Chapter 2 - The Rules of the Cage
The second week of my captivity was quieter, but no less suffocating.
My body began to heal, though the progress was agonizingly slow. Every morning, a quiet, middle-aged woman named Teresa would enter the room with a silver tray of food—clean, fresh fruits, soft-boiled eggs, and broth that tasted of rich herbs and slow-roasted chicken. She never spoke unless I asked her a direct question, and even then, her answers were polite, brief, and entirely unhelpful.
"Where is Dominic?" I asked her on a Tuesday morning, as she adjusted the heavy drapes to let in the pale winter sun.
"The Don is working, signorina," Teresa replied, her head bowed.
"Don't call me that," I muttered, looking down at the heavy sapphire ring on my finger. "My name is Emma."
"Of course, signorina," she said, before slipping out of the room like a ghost.
By Thursday, I couldn't stand the four walls of the bedroom any longer.
I managed to drag myself out of bed, my left arm cradled in a soft black sling Dominic had left for me. I wore a pair of oversized gray cashmere sweatpants and a matching sweater that had been placed in the dressing room—clothes that were soft, warm, and undoubtedly cost more than my entire year’s salary at the diner.
I pushed open the heavy mahogany door of my room.
The hallway was silent, carpeted in deep crimson wool that swallowed the sound of my bare feet. The walls were lined with oil paintings of stormy seas and dark, ancient forests. It felt less like a home and more like a fortress designed by a man who expected the world to end at any moment.
I followed the hallway toward the center of the house, guided by a faint, sweet sound.
Laughter.
It was a light, bubbling sound, entirely out of place in this cold, stone castle. I followed it down a grand, winding staircase and into a massive sunroom filled with towering green ferns and glass panels that looked out over a gray, misty garden.
Sitting on a low velvet sofa in the center of the room was Sophie.
She was wearing a bright yellow dress, her dark curls bouncing as she ran a purple crayon across a giant coloring book. Beside her sat Dominic.
The ruthless mafia boss, the man whose name made hardened criminals whisper in fear, was currently holding a pink crayon with absolute gravity, carefully coloring the wing of a paper butterfly.
I stopped at the entrance of the room, my breath catching.
"No, Uncle Dom," Sophie giggled, slapping her tiny hand over his. "The butterfly is supposed to have blue spots. Not black."
"Black is a very practical color, Sophie," Dominic said, his deep voice carrying a rare, gentle warmth. "It hides the dirt."
"Butterflies don't get dirty," she said, rolling her eyes with the supreme confidence of a five-year-old. "They fly in the sky."
"Fair enough," Dominic murmured. He traded the black crayon for a blue one, his large, scarred hand moving with a precision that seemed entirely at odds with the violence he commanded.
Then, Sophie looked up and saw me.
Her face lit up like a lantern. "Butterfly lady!"
Before Dominic could stop her, she scrambled off the sofa and ran across the room, her tiny sneakers squeaking against the polished marble. She skidded to a halt a foot away from me, her eyes wide as she looked at my black sling.
"Are you broken?" she asked, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
"Just a little, sweetie," I said, kneeling down slowly so I was at her level. The movement sent a dull throb through my shoulder, but I ignored it. "But the doctors are fixing me."
"My daddy got broken too," Sophie said, her dark eyes suddenly becoming very quiet, very old. "Uncle Dom said he had to go to sleep for a long time."
I felt a cold weight drop into my stomach. I looked up over Sophie’s head and met Dominic’s gaze.
He was standing now, his face completely devoid of the warmth he had shown his goddaughter a moment before. He walked over to us, his footsteps silent on the marble, and placed a hand gently on Sophie’s shoulder.
"Sophie," Dominic said quietly. "Go find Teresa. Tell her I said you can have one of those chocolate biscuits from the kitchen."
"Two?" she asked, her eyes instantly shifting from sadness to greed.
"One," Dominic said, though there was a faint twitch of his lips. "And only if you eat your carrots at lunch."
"Okay!" She spun around and ran out of the room, her yellow dress fluttering behind her like the wings of the butterfly she had been coloring.
Once she was gone, the silence of the sunroom returned, heavy and tense.
"You shouldn't be out of bed," Dominic said, his eyes scanning my face, noting the paleness of my skin and the dark circles beneath my eyes.
"I couldn't stay in that room anymore," I said, leaning against a white marble pillar to support my weight. "And I wanted to see her. To make sure she was really okay."
"She is alive because of you," Dominic said. He stepped closer, his gaze falling to my left hand, which was resting against the pillar. The sapphire ring caught the pale light of the sunroom, gleaming like an accusation.
"She has nightmares," he added, his voice dropping. "She dreams of the glass breaking. But she doesn't dream of the man with the gun. She dreams of you. She calls you the lady who made the world quiet."
I looked down, my throat tightening. "I didn't make the world quiet, Dominic. I just... I couldn't let him hurt her."
"That is what makes you dangerous, Emma," he said, stepping so close I could feel the heat radiating from his chest.
"In my world, everyone has a price. Everyone does things for a reason—for money, for power, for revenge. But you... you threw yourself in front of three bullets for a child you didn't even know, for nothing. That kind of selflessness is a variable I cannot control. And I do not like things I cannot control."
"Then let me go," I said, looking up at him. "If I’m such a problem, put me on a bus to Chicago. Give me a hundred dollars and let me disappear."
Dominic reached out. His fingers, rough and warm, gently caught my chin, tilting my face up so I had to look into his dark, winter-cold eyes.
"I can't do that, Emma," he whispered. "Because the moment you step outside those gates, Grant Calder will find you. He will use you to get to me. He will tear you apart to see if you have any of my secrets inside you. And more importantly..."
May you like
He paused, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw with a feather-light touch that sent a strange, electric shiver down my spine.
"...I don't think I could let you go, even if I wanted to."
