The silence hit me. No Chiara. No Matteo. No Sienna. No Leo pacing around like a giant homicidal snake. Nothing. Just rain. Thunder. The ocean.
My throat tightened. God. I missed home. I missed seeing Sienna draw messages in lipstick on the mirror. I missed Matteo’s weird protein shakes. I missed Chiara yelling at everyone. I even missed Leo standing in doorways looking terrifying. Which was honestly humiliating. I wrapped my arms around myself. Then started walking. Because standing still felt worse.
The guest house glowed softly around me. Warm wood. Cream furniture. Soft lighting. Expensive rugs. Glass walls. Everywhere. That was the cruelest part. I could see everything. The ocean. The cliffs. The gardens. The lights from the main house. Freedom. All visible. None reachable.
It felt like living inside an aquarium. A beautiful one. A luxurious one. Still a tank. Still trapped.
I wandered through the rooms. Kitchen. Bedroom. Living room. Bathroom bigger than the room I used to share with Chiara when we were smaller.
Everywhere I looked, evidence of planning. Clothes waiting in closets. Books on shelves. Fresh flowers. Food. Blankets. Everything ready. Everything prepared. For me.
The realization made my skin crawl. How long had he been planning this? How many nights had Santino sat somewhere imagining me here? The thought was so unsettling I physically shivered.
Eventually I found a smaller room near the back. An office. Unlike everything else, this room didn't look staged. It looked lived in. Messy. Human. Books stacked unevenly. Pens scattered across the desk. Folders left open. A coffee mug. A half-finished bottle of whiskey. For the first time since arriving, the estate felt less like a prison and more like a place somebody actually existed.
I stepped closer. And that's when I saw the photograph. My stomach tightened. Two boys. Identical. Dark-haired. Grinning. Maybe ten years old. One held a frog triumphantly above his head.
The other looked absolutely disgusted. I laughed before I could stop myself. The expression was so familiar. Because even as a child, one of them already looked permanently annoyed. Slowly, I picked up the frame.
It was his brother, unmistakably so. The room felt quieter. The oversized watch. The one from the club. The one I'd guessed wasn't his. The one that had changed everything. It was his twin’s.
I stared at the smiling boys. At the matching faces. The matching eyes. The matching grins. One frozen forever in a photograph. One kidnapping brides. Life was strange.
A movement behind me made me jump. The photograph nearly slipped from my fingers. I spun around. Santino stood in the doorway, holding a platter of food. For one second neither of us moved. His gaze landed on the photograph. Everything changed.
The warmth vanished. The amusement disappeared. The grin disappeared. The Devil disappeared. And all I saw was a man who'd been punched directly in the chest. He slammed the tray down on the desk, rattling the dishes.
"Put that down."
The words weren't angry. That would've been easier. They sounded rough. Raw. Like they'd scraped against something broken on the way out.
My grip tightened around the frame. Because I understood. This mattered. Not the office. Not the privacy. The photograph. The memory. Him. Slowly, I lowered it.
"Where is he buried?" I asked.
Silence. Thunder rolled over the ocean. Rain battered the glass roof. The storm seemed to hold its breath.
"On the property.” The answer landed heavily between us. I looked down again. Two boys. One future. One lifetime. Until there wasn't.
"The watch,” I said softly.
His jaw flexed. "What about it?"
"It was his."
A long silence. Then a single nod. My chest tightened unexpectedly. The watch. The one he'd never taken off. The one he'd carried everywhere. Not because it fit. Because itdidn't. Not because it was expensive. Because it wasn't., Because it belonged to somebody he couldn't keep.
The photograph remained in my hands. Santino remained in the doorway. The distance between us felt strangely fragile. Like one wrong word could shatter something. I swallowed. Carefully placed the frame back on the desk.
The boys smiled up at us. Forever ten years old. Forever together. My chest tightened.
"What happened?" The question escaped before I could stop it. I regretted it. Because it wasn't my business. Because I didn't want to care. Because caring about the man who kidnapped me felt like the beginning of a psychological disorder.
Santino looked toward the photograph. Not at me. The photograph. For several seconds I thought he wouldn't answer."He would have hated you, you know. You would have come between us."
I folded my arms. "That was an incredibly unhelpful answer."
The corner of his mouth twitched. Just slightly. Better. Still terrible. But better. I sighed dramatically. "You know, most people include details when telling stories."
