Page 11 of The Assassin’s Captive (The Roma Syndicate #5)

SERENA

C onsciousness arrives in fragments. First, the throbbing in my skull that pulses with each heartbeat. Then the antiseptic smell that burns my nostrils. Finally, the pressure across my mouth—warm skin against my lips, firm and heavy pressure.

My eyes snap open.

Lorenzo's face hovers inches from mine, his hazel eyes darker than I remember. His hand covers my mouth completely, his thumb and fingers extending past my jawline. The hospital bed beneath me creaks as I try to move, but his other hand presses against my shoulder, pinning me down.

"Stay quiet," he whispers. His voice carries an urgency that sends ice through my veins. "We need to leave. Now."

The room around us is dim, lit only by the glow from medical equipment.

Machines beep steadily beside the bed, monitoring vital signs, but it appears I'll no longer be here for those monitors to assess me.

Through the window, darkness stretches across the empty parking lot and distant hills.

It's still the middle of the night, but I don’t even know how long I've been sleeping.

Lorenzo's hand moves from my mouth to beneath my knees, lifting me from the bed like he's picking up a ragdoll. The hospital gown bunches around my thighs, and cool air hits my exposed skin. Every muscle in my body protests the motion, sending sharp pains through my ribs and back.

"I can walk," I say harshly, but he ignores me. I don’t know why I even expect him to listen to me. I should scream, but he may hurt me worse than I already am. Every cell in my body screams in pain.

He carries me toward the door, pausing to listen for sounds in the hall. I cling to him as my head throbs, spinning through a dozen flashes of memory that come all at once—me smashing his head with a bottle, the car veering off the road, voices asking me questions about my identity.

"Why?" I mutter, but the pounding in my head makes it hard to even hear myself. "Where are you taking me? Let me go!"

Lorenzo walks into the hallway, checking over his shoulders. I squint against the light, unsure where I even am. It's a hospital, or a clinic, but I don’t see any nurses or doctors. The lights are too bright to open my eyes. It all hurts my head too badly.

"Keep your voice down, Serena. I'm warning you. This is for your own good. Do you understand?" He talks with such a low tone, it terrifies me. The man who demands answers from me, from whom I had to escape, now wants to protect me? But from whom?

We reach a service elevator at the end of the hall. He shifts my weight to one arm while pressing the call button, and I feel the strength in his chest, the steady rhythm of his heart against my shoulder. The elevator doors open with barely a whisper.

"Where are you taking me?" I ask as we descend. My arms wrap around his shoulders naturally, but it feels stiff and uncomfortable. I don't belong in his arms.

"Somewhere safe," he grumbles, but I don’t feel safe. A hospital is a safe place, isn't it?

"Why…" I breathe, but he glares down at me and I stifle my urge to ask more questions.

The words offer no comfort. Safe for whom? Safe from what? My memories of the past few days remain fragmented—flashes of his house, the opera house, our confrontation, my escape. But the details blur together, leaving gaps that my injured brain can't bridge.

The elevator opens onto a basement level that's barely lit.

I picture a janitor pushing his lone cart down these hallways after hours while smoking a cigarette, but we're alone down here.

Lorenzo carries me through a maze of storage rooms and mechanical equipment.

At the far end, a service door leads to an underground parking garage where a black sedan waits with its engine running.

He settles me into the passenger seat, buckling the seatbelt across my chest with movements that are gentle despite their efficiency. The leather beneath me is warm, expensive. This isn't the same car I crashed. This one carries no damage, no evidence of my escape attempt.

"The hospital will notice I'm gone," I slur as he slides behind the wheel.

"Not until morning shift change. We have hours."

Lorenzo drives through empty streets without speaking to me, but my head is throbbing too hard to talk, let alone put up a fight.

Streetlights blur past the windows, casting intermittent shadows across his profile.

His jaw remains tight, his hands gripping the steering wheel with more force than necessary.

The city gives way to countryside, and eventually he turns onto a private road that winds through olive groves and cypress trees. At the end sits a house that manages to be both modern and timeless—clean lines softened by weathered stone, large windows that reflect the star-filled sky.

This isn't a safehouse. This is someone's home.

Lorenzo parks in a circular driveway and kills the engine. For a moment, we sit in the dark, the only sounds our breathing and the soft ticking of the cooling motor.

"Are you going to kill me?" I ask.

He turns to look at me, his expression unreadable in the dim light. "No."

"Why not?"

"I can't."

The simplicity of his answer raises more questions than it resolves. There's tension in his voice, a shift in his tone that suggests complications I don't understand. Three days ago, he was willing to hurt me to get information. Now he risks exposure to steal me from a hospital.

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you're getting tonight."

He comes around to my side of the car and lifts me again, carrying me toward the house.

Motion sensors activate security lights that illuminate a path lined with lavender and rosemary.

The front door opens before we reach it, revealing an elderly woman in medical scrubs who steps aside to let us pass.

"This is Dr. Catalano," Lorenzo says by way of introduction. "She'll check your injuries."

