looked at him.
The doctor corrected himself immediately.
“She is strong.”
After the doctor finished and left with strict orders to remain inside the villa, Niko sat beside Alessia. She was pale against the pillows, her hair spread over the silk like moonlight.
He took a damp cloth and cleaned the blood from her face himself.
His hands were steady now, but something inside him was not.
When his thumb brushed her cheekbone, she opened her eyes.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then she whispered, “Why?”
Niko paused.
“Why what?”
“Why are you doing this?”
The question was so quiet it was almost lost beneath the rain hitting the glass.
He could have given the easy answer.
Because she was part of his household.
Because no one touched what belonged to Niko Romano.
Because allowing the attack to go unanswered would make him look weak.
All of that was true.
None of it was the truth.
He lowered the cloth to the basin.
“Because when I saw you in that alley,” he said, “I forgot every rule I have ever lived by.”
Her eyes searched his.
“That is dangerous.”
“Yes.”
“For both of us.”
“Yes.”
She looked away first.
Before he could say more, Carlo entered after a single sharp knock. His expression told Niko enough.
“We found something,” Carlo said.
He held out a bloodstained envelope.
Niko took it and opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Alessia sleeping in the library three nights earlier, the book still open in her lap.
Across the bottom of the picture, written in black ink, were five words.
She was never yours.
Niko stared at the message.
The room seemed to grow colder.
Alessia saw the photograph from the bed and made a faint sound.
Niko turned to her.
“You know who sent this.”
Her silence answered before her mouth did.
“Alessia.”
Her fingers curled in the sheets.
“He said you would not believe me.”
“Who?”
Her eyes filled, not with weakness, but with anger sharpened by fear.
“Vincenzo.”
For the first time that night, Niko went completely still.
Carlo’s face changed.
The name hung in the room like smoke.
Vincenzo Romano was not just a cousin. He was blood. He had grown up beside Niko, learned the family business beside him, smiled at the same funerals, toasted the same victories.
He was ambitious.
Cruel.
But Niko had not thought him stupid enough to touch something under his roof.
Or perhaps that was exactly why he had done it.
“What did he say to you?” Niko asked.
Alessia closed her eyes. “Two weeks ago, he came to me in the east corridor after midnight. He said my father’s debt had not been cleared. He said you had lied to me.”
“I did not.”
“I know.”
The answer struck him harder than expected.
She continued, voice thin but steady. “He wanted me to tell him who came to the villa, what meetings you held, where you kept your ledgers. When I refused, he said he would make my father disappear.”
Niko’s hands curled into fists.
“Why did you not tell me?”
Her eyes opened.
“Because he said if I did, he would make you believe I had betrayed you first.”
Niko looked at the photograph again.
A trap.
Not just for her.
