Chapter Two

At the little after-party once the banquet ended, I still sat in the corner.

I watched Isabella stride to the center like a proud peacock. She carried a velvet box, turned to Alessandro, and said in a voice so sweet it cloyed, “A little gift, Alessandro.”

The box opened. Diamond cufflinks—so bright they hurt to look at. On the side, micro-engraved, two interwoven letters: “R” and “M”—Rossi and Marino.

The air seized for a beat, then broke into soft laughter and flattering murmurs.

A hairline crack appeared in Alessandro’s perfect mask of cold indifference. It was too fast to tell whether it was surprise or something else. He lowered his eyes to the cufflinks for two seconds. When he looked up again, he was bottomless.

“You went to trouble,” he said, not loudly, yet the entire room went quiet.

Then he extended his hand and let Isabella fasten the ominous diamonds at his cuff. Once they were on, he even lifted his wrist to admire them.

Isabella immediately rose on her toes and planted a loud kiss on his cheek. Applause and whistles drowned everything. Alessandro didn’t push her away. Instead he loosely circled her shoulders, bent his head, and murmured something into her ear. Isabella flushed instantly and laughed, shaking with glee.

I took a step back, sinking deeper into shadow. I drained my champagne in one swallow, then snatched another glass. My fingers clenched until they went pale.

Halfway through the party, I pushed open a glass door and stepped onto the garden terrace in the winter night. The wind cut like a blade, and it made me lucid.

Steady footsteps sounded behind me.

Alessandro leaned his forearms on the railing beside mine and lit a cigar. “Hiding out here for what?”

I didn’t answer. I stared at the black sea in the distance.

“About the cufflinks,” he said, exhaling smoke. “She didn’t tell me in advance.”

Silence. I poured the last of my drink into a planter.

“A little girl’s show-off trick,” he said, flicking ash. “Don’t take it seriously.”

The night wind rolled the smoke up and slapped it across my face. The scent that used to make my heartbeat stutter now only suffocated me. I thought of Sophie’s pale smile on the video call this morning—how she’d said the new meds didn’t seem quite as awful. She didn’t know the cost.

“Alessandro.” I finally spoke.

“Yeah?”

“Dr. Klein contacted me urgently this afternoon.” I turned to face him. The dim terrace light split his face into shadow and hard angles. “Sophie’s latest results. She’s developed resistance.”

The fingers holding the cigar paused.

“She needs a new drug,” I went on, each word like ice. “Only the European black-market channels can supply it steadily. A tightly controlled experimental med. Triple the old price—and we need it every week.”

Smoke seeped out slowly. He stayed quiet for a long time. From the glasshouse behind us, cheerful music drifted faintly, making this terrace feel like a cruel stage.

“Next month,” he finally said, his voice flat, “Isabella is going to southern Italy to ‘handle’ family business. Three months.”

My heart dropped.

“You’re going with her.” He stubbed out the cigar and turned fully toward me, his tall frame blocking what little light there was. “As my personal representative. Make sure she’s ‘safe,’ and make sure the Marino family’s ‘cooperation’ stays intact. The day she returns satisfied and voices her support at the quarterly meeting”—his gray-blue eyes in the dark were the eyes of a predator—“the new drug will be delivered to Sophie’s unit on schedule.”

“Three months…” My voice began to shake. “Sophie can’t wait that long! Klein said the situation is unstable—she could—”

“Then find a way to make her wait.” He stepped closer, his ice-cold tone slicing off everything. “Or, Elena, you can find a way to make Isabella’s Italian trip… come to a successful conclusion early.”

He was too close—close enough that I could see my own despair reflected in his eyes.

“Alessandro,” my voice trembled in the wind but stayed clear, “that’s someone you promised you would shelter to the end. You said the Rossi family would take responsibility for her until the last moment.”

“So I am taking responsibility.” He moved even nearer, almost pinning me between his body and the railing. “I’m giving her a chance, and I’m giving you a chance.” He lifted a hand; his fingertips were cold as they brushed my burning cheek. “Prove your value is far beyond Isabella’s. Prove you’re worth my opening the European pipeline for you—worth my… making an exception.”

I closed my eyes and drew in the freezing air.

When I opened them, I looked at him and said, each word measured, “Fine. I’ll go.”

He smiled. There was no warmth in it—only the ease of someone who held every string, and a shadowed emotion I couldn’t read. He reached for my hair.

I turned my head away.

His hand hung in the air for a moment, then withdrew.

“Get some rest,” he said, and turned back toward the painful brightness inside. The diamond cufflinks caught the light and threw it back like ice.

I leaned against the railing and watched him vanish through the glass door.

The music in the glasshouse grew even more upbeat, thudding faintly like a lavish, brutal dream.

And I would be the offering—the tool—the hostage.