The woman nods but doesn't speak. Her grey hair is pulled back in a severe bun, and her hands move with confidence like she's accustomed to working under unusual circumstances. She gestures toward a staircase that leads to the second floor.

Lorenzo carries me up the stairs and down a hallway lined with photographs and artwork. He pushes open a door at the end, revealing a bedroom that stops my breath.

This is his space. I can tell the instant I see it.

The bed dominates the room—king-sized, covered in dark grey linens that look expensive and rarely used.

Floor-to-ceiling windows offer views of a deep red duvet, bathed in moonlight.

A dresser against one wall holds items that speak to the man who lives here—an expensive watch, cufflinks in a leather box, cologne bottles arranged by size.

He settles me onto the bed with care that contradicts everything I thought I knew about him. The mattress beneath me is firm, the pillows soft against my aching head. Dr. Catalano enters behind us, carrying a medical bag that clinks with glass and metal.

"I'll examine her now," the doctor says, and she bustles around, setting up her things.

Lorenzo nods and moves toward the door. "Rest," he tells me, and there's something in his voice that might be concern. "We'll talk when you're stronger."

Then he's gone, leaving me alone with a doctor who asks no questions about how I came to be here or why her patient was stolen from a hospital in the middle of the night.

Dr. Catalano's examination is thorough but gentle. She checks my pupils for signs of concussion, palpates my ribs for fractures, cleans and re-bandages the cut on my forehead. Her fingers are warm and steady as she works, and she murmurs reassuring sounds when I wince at particularly tender spots.

"Bruising will fade in a week," she says finally, packing her instruments back into the bag. "The head injury is healing well. No signs of complications."

"How long was I unconscious?"

"Three days, according to your chart." She pulls a bottle of pills from her bag and places it on the nightstand. "For pain. No more than two every six hours."

She leaves as quietly as she arrived, and I'm alone in Lorenzo's bedroom with questions that multiply faster than I can process them. The house settles around me with the soft sounds of old wood and stone, punctuated by distant footsteps as Lorenzo moves through rooms below.

I remember our night together with clarity that makes my cheeks burn. The way he touched me, the intensity in his eyes, the moment when his control cracked and revealed something raw beneath. But that man feels like a stranger compared to the one who carried me from the hospital with such care.

Sleep should claim me—my body aches for rest, and the pain medication Dr. Catalano gave me pulls at the edges of my consciousness. But questions drive me from the bed despite protesting muscles and the dizziness that comes with standing too quickly.

The room holds secrets, and I need answers.

I start with the dresser, opening drawers with movements that are as quiet as I can manage.

The contents are unremarkable—expensive clothing, leather accessories, the kinds of things any successful man might own.

But the top drawer yields interesting items—multiple passports in different names, each with Lorenzo's photograph but varying backgrounds and nationalities.

Cash in several currencies, bound with rubber bands and tucked into a wooden box.

A phone I don't recognize, probably one of several he uses for different purposes.

The nightstand beside his bed contains books—Dante, Machiavelli, Sun Tzu—and a loaded pistol that sits in a custom holster attached to the drawer's interior. The weapon is clean, well-maintained, the kind of tool that sees regular use—and it's empty. Dammit.

But it's the photograph tucked behind the books that stops my heart.

Three men stand together in what appears to be a private club or restaurant.

The lighting is warm, intimate, suggesting celebration or important business concluded successfully.

On the left stands Lorenzo, younger than he is now but unmistakably him.

His arm rests across the shoulders of a man I recognize from newspaper photographs and mug shots in my own files at work—Emilio Costa, Rome's most notorious crime boss.

The third man shares Emilio's features—the same dark eyes, the same strong jaw. Family resemblance that needs no explanation. This must be Victor Costa, Emilio's son and second-in-command.

My hands shake as I hold the photograph, studying the easy familiarity between the three men. This isn't a business meeting or casual acquaintance. These are partners. Family. Brothers in everything but blood.

Lorenzo isn't just connected to the Costa syndicate.

He belongs to it.

The prosecutor who has spent months building cases against organized crime in Rome is sitting in the bedroom of a man who works for the most dangerous family in the city. The irony would be laughable if the implications weren't so terrifying.

I sink onto the bed, my legs suddenly unable to support my weight. Everything clicks into place now—his confidence, his resources, the way he moved through that hospital without raising suspicion. This isn't kidnapping.

This is claiming.

I've been stolen by the Mob.

The door opens downstairs, followed by the sound of Lorenzo's footsteps as he climbs toward the bedroom. I shove the photograph back behind the books and dive under the covers, forcing my breathing to slow and my body to relax.

When he appears in the doorway, I keep my eyes closed and let him believe I'm sleeping. He stands there for several minutes, watching me with an intensity I can feel even through closed lids.

Then the door closes softly, and I'm alone again with the knowledge that everything has changed.

The man I remember from our night together, the one whose touch could make me forget every rational thought, works for Emilio Costa.

And I have no idea what he plans to do with me.