his mouth, the promise of contact. Her body went taut, caught between pulling back and leaning in. Every nerve was alive.
He noticed. Of course he noticed.
"That is the problem with you," he murmured. "You respond."
Then he stepped back. The absence of his heat was a physical shock.
"Not yet," Enzo said.
He walked out. Alessia stood frozen, her lips tingling with a kiss that had never happened, her body humming with a want she refused to name. She pressed her hand to the cool wall to steady herself. He was her captor. He had killed a man in front of her. So why did the words "not yet" feel like the most dangerous promise she had ever heard?
She did not know if that made her more safe or less. But when she passed his study that night, the door was open. He was watching her from his desk, his dark eyes tracking her movement down the corridor. She walked faster. And she hated that a part of her, a traitorous part deep in her chest, wanted to turn around. Wanted to walk into that study. Wanted to hear him say "not yet" again, because the word was not a denial. It was a postponement. And postponement meant there would be a "yet."
She reached her room and closed the door behind her. The lock did not click from the outside. A small mercy. A larger torment. She pressed her back against the wood and slid down until she was sitting on the cold floor. Her body still hummed. Her lips still remembered the ghost of his breath.
She thought of the debtor's daughter, protected now. She thought of Enzo's question: Is that what you wanted to know? Whether I kill children? She thought of the way he had looked at her when she catalogued his men's tells. Like she was something he had not expected to find. Like she was something he wanted to keep.
She pressed her fingers to her lips. They were warm. They were waiting.
And for the first time since she had walked through the Villa Moretti gates, Alessia admitted to herself that she was waiting, too.