HER RULES HIS EMPIRE

EIGHT O' CLOCK

She stepped back into the room. Her father looked smaller than when she'd left, slumped slightly in his bed, one hand pressed to his forehead and his chin slightly drawn backwards in a way that made her stomach rumble with guilt and fear in the same proportion. She said nothing. She just sat down.

Enzo, who had remained silent through her outburst, her exit, her return, finally cleared his throat.

"Sit down, Isabella," he said, though she already had. It seemed less like an instruction and more like something he needed to say to fill the space and ensure his presence was felt before he continued. "I don't like this any more than you do. But it's the only reasonable option on the ground for either of us." He paused, watching her carefully, as though measuring how much more she could take in in one sitting. "What do you say we meet somewhere, just the two of us, and I come up with some terms and conditions, and sign a contract? Something that can help protect us both," and as he looked at her father, he added, "and of course the empire."

Isabella stared at him. There was no drama in the way he spoke, none of the meaningless concern her father had put up in every one of their conversation. Just a flat and understanding businesslike honesty that amusingly, she found easier to trust than anything else said to her that day.

Finally, she thought, someone with a definite answer.

Not comfort. Not sympathy nor the pity glances she had received. Just terms something she could hold onto, negotiate, and perhaps shape into something attainable and survivable.

"No problem," she said, surprising even herself with how steady her voice came out, "as far as I understand what's going on here."It wasn't agreement. Not really. It was closer to a temporary ceasefire — a willingness to sit across a table from this man and find out exactly what he wanted from her, and exactly what she could take from him in return, before she decided whether any of this was something she could survive.

Enzo studied her for some seconds longer than he should have an as if deciding whether to say something else. He didn't. Instead, he rose from his chair, buttoned his jacket with an unhurried precision, and moved toward the door.

"My driver will pick you up at eight," he said, not looking back, already halfway into the hallway before the words had fully landed.

The door closed behind him with a quiet, deliberate click.

Isabella sat there for a long moment in the sudden emptiness of the room, her father's laboured breathing the only sound between them, and wondered — not for the first time that day — how her life had folded itself so completely into the decisions of other people without her ever once being asked.

At eight o'clock, she would have her answer.The car arrived about five minutes earlier than eight and much earlier than she expected.

She noticed that detail before anything else: arrived- not at eight, but some minutes before it and before anything, she found herself wondering whether it was deliberate, another small demonstration of the kind of man she was about to negotiate with. This made her act up and more determined to set her boundaries and not to really impress. The man was painting a picture of someone who arrived before he was expected, so that the waiting belonged to her and not to him.

The driver said nothing except a silent grunt of approval as she stepped into the pouch and the opening of a door. Isabella slid into the back seat of a car that smelled faintly of cinnamon and old leather, the city whistling past the window under the rays of the bright orange city light. She had changed twice before, or even more before settling on a black dress. This was not entirely because she wanted to impress him, she told herself, but because her dignity came in the way she presented herself, and she sought to correct the impression she gave at the hospital; tonight, her atmosphere and dressing would have to do just that.

The restaurant, when they arrived, was not a restaurant. In fact, she had remembered passing this street on a few occasions but had never seen this part of it; turns out it is actually a private dining room, something she recognised and pinned down as one of Enzo's own properties, sparse and windowless in a way that felt less like luxury and more like containment. A single table. Two chairs. A folder, closed, resting exactly in the centre. It was simple; Isabella would have liked it. Another thing she noted: the man wasn't really about show-offs. Enzo was already seated when she walked in, a glass of something slightly wine-coloured, but she was sure it couldn't be called wine in front of him that he had not yet touched."You're punctual," he said, standing briefly out and tunning her to seat before sitting back down. "I appreciate that in a person I'm about to do business with."

"I wasn't aware I had a choice about being punctual," Isabella said, taking the seat across from him. "Your driver was early."

"My driver is always early. It's why I keep him." A faint curve at the corner of his mouth, not quite a smile, more like something that was meant to show that he was amused and something he was fond of. "Sit. I'll get the chef if you need to eat; otherwise we can get down to business. She liked that strict, straight and more professional.

So she also offered a grin in approval.

She didn't reach for the menu. "Let's talk," she said instead as her stomach roared in protest. She hadn't eaten the whole day due to stress and exhaustion.

Enzo studied her for a moment, the same unhurried way he'd given her in her father's hospital ward, and then slid the folder across the table. He didn't open it for her. He simply set it within reach and waited to see what she'd do.