The water went still.
So did I.
My hands stayed braced against the marble, fingers tightening like if I let go, I'd fall apart.
Slowly, I looked up in mirror.
The black silk shirt and matching pencil skirt fit too perfectly, tracing the curve of my hips like they already knew me. Like he did.
The skirt sat high on my waist, hemmed just above my knees, tight enough to shorten every step, to remind me how little space I was allowed to take.
I stood there, too still, too composed, like something inside me had been carved out and replaced with it.
I was not the Vance Princess anymore, but I was no longer the waitress either. I was a debt. A target. According to him, I was his. My fingers curled into my palm.
I stepped out of the washroom, the black silk settling against my skin like a cold caress. Not soft. Not comforting. Precise.
Renzo was waiting. He was leaning against the desk, a glass of amber liquid in his hand, his posture as lethal as the shadows surrounding him. His eyes lifted to me.
They didn't linger.
They stripping the silk away until I felt bare under his gaze alone.
That was worse.
He picked up a charred folder and dropped it in front of me with a heavy, soot-dusted thud.
"The 'Secretary' doesn't just take notes," he said, his voice a low vibration that seemed to hum through the floorboards.
"The Secretary rebuilds the map. My men have spent four months trying to crack the encryption on hard drives. They failed. You are the only person alive who knows the 'Vance Cipher.'"
He stepped closer. The room tightened around him, the scent of vintage scotch and expensive tobacco overrunning my senses.
" You will sit in this chair, and you will reconstruct the Valenti fortune, cent by cent, name by name."
"And if I refuse?" I asked, my voice trembling as I looked at the blackened ruins of my father's empire. "If I can't do it?"
His hand moved without warning.
His fingers tangled in my hair, sharp and controlled, snapping my head back until I was forced to look at him.
The grip was punishing, but as he tilted my face up, his other hand didn't go for the monitors.
Instead, his thumb dragged roughly over my lower lip, pulling it down just enough to reveal the frantic pulse in my throat.
"Then I hand you over to the Falcones," he said, his gold eyes turning to ice. "They don't want you to work, Elara. They want to open your skull to see what's inside. I am the only thing standing between you and a laboratory table."
He leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of my ear, his breath a searing contrast to the cold silk on my shoulders. "You work for me, or you die for them. That is the only math that exists in this house."
"What if I fail?" I pushed, my heart hammering .
Renzo didn't pull away. He moved his mouth to the corner of mine, his lips inches from a kiss that felt like an execution.
"Then I'll find another use for you," he whispered, his voice dropping into a dark, velvet growl. "One that doesn't require your mind. Only your obedience. Only your skin."
The words landed slow.
Deliberate.
Worse than a threat.
His hand slid beneath the hem of the silk shirt, finding the bare skin of my waist.
His palm was a controlled burn, his callouses catching against my soft flesh as his fingers splayed across my spine, pulling me flush against the hard, unforgiving line of his body.
"Your heart is racing, Secretary," he murmured against my skin. "Are you afraid of the work? Or are you afraid of how much you still want me to touch you?"
"I'm afraid of what you've become," I breathed, my eyes fluttering shut as my traitorous body arched into his heat.
He let go of me abruptly. The sudden loss of his heat made me shiver more than his words ever could. The absence of his touch hit harder than the grip.
I looked down at the desk, my fingers hovering over a half-burnt page.
Renzo walked toward the steel door, stopping only to look back over his shoulder.
"There is a bed in the corner. Food will be brought twice a day. The door stays locked from the outside." He paused, a flicker of something dark crossing his face.
"Welcome home, Secretary."
The lock clicked.