Chapter Five
1146 Words
Luca waited until the door clicked shut behind him before he stooped to pick up the folded document Aria had left at his feet. His fingers brushed the edge of the paper slowly, deliberately, like he was afraid it might vanish.
The shipping ledgers.
He recognized them instantly.
And yet, he hadn't realized she'd gotten close enough to find them. That she'd had the nerve or the desperation to go through his things. His jaw tensed. Her defiance was louder than her words.
He unfolded the pages, his eyes scanning the inked notations. The codes. The dates. The shipments he’d kept hidden even from his most trusted lieutenants. She had found the blind spot. And worse, she had dared to use it against him.
Luca exhaled, long and slow, as the fire lit behind his ribs.
It wasn’t anger, it was disappointment. She was never supposed to be part of the war.
His expression was like stone as the two guards outside the door straightened at his approach.
“Seal this room,” he said coldly. “She is not to leave. No one is to speak to her. No one is to go inside. If she needs anything, be it water or food, it should go through the door only.”
They nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“And post another two outside the terrace,” he added. “She’s clever. I don’t want clever. I want silence.”
He turned and walked away without another glance at the door.
Inside, Aria stood where she had been moments before, near the bed, her arms crossed tightly across her chest. The echo of his footsteps grew quieter, then vanished altogether.
She waited for the lock.
It came with a heavy click that seemed to vibrate through her bones.
Aria closed her eyes.
She had expected it. She had planned for it. Still, the sound shook her in ways she hadn’t wanted to admit.
She was locked in. No key. No warning. Just the finality of his retreating presence and the iron-cold certainty that she was now a prisoner in every sense of the word.
The hours passed slowly.
No one came. No voices echoed down the hallway. The silence pressed in like a second skin, smothering and constant.
Later, a tray slid through a hatch near the door. She ignored it. She wasn’t hungry. Not for food, at least.
She paced.
She whispered her own thoughts just to hear a voice.
She didn’t sleep.
By morning, the walls felt closer. The silence is heavier.
The ledgers had been her only leverage. Now they were gone.
She paced the room for hours, every step a restless circle of defeat and defiance. The books on the shelf mocked her with their silence. The window was barred, the balcony unreachable.
By the third day, her voice was hoarse from screaming. No one answered. No one came, except for the quiet shuffling of feet when meals were passed.
Time became a blur. Light and dark. Silence and silence.
Luca hadn’t returned.
And that hurt more than anything.
Was this who he had become? A man who could destroy her and walk away?
Her thoughts spiraled. She found herself thinking of their childhood, the days when Luca would pull her into the vineyard after school, where they’d lie on the ground and stare at the clouds.
“You always find animals in the clouds,” he used to say.
“Because you always find bad weather,” she had teased.
That boy didn’t exist anymore.
But neither did the girl who believed he would come back for her.
She stood in the mirror and studied her reflection. Eyes swollen from lack of sleep. Lips dry. Hair tangled. But somewhere inside, she was still burning. Not broken but burning.
She would find a way out.
She had to.
The next time the guard passed a tray through the slot, she spoke.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
Silence.
“Please. I just want to talk.”
Still nothing.
She slumped to the floor, holding her knees. And then a whisper, so soft she almost missed it:
“Don’t make it worse.”
A thread of fear wrapped around her spine. If even the guards were afraid of Luca, then what chance did she have?
And yet, somewhere in the depths of her chest, hope still fluttered.
She waited until midnight. Then she pulled the blanket from the bed and stood on the chair, trying to reach the air vent. Her fingers scraped the edges, but it was bolted tight.
Every path, every idea, it ended the same way.
Caged.
Defeated.
But she didn’t cry.
Instead, she whispered into the dark, “I will survive this.”
And the walls, for the first time, whispered back: Then fight.
She stared out the barred terrace door, watching the garden that was supposed to bring her comfort blur into night.
It was in that darkness that she saw him. Luca.
He stood near the fountain, alone, hands in his coat pockets. Not moving. Not talking. Just standing there as the wind tugged at his sleeves and the stars offered no warmth.
She pressed her forehead into the cold glass.
She wondered if he was thinking of her. If he regretted what he’d done. But his face held no answers. It never did.
“Hey, you kidnapper, come and free me. I wasn’t wrong about you. You are just a heartless jerk,” she screamed. She isn’t scared of him right now; she just wants to frustrate and irritate him. He just stared at her coldly and walked away without a word.
Later, she lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, her thoughts circling like vultures. Every piece of her life had been touched and twisted by Luca De Rossi.
And still, a part of her ached for the boy he used to be.
That was the most dangerous part.
She didn’t cry.
Not when the second tray came.
Not when the guards ignored her knocking. They just stood at the door like mutes, ignoring her screams and knocks. “Open the door!” she had shouted, but nobody answered her. All she heard was the cold silence that slapped her hard in the face. Who knows? Luca might have changed her door guards to some mutes.
And it might be their fear that made them so obedient. Who wouldn’t fear such a heartless man?
Not even when she heard Francesca’s voice down the hall and realized she would not be coming to check on her.
Luca had buried her. Not the literal bury, but he somehow silenced her and stopped her from coming to see her.
And she would make sure he regretted it. She knows he is bent on making her regret her actions, but she will turn the tables soon.
- Writer
