"Right." I pick up the panic button. Turn it over. Set it back down. "So this is what kidnapping looks like when it has good taste."
"You're not a prisoner."
"I can't leave."
"You can't leave safely."
"That's a semantic argument, and you know it."
He holds my gaze for a beat too long. Then: "Brunch is at 11:00a.m. Someone will knock." He pushes off the doorframe.
"Luca."
He stops.
"If you lock that door, I'll take the window."
He glances at the window. Then back at me. A muscle ticks once in his cheek. "It's a twenty-foot drop to the alley."
"I'm a surgeon. I know how to fall."
A pause. Long enough that I wonder if he's calculating the odds.
Long enough that I notice the way his shirt sits across his shoulders and hate myself for it. Years of medical training. Two board certifications. And my brain's contribution to this crisis isnice shoulders.
Somebody revoke my degree.
"The door doesn't lock from the outside," he says finally. Then he leaves.
I wait forty-five seconds.Then I start mapping the room.
Window: two stories, iron trellis, alley gated. An option, barely.
Door: unlocked. The hallway camera covers the staircase.
I open the closet.
Women's clothes. My size. Not my style — too understated, lots of neutrals. But my size, down to the shoes. A full week's worth.
Toiletries in the bathroom: the brand of face wash I use, which isn't a common one. Someone looked at Serafina Virelli's medicine cabinet and took notes.
I sit on the edge of the bed.
A prisoner with nice sheets and a well-stocked closet.
I sleep in two-hour intervals. Residency habit. My body doesn't know how to do more than that in an unfamiliar place, and tonight it's running on fumes from a double shift, a dead man, and the kind of adrenaline that doesn't metabolize quietly. Between naps, I stare at the ceiling and memorize the guard rotation outside my window. Every twenty minutes. Clockwork.
By the time pale morning light cuts through the curtains, I've slept maybe five hours total, mapped the room three times, and accepted that my body has simply shut off the part of my brain that tracks what day it is.
Brunch is servedat 11 a.m. A table that seats eight. Just the two of us, which makes the table feel half its size.
A man named Raf brings the food. He's built like a door and sets the plates down with surprising gentleness. He doesn't make eye contact with me. He makes a lot of eye contact with Luca.
"You can eat," Luca says, not looking up from his phone.
"How generous. A meal and a panic button. You really think of everything."
He sets the phone down. Looks at me. "You've been quiet since the room."
