(Isabella POV)
The morning came heavy with stillness. No voices, no music, just the low hum of security systems somewhere below my window.
I decided to walk.
Elena had said nothing about where I could or couldn't go, only that I'd be "escorted if necessary." I took that as a challenge.
The mansion's corridors were too clean, too perfect. Even the light through the tall windows seemed controlled, aimed, deliberate. Every sound I made bounced off marble like a secret trying to escape. The click of the latch. The whisper of fabric against my legs.
When I reached the courtyard doors, they opened without resistance. Warm air rushed in, carrying the faint metallic scent of rain from the night before. I stepped outside.
For the first time since arriving, the world felt wide again. Gravel paths twisted between hedges trimmed into geometric shapes. A fountain murmured somewhere ahead. The air was damp, green, alive.
I followed the path, breathing slower, deeper. Counting my steps. Memorizing the layout the way I'd memorized the guard rotations inside.
Then I saw them. Two guards near the archway. Not statues, though they might as well have been. Suits immaculate, hands folded in front of them, eyes tracking my movement.
I took another step. They mirrored it, shifting just enough to block the way.
"I'm just walking."
The taller one shook his head. Polite but final. "The Don prefers you stay within sight of the house."
The Don. I hated how the word carried weight even when spoken softly.
"Does the Don know how to say please?"
A shadow crossed the gravel behind me. I didn't need to turn to know who it was. I'd learned the sound of his footsteps over the last four days. Measured. Controlled. The walk of a man who'd never had to run from anything.
"Let her walk," Leonardo said.
The guards stepped aside instantly. Military precision in their obedience.
I looked at him. He was dressed differently than at dinner. No suit jacket, just a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. I could see the edge of a scar on his left forearm. Old. Thick. The kind that came from something sharp and personal.
"I wasn't planning an escape," I said.
"I know." His tone was unreadable. "If you were, you'd have chosen the west gate. That one's blind to the cameras for exactly eight seconds."
I stared. "You just told me how to run."
"I told you how I'd catch you."
Something cold and electric shivered through me. Not fear. Something else. Something that made my pulse quicken in ways I didn't want to examine.
He motioned for me to follow. We walked in silence, gravel crunching beneath our feet. The path curved behind a wall of ivy, revealing a small iron gate half-hidden by climbing vines. He unlocked it himself. No guards. No cameras.
Inside was a garden.
Not manicured like the others. Wilder. Softer. Roses in deep reds and bruised pinks climbed trellises that looked older than the house. The scent hit me like a wave. Rich, thick, almost overwhelming.
A small table sat in the center, two glasses waiting, dew collected on their rims like they'd been expecting us.
I caught him glancing at the nearest bush. His hand reached out automatically, brushing a dead petal away with surprising gentleness.
"You tend them yourself."
He didn't deny it. Didn't confirm it either. Just kept walking deeper into the garden, past rose bushes heavy with blooms that looked too perfect to be accidental.
"My mother planted the first ones." His voice was quiet. Not the voice he used at dinner. Something underneath it, rawer. "Before everything went to hell. She said roses were honest. They gave you beauty but made you bleed for it."
I moved closer to one of the bushes. The thorns were vicious, curved like claws. The petals looked soft as silk.
"How long have you been keeping this place?"
"Twenty-seven years."
The number landed heavy. The same age as the locket. The same age as whatever grief he'd been carrying since his mother died.
I turned to face him. "This is where you come when you can't sleep."
"What makes you say that?"
"Because every powerful man needs somewhere to go where power doesn't matter. Where he can be something other than what everyone expects."
He studied me for a long moment. "You think you know me."
"I think you let me see more than you meant to. Last night. With the locket."
His jaw tightened. "I didn't tell you anything."
"You didn't have to. The way you looked at it said everything." I stepped closer, close enough to see the faint lines around his eyes. Exhaustion, maybe. Or the weight of carrying too many secrets. "You called it a trophy. But trophies are things you're proud of. That locket looked like it hurt you to even touch."
"Careful, Isabella."
"Why? Because I'm getting too close to something real?"
"Because curiosity killed more than cats in my world."
"Then maybe your world needs to change."
The words hung between us. Bold. Stupid. The kind of thing that should have earned me a reminder of exactly how little power I had here.
But instead of anger, I saw something else flicker across his face. Something that looked almost like surprise.
He turned away, moved to the table, picked up one of the glasses. The dew ran down his fingers. "You asked why I keep the locket. I'll tell you. But not because you deserve to know. Because I'm tired of carrying it alone."
My breath caught. This was it. The moment he'd been running from since I asked the question.
"She was dying for six months. Cancer. Slow. The kind that gives you time to say goodbye but makes you watch them disappear piece by piece." He set down the glass. "My father wanted to sell the locket. Said we needed money for the war that was coming. The families circling. I stole it the night before he planned to pawn it."
"And your father?"
"Dead two weeks later. Three bullets. Never found out who ordered it. Could've been anyone. He'd made enough enemies." Leonardo's voice went flat. "I kept the locket because it was the last thing she wore. The last piece of her that wasn't... corrupted. By this life. By what we are."
I moved closer without thinking. "You're not your father."
"No. I'm worse." He looked at me then, really looked. "My father at least loved something more than power. I learned not to."
"Except you still keep that garden. Still tend those roses. Still carry that locket like a weight you can't put down."
"Because I'm weak."
"No. Because you're human."
The word seemed to startle him. As if humanity was something he'd forgotten he was allowed to claim.
The wind shifted, carrying the smell of earth and roses and rain. I realized then that he'd built his own cage too. One lined with roses and guarded by silence. One where he could pretend to be the boy his mother knew instead of the monster the world expected.
"Last night," I said quietly, "you told me it was a trophy. A reminder that everything has a cost. You were right. But the cost isn't what you think."
"And what is it?"
"The cost is becoming so afraid of losing something that you forget how to hold onto anything."
For a long moment, we just stood there. Close enough that I could hear him breathing. Close enough to see the way his hands flexed at his sides like he was fighting the urge to reach for something.
For me, maybe.
Or for the past he kept locked behind roses and iron gates.
"Why are you here, Isabella?" His voice was low. Rough. "Really here. In my garden. Testing my guards. Asking questions no one else dares to ask."
"Because someone has to."
"That's not a reason."
"Because I'm tired of being afraid. Because being collateral means I'm going to die here or leave here, and either way, I want to know who I'm bound to. The real you. Not the monster everyone else sees."
Something flickered in his eyes. Hunger, maybe. Or recognition that we were both trapped in cages of our own making.
He stepped closer. Close enough that I could smell him. Soap and something darker underneath. Close enough that the heat of him made my skin prickle.
"You want to know the real me?" His voice was barely above a whisper. "The real me would've killed your father and forgotten about it by morning. The real me doesn't keep rose gardens or carry dead women's jewelry. The real me is exactly the monster they say I am."
"Then why haven't you sent me back? Why keep me here? Why show me this place?"
The question hung between us, unanswered.
His hand rose slowly, stopping just short of touching my face. Close enough that I could feel the heat of his palm. Close enough that if either of us moved an inch, we'd be touching.
"Because," he said quietly, "I'm starting to forget which version is the lie."
And for a moment, standing there under his watch, surrounded by roses his mother planted and thorns that drew blood, I couldn't tell which of us was freer.
Him, trapped in a fortress of his own building.
Or me, bound to him by a contract written in blood.