Page 30 of Claimed Through Deception

"Get the cars washed. Burn the clothes," I order as I step out of the SUV. The freezing morning air bites at the blood staining my unbuttoned dress shirt.

Alessio slides out of the opposite side, wiping a streak of soot from his jaw. He looks energized, like the violence was a shot of pure espresso. Enzo simply nods, his icy demeanor unbothered by the three days of slaughter we just orchestrated.

I leave them in the courtyard. I walk up the stone steps and push through the front doors.

The foyer is silent. It is barely six in the morning, the sun just beginning to bleed through the high windows. The house feels exactly as I left it, cold, and immaculate.

I bypass the grand staircase and take the private elevator up to the second floor. I need a shower. I need to wash the stench of copper and gun smoke off my skin before I sit behind my desk.

The heavy doors to my private suite open quietly.

I step inside, shrugging off my ruined suit jacket. I toss it onto the leather armchair. I am unbuttoning the cuffs of my blood-stained shirt when a slight movement catches the corner of my eye.

I stop.

Livia is kneeling by the fireplace.

She is wearing the black uniform, the white apron tied tightly around her narrow waist. She holds a small brass shovel, sweeping the cold ashes from the hearth into an iron bucket.

She doesn't look up when I enter. She doesn't flinch at the heavy thud of my boots. She simply continues the rhythmic, mindless motion of sweeping ash.

I walk closer. "Livia."

She stops. She places the brass shovel down on the stone hearth. Slowly, she pushes herself up from her knees, dusting off the front of her apron. She turns to face me.

The breath in my lungs evaporates.

I have been gone for seventy-two hours. In that time, the girl who stood in this very room and fiercely dropped a crystal decanter to test my temper has vanished.

She looks like a corpse.

Her skin is a sickly, translucent white, devoid of all color. Deep, bruised purple shadows drag down the delicate skin under her eyes. The black uniform, which was already too loose, now seems to hang off her collarbones as if she has lost weight in just three days.

But it isn't the physical exhaustion that stops my heart. It is her eyes.

When she looks at me, there is no fire. There is no blazing, reckless defiance. There is no hatred. Her eyes are completely dead, hollowed out and swept clean of any emotion. She looks at me like a hollow shell of a human being.

A lethal anger instantly ignites in my chest. I left her here for three days. I left her in my house.

"What happened to you?" I demand, my rumble echoes off the stone walls.

"Nothing, Don Niccolò," she replies.

Her voice is completely flat. Monotone. She uses my title without the usual venom. It sounds mechanical.

I cross the Persian rug in three long strides, closing the distance between us. I stop inches from her, my massive frame casting a dark shadow over her pale face. I am covered in the blood of other men, but she doesn't even blink at the gore on my shirt.

"Do not lie to me," I say, my jaw clenching so hard my teeth ache. "You look like you haven't slept since I left. You look like you haven't eaten. Who touched you?"

"No one touched me."

"Did Marta keep you working through the night?" I press, my hands curling into fists at my sides to keep from grabbing her shoulders. "Did someone speak to you? Give me a name, Livia, and I will drag them into the courtyard by their hair."

She stares at the center of my chest. She refuses to meet my eyes.

"I am performing the duties outlined in my contract," she states, her voice devoid of any inflection. "I clean. I organize. I am fine. Is there something you require, sir?"

The subservience infuriates me. I wanted her compliance, yes, but I wanted it given, not beaten into her by a pack of jealous maids. I wanted her to surrender to me, not to the brutal isolation of the estate staff. This hollow, robotic obedience is an insult.