Money. Betrayal. Blood.”
The words landed heavily.
“Start over.”
He did.
Eleven years earlier, my father had worked with the Castelli shipping arm. A business collapse, a vanished partner, millions lost. Roman’s uncle dead. Roman’s father convinced the blame led straight to August Harding.
“My father disappeared from your world,” I said.
“He thought time would save him.”
“And now?”
Roman’s gaze did not move. “Now you stay here until the debt is resolved.”
My laugh came out short and sharp. “So I’m collateral.”
“That is one way to say it.”
“Is there a better one?”
Silence.
That was answer enough.
I stood and went to the window. The garden outside was beautiful in the kind of way that almost offended me in that moment. Stone paths. Rose bushes. Shade trees. A fountain that made everything feel civilized.
“How long?”
“That depends on your father.”
“And if he doesn’t pay?”
Roman didn’t answer.
I turned slowly. “Then you took the wrong woman.”
Something changed in his eyes. Fast. Hard to name. Recognition, maybe.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t sit quietly and wait for my life to happen to me.”
For the first time, he looked almost surprised.
Then he pushed a cup toward me.
“Coffee,” he said.
The next week became a silent war over territory.
I learned the boundaries of the house by testing them. The library was open to me. The east hallway was not. The garden was visible, but at first inaccessible. My phone had no signal. The windows were discreetly secured. A man in a suit stood outside my bedroom door at night with the posture of someone paid not to blink.
There was a housekeeper named Cora who appeared with tea at exactly the right moment and judged everybody equally. There was Roman’s younger brother, Nico, who smiled too easily for a man raised in that family and whose warmth felt almost rebellious against the stone-cold discipline of the house.
And there was Roman.
Always Roman.
