Page 61 of The Assassin's Captive
My legal training could serve his interests—shield his operations from prosecution, provide insider knowledge of investigative techniques, offer legitimacy to enterprises thatthrive in shadow. I know how the system works, where its vulnerabilities lie, which prosecutors can be pressured and which judges have secrets they'd rather keep buried. Twenty-four hours ago, that knowledge made me dangerous to men who operate outside the law. Now it makes me valuable.
Or perhaps my worth lies elsewhere entirely. In alliances I could forge through marriage or manipulation. In the respectability my public face might lend to his private wars. In the symbolic power of bringing his bastard daughter home, proof that even those who try to escape the Costa name eventually return to the fold.
The thought makes my stomach turn. I shift carefully against Lorenzo's side, testing the weight of his arm across my ribs. He responds unconsciously, fingers spreading wider against my hip, anchoring me to him even in sleep. The gesture should comfort me. Instead, it feels more binding than bars.
This hotel room holds us in borrowed silence. No guards patrol the hallway outside. No armed men monitor the exits or scan the street for threats. Lorenzo told no one where we are—a calculated risk that leaves us both exposed and invisible. He trusts no one with my location, not even the men who have served him for years.
Which means I could leave.
The realization hits me with startling clarity. I could slip from his embrace, gather my scattered clothes, walk through that door, and disappear into Rome's maze of ancient streets. By morning, I could be anyone, anywhere. A different name bought with cash from his wallet. A train ticket to Milan or Naples or beyond. A future that belongs to me alone.
My fingers trace the edge of Lorenzo's tattoo where it curves around his ribs, following the black lines that tell stories I'm only beginning to understand. The ink represents loyalty, brotherhood, blood spilled in service to men who demandabsolute obedience. Even in sleep, his body responds to my touch, muscles shifting beneath marked skin. He would wake if I moved too suddenly, if I tried to leave without care. But years of late nights in law libraries taught me how to navigate spaces without disturbing the peace. I know how to be quiet when quiet serves my purpose.
The question isn't whether I can escape. The question is whether escape exists at all.
I ease away from Lorenzo's warmth, sliding across sheets that smell of our earlier desperation. The mattress dips slightly as I sit up, but his breathing remains deep and even. Dreaming, perhaps, of simpler times when his orders came clear and his targets wore their guilt openly. When moral complexity didn't cloud his vision or compromise his effectiveness.
Cold air hits my naked skin, raising bumps along my arms and legs. I move with deliberate precision, retrieving my clothes from where they fell during our fevered coupling. The blouse hangs wrinkled and inside-out from the chair back. My skirt pools beneath the window, twisted into unfamiliar shapes. Professional armor discarded in moments of weakness.
I dress in the darkness, fingers fumbling with buttons and clasps that feel foreign after hours of skin against skin. The fabric creates barriers between Lorenzo and me, rebuilding the distance that passion temporarily erased. Each layer I add feels heavier than the last, weighted with the knowledge of what waits beyond this room.
My reflection catches in the mirror above the dresser—pale and hollow-eyed, hair tangled from Lorenzo's hands, mouth swollen from his kisses. I look thoroughly debauched, marked by a man who was supposed to kill me. The irony tastes bitter on my tongue.
Lorenzo doesn't stir as I cross to the door. My bare feet make no sound on the hotel's thick carpet, industrial-grade luxury designed to muffle the movements of guests who prefer discretion. The door handle turns silently beneath my palm, well-oiled hinges rotating without the slightest creak. Everything about this place screams expensive anonymity—the kind of establishment that caters to people who pay in cash and ask no questions.
The hallway beyond stretches empty in both directions, lit by soft wall sconces that cast no hard shadows. Neutral artwork hangs at precise intervals, forgettable landscapes that offend no one and inspire nothing. Emergency exit signs glow green at each end, promises of escape routes I could take if I chose. If I had the courage to choose anything at all.
But I don't cross the threshold. Instead, I stand frozen in the doorway, one foot in the room that holds my captor and lover, one in the corridor that could lead to freedom. The liminal space feels appropriate somehow—caught between worlds, between identities, between the woman I was and whoever I'm becoming.
At the hallway's end, a window reveals the parking lot below. Rows of cars glint under amber streetlights, metal and glass catching illumination like scattered coins. Any one of those vehicles could carry me away from this life, from the choices that brought me here, from the future that terrifies me more than death.
But the memory hits without warning, sharp and immediate as a blade between my ribs.
The way those men smashed into his home. The fight Lorenzo put up to save me. The gash over his ribs and the way I had to stab that man's thigh with a lamp to save him. Those men were out for blood—my blood.
They knew my face. Knew my name. Knew exactly what I represented to their enemies and their ambitions.
The men who came for me weren't random opportunists. They were professionals, sent by organizations that had alreadycatalogued my worth and planned my use. My affiliation with the DPP painted a target on my back the moment my identity became public knowledge. Every criminal enterprise in Rome has reason to want me—dead, captured, or converted to their purposes.
The prosecutorial work I built my career on, the cases I thought would define my legacy, now mark me as a threat to be eliminated or exploited. Antonio Ricci's files contained intelligence on families that stretch across Europe, connections that reach into government and industry and finance. I know which judges take bribes and which politicians owe favors to men who collect debts in blood. I know where bodies are buried, both literal and metaphorical.
That knowledge made me dangerous when I served justice. Now it makes me invaluable to those who profit from injustice.
Tears blur my vision before I can stop them, hot tracks sliding down my cheeks to drip onto the hotel's pristine carpet. The salt tastes of futility, of understanding I fought against accepting. There is no running from this inheritance. No quiet disappearance into anonymity. My face has been catalogued by every major family in the city. My connections have been mapped, my weaknesses identified, my potential applications analyzed by men who see people as tools to be used or obstacles to be removed.
I am Emilio Costa's daughter whether I claim him or not. I am Lorenzo's responsibility whether he wants me or not. I am a weapon in a war I never chose to fight, forged by circumstances beyond my control and aimed at targets I cannot see.
The sobs come harder now, shaking my shoulders as I grip the doorframe for support. My body rebels against the knowledge my mind cannot escape. I have no choice but to stay with Lorenzo, to play whatever role Emilio designs for me, to become useful in ways that violate everything I believed aboutmyself. The alternative is capture by men who see me only as leverage against the father I never knew existed, or death at the hands of those who consider me too dangerous to live.
I have fallen completely for Lorenzo, tumbled into love with the man who was meant to be my executioner. The realization should bring comfort—to find connection in the midst of chaos, to discover tenderness in arms designed for violence. Instead, it amplifies my terror. Because loving him means I have more to lose now than just my life. I have hope to surrender, trust to betray, a heart that can be broken in ways death cannot touch.
But the idea of being Emilio's pawn, of surrendering my autonomy to serve his ambitions, terrifies me in ways I lack words to express. I spent my adult life fighting men who treat others as possessions, who corrupt justice to serve their greed, who destroy lives to maintain their power. Now I face the prospect of joining their ranks, of lending my skills to enterprises that perpetuate the very injustices I devoted my career to combating.
How does one reconcile such contradictions? How does one maintain sanity while inhabiting roles that war against fundamental beliefs? The questions spiral through my mind without resolution, each turn revealing new layers of impossibility.
"Serena."
I gasp and spin toward the voice, heart hammering against my ribs hard enough to bruise. Lorenzo stands behind me in the doorway, naked and alert, hazel eyes sharp with concern and calculation. Moonlight from the window cuts across his chest, across the bandages now with blood stains blossoming larger where the wound stretches beneath. How long has he been watching? How much did he see of my breakdown, my moment of profound weakness?
