I slowly and blearily adjusted to the sight of the sunlight glaring into my eyes, a most foreign sensation. For one dizzying moment, I did not even know where I was. My cheek rested against a marble cold enough to give me a shiver, with heavy-weights of a duvet tangled around my legs. Then came the hard punch of memory: The auction. The penthouse. The portrait. Isabella. I squeezed my eyes shut; for a moment, that seemed futile since my new reality appeared distinctly horrible. A tower at the top of the world, under the prisoner capacity of a man who was chased by a ghost wearing my face.
Instead, aches from sleeping on the floor nagged at me- a self-imposed punishment for a crime I had not committed. Over the silence in the penthouse, my thoughts flew. The weight of the duvet slowly fell off as I rose on shaky legs, muscles stiff from the cold and tension. I stood at the center of the beautiful but soulless room, clad only in thin underwear worn beneath the auction dress. I felt exposed, vulnerable. All acts of defiance against him seemed to fade in the clear light of day as I regretted my achievement from the previous night.
With a gnawing emptiness in my stomach and a need to confront my captor so I could prove to myself I wasn't just going to lie down and die, I walked to the door. My hand trembled on the handle. I expected it to be locked and was going to face the humiliation of begging for release; to my surprise, the handle turned, and the door swung open silently. This was not an oversight; this was a statement, a psychological game. The cage was not the room; it was the whole penthouse. He was so confident of my captivity that he had not even bothered to lock my door.
I slipped down the white sterile corridor, my naked feet silent on the marble. Morning light poured into the main living space. And there he was. Dante Moretti sat in one of the severe armchairs, coffee in one hand, tablet in the other, as if any other morning. He had on dark trousers and a crisp white shirt with sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing slithers of the intricate dark tattoos that curled over his skin. As he did not look up from his tablet on my entry, I am sure he didn't have to. I could feel his awareness gathering and a slight perturbation in the energy of the room, as though he suddenly noticed my presence.
I stood still, hesitating near the end of the hall with an all-consuming awareness of my state of undress, clutching the duvet I had dragged from the room. A hopeless shield. Finally, he lowered the tablet, leisurely and evaluatively gazing over me, from my bare feet to the rebellious disorganization of my hair. The duvet caught his attention, and something flickered in his eyes—amusement? contempt?—then settled back into the familiar cold indifference.
"There is food waiting for you in the kitchen," the voice was calm, as though he were speaking to a guest only just awakened from sleep, gesturing vaguely toward an area I had not yet seen. "My housekeeper has prepared something for you. You may shower and dress afterward."
His casual command, along with his total disregard for my muted objections, fed the smoldering embers of my anger. "I want answers," I said, my voice stronger than I'd expected. "You can't just lock me in here and expect me to play a part in whatever sick fantasy this is. What is this debt? What did my father do?"
He calmly set the tablet on the glass table beside him and gave me his full attention. The intensity of it made me want to shrink back, but I remained unmoving. "Your questions are irrelevant," he stated flatly.
"For you they may be irrelevant," I shot back. "But my life is the one you have ruined! I deserve to know why."
He regarded me for a long moment with a slight tilt of his head while the eyes of the portrait burned into my back like a silent, heavy presence. Dante's eyes flicked to it, then back to me. "Very well," he said, surprisingly agreeable, "You want to know what your father did? He was a thief. Years ago, he had worked for my father as an accountant. A trusted friend. And he used that trust to steal from our family. Not just money, but he betrayed a secret that led to the death of my mother."
The words hung thick, toxic in the air. My mind raced, trying to make sense of my mother's death. This wasn't just about a name, a face, or money. He accused my father of having caused the death of the woman in the painting.
"I-I don't believe it," I whispered, shaking my head in denial. "My father...he's a weak man, a gambler; he's not a murderer."
"There are many ways to kill someone," Dante replied with a dangerous growl, his voice dropping low. "And a Romano always pays what they owe. Your father had nothing of value to pay his debt anymore. Except, of course, for one thing that would make for a... fitting restitution. A living ghost. You."
He stood to his full height, filling the space with his presence. He ambled toward me, and I suppressed the urge to run. He halted just a few feet away, looking straight into my eyes, dark pools. "Your life here will have structure. There will be purpose. You will eat when I say. You will sleep when I say. A tutor will arrive this afternoon to begin your education."
"Education?" I was bewildered. "I'm already in my final year at university."
"Your 'education' is over," he said, waving a dismissive hand. "This will be a new curriculum. History. Etiquette. Italian. Things she knew. Things you will know."
It was so absurd that it became suffocating. He wasn't just going to turn me into a likeness of her; he was planning to turn me into her. He was going to become a sculptor taking a hollowed-out shell of a woman and filling her with the memories of the dead. The duvet now felt so flimsy, useless. I have never felt so unclad before.
Then it seemed he decided the time for discussion was over. "Now," he said with the tone of voice that brooked no opposition, "Go. Eat. Then put on whatever is in the closet. A black dress. No jewelry. We have an appointment at noon." I just stared at him, my mind reeling from the revelation, my body frozen by the chilling finality of his order. My small defiance with the blanket was over. He had permitted it, and now he was ending it. I was standing on a precipice, and he was commanding me to jump. Obey, or discover what consequences lay in wait in the devil's cage.