Page 17 of The Assassin’s Captive (The Roma Syndicate #5)

SERENA

I lie alone in Lorenzo's bed. The Egyptian cotton sheets still carry his scent. My body aches in places that remind me of last night, of the way he moved against me, inside me, claiming every inch of my skin as his own.

The house feels empty. Hollow. I listen for sounds of movement, voices, anything that might tell me where Victor has positioned himself. But there is nothing except the distant hum of traffic and the tick of an antique clock somewhere down the hall.

I slide out of bed after my extended nap, a luxury I don't ever allow myself in my career, and head for the bathroom.

It's all black marble and chrome fixtures.

I splash cold water on my face, avoiding my reflection in the mirror.

My lips are still swollen from his kisses.

My throat bears the faint marks of his teeth, evidence of my surrender written across my skin in bruises and bite marks.

I told myself it was strategy. Manipulation. A way to gain his trust, to find his weaknesses. But standing here in his shirt, feeling the phantom touch of his hands on my body, I can't lie to myself any longer.

I wanted him. Wanted the way he looked at me as though I was the most dangerous thing in the room. Wanted the controlled violence of his touch, the way he held back until I begged him not to. Wanted to feel something other than fear and helplessness and rage.

The realization makes me sick.

I leave the bathroom and make my way downstairs, following the familiar path to the living room. The fire has burned down to embers, and the broken glass from last night has been cleared away. Everything looks normal. Clean. As though our encounter never happened.

But there, on the coffee table, sits a manila folder. My name is written across the front in Lorenzo's careful handwriting. Black ink on tan paper. It looks very official, like something I'd have lying on my desk at work.

My stomach drops.

I approach the folder slowly, as though it might explode if I move too quickly. My hands shake as I lift it from the table, feel the weight of whatever secrets it contains. The paper is thick, expensive. Government quality.

I open it, too curious to leave it, though I glance over my shoulder at the door to make sure I’m not being watched. I've seen some of these images before, but my morbid need to know everything won't let me put it down. I knew he was watching me, but this is worse than I thought.

The first image is a surveillance photograph of me leaving my apartment building three weeks ago.

I am wearing the navy suit I reserve for court appearances, my hair pulled back in a severe bun.

The photographer captured me mid-stride, briefcase in hand, chin raised against the morning wind.

I look confident. Professional. Unaware that someone was watching.

The next photo shows me at a café near my office, sitting across from another prosecutor. We are leaning over case files, coffee cups forgotten between us. The angle suggests the photographer was sitting several tables away, using a telephoto lens. Professional surveillance equipment.

My hands tremble as I flip through more images. Me entering the courthouse. Me leaving late at night, exhaustion clear in the slope of my shoulders. Me buying groceries, mundane and domestic and completely unaware that my every movement was being documented.

Then the photographs change. My apartment building from multiple angles. My office window. The parking garage where I leave my car. Every location mapped, every routine catalogued. A complete picture of my life reduced to black and white surveillance photos.

My parents appear on page seven.

They are leaving their small house in Trastevere, my mother's arm linked through my father's as they walk to their car.

She's laughing at something he has said, her face bright and unguarded.

He's carrying a bag of books—probably heading to the university library where he still volunteers despite his retirement.

They look so innocent, so completely unaware that their adopted daughter has brought death to their doorstep.

The bile rises in my throat. I flip to the next page, then the next, finding more photos of my parents shopping, walking, living their quiet, academic lives while men planned their destruction.

At the bottom of the folder is a legal document with heavy paper and official seals. It's my birth certificate. But not the one I have seen before, not the amended version that lists my adoptive parents as my biological ones.

This is the original. The real one.

Father: Emilio Costa.

Mother: Elena Suthers. Status: Deceased.

The words swim before my eyes. Emilio Costa—the man Lorenzo takes orders from. The man who apparently ordered my death before discovering I carry his blood. And Lorenzo wasn't lying.

My father.

I am still staring at the document when I hear the front door open and heavy footsteps in the foyer. Lorenzo's voice is low and calm, speaking to someone named Victor—maybe Victor Costa. A million thoughts are going through my head, paralyzing me when I know better than to be in his office.

But I can't move. I can't fucking breathe, let alone process the reality of what I am holding in my hands.

Lorenzo appears in the doorway, his jacket slung over one arm. There is blood on his shirt cuff—not much, just a few dark drops that could be anything. Could be nothing. His eyes find mine immediately, then drop to the folder in my hands.

His expression hardens.

"That wasn't meant for you."

My voice comes out as a whisper. "My parents?" I ask, feeling fury building in my chest.

"Serena—"

"It wasn’t just me, then?" The volume rises, anger cutting through shock. "How long have you been documenting my parents' lives, planning to?—"

"Those files were meant for Costa's lawyers." He steps into the room, closing the distance between us. "You shouldn't have?—"

"Shouldn't have what? Shouldn't have wanted to know what you've messed me up in?" I think of how charming he was at the opera, how he smooth talked me into dating him. I knew better but damn it all to hell, I didn't listen to my gut.

He stops three feet away, his hands loose at his sides. Ready for violence. "You're looking at things you don't understand."

"I understand perfectly." I hold up the birth certificate, my hand shaking.

"I understand that you're destroying my life now.

" My chest is heaving. "It wasn't enough to surveil me.

You have to watch them too? And for what?

You're going to eliminate them if I don't behave? Or what… You’re going to tell them their daughter is actually kin to a Mob Boss.

" I am so livid I could smack him, but I restrain myself.

It was bad enough when it was just me—but this crosses a line.

"It's not that simple."

"Isn't it?" I throw the folder at his chest, papers scattering across the floor. Surveillance photos flutter like deadly confetti around his feet. "You're a killer, Lorenzo. And I'm an idiot for thinking you might be anything else."

I move toward the door, needing distance, needing air, needing anything except the suffocating weight of his presence. But his hand closes around my wrist before I can escape.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Away from you." I try to pull free, but his grip is iron. "Away from this—away from whatever game you and Costa are playing."

"There is no away ." His voice is flat, matter-of-fact. "You're no longer just a legal threat—you're a liability no one knows how to handle. Until Emilio decides what to do about you, you're not going anywhere."

The words claw across my heart, leaving wounds I don't know if I can heal from.

Because they confirm what I have been trying not to believe.

I am being kept in reserve until someone decides whether I am more valuable alive or dead…

And Lorenzo knows it, and he keeps fucking with me… keeps fucking me.

"Let go of me." Tears burn my eyes, but I refuse to cry in front of him. I'm a fool, an idiot, and maybe a whore. Sleeping with him to soften him up? What a fucking joke. He's a monster. He probably drinks the blood of virgins for breakfast and calls it a day.

"Serena—"

"Let go of me," I hiss again, and he releases my wrist but doesn't step back.

We stand facing each other in the wreckage of my illusions, truth scattered across the floor between us.

My birth certificate lies face-up near his feet, Emilio Costa's name clearly visible.

My birth mother knew this but the adoption agency refused to reveal it—they had to have or my adoptive parents wouldn't have wanted me.

The hot rage builds in my chest until I feel like I might become a murderer. For days I've been helpless, trapped, dependent on his mercy. But this—this betrayal, this violation of everything I thought I understood about my life—this I can fight.

My palm connects against his cheek before I realize I'm moving. The sound echoes through the room. His head barely moves from the impact, but red blooms across his skin