Chapter 3

Lina's POV

By the time I returned to the apartment, it was already dark.

To be precise, it was Luca's apartment.

He had a penthouse apartment in Manhattan's Upper East Side. What he gave me to live in was a separate unit downstairs—not large, but it was clean, with an independent kitchen and bathroom.

Luca said this was convenient and wouldn't keep me too far from him.

I took off my soaking wet school uniform and took a hot shower.

Hot water poured over my skin, and those cold, rigid, suppressed things slowly softened.

I stood under the showerhead, forehead pressed against the tiles, letting the sound of water drown out everything around me.

Then I heard knocking on the door.

Three times, neither light nor heavy, with a steady rhythm.

I wrapped myself in a bath towel, walked to the door, and looked out through the peephole.

Luca Moretti stood outside the door. He wore dark casual clothes and carried a paper bag in his hand.

The light stretched his shadow long, falling on the carpet like a lurking beast.

I opened the door.

"Dinner," he said.

I took the paper bag. Inside was hot soup and a sandwich.

"Thank you," I said.

Luca made an acknowledging sound but didn't leave.

He leaned against the door frame, hands in his pockets, posture as casual as if he were in his own home.

In fact, this really was his home—the entire building belonged to him.

"How was today?" he asked.

"Fine."

"Fine?" His gaze fell at my feet.

I followed his line of sight downward—I had forgotten to put away those soaking wet shoes.

They lay crooked in the entryway, water stains still on their surface.

"Did it rain?" he asked.

"The faucet in the restroom broke," I said.

Luca looked at me steadily. Those eyes were dark brown, like two stones polished by time, having seen everything, revealing nothing easily.

"Lina." When he called my name, his voice was very soft. "Do you know that when you lie, your left eyebrow twitches slightly?"

I said nothing.

Luca straightened up and took a step forward.

He didn't enter my apartment, just moved closer, close enough that I could smell the faint cologne on him, and beneath it something deeper—something that belonged to him, dry, carrying a hint of danger.

"I arranged for someone at your school," he said. "Not some stalker, just a security guard. He told me you walked out of the academic building soaking wet today."

Silence.

"He told me you went to the restroom after school and stayed inside for nearly an hour. When you came out, the stall door was broken."

Silence.

"He told me Blair Winston and her two followers left that building twenty minutes before you."

Silence.

Luca lowered his head, looking at my face.

His expression hadn't changed—still that calm, spine-chilling calm, like that night at Antonio's estate when he walked out from the shadows and stepped aside to clear a path for me.

"Someone bullied you." This wasn't a question.

"It doesn't matter," I said.

"It matters," he said, voice not raised, but each word hammering into my heart like a nail. "You're the person I sent in there. Touching you is touching me."

Luca reached out his hand. I instinctively tensed, but he only used his fingers to brush aside the damp hair from my forehead, revealing that almost invisible old scar extending from my hairline to the end of my eyebrow.

"How did you get this scar?" he asked.

"Training," I said. "Age twelve. The dagger slipped from my hand."

His fingertip lingered on that scar for a second, then withdrew.

"About today," he said. "Do you want me to handle it?"

"No."

"Why not?"

I looked at him.

He stood there, the light outlining his features very clearly—a high nose bridge, a sharp jawline, and those eyes that saw through nothing.

Luca was a mafia boss. The blood on his hands wouldn't be less than mine, but when he asked me "why," his tone carried a genuine, almost tender curiosity.

As if he really wanted to know the answer.

"Because I want to handle it myself," I said.

Luca looked at me, silent for a long time, then he smiled.

That was the first time I saw his real smile—not the perfunctory smile of social occasions, not the calculated smile of the negotiating table, but a smile that floated up from the bottom of his heart, carrying a certain satisfaction and anticipation.

"Good," he said. "Then you handle it yourself."

I closed the door and slowly slid down to sit on the floor, back against it.

The sandwich in the paper bag was still warm. I took out the sandwich, bit into it, and chewed for a long time before swallowing.

I knew what he was anticipating.

He wanted to see if I would lose control, wanted to see how long I could endure, wanted to see when that cage I'd kept locked for fifteen years would be opened by my own hand.

What he wanted wasn't an obedient tool. What he wanted was that beast.

Perhaps the cage would open sooner or later. Perhaps I wanted to open it more than I thought I did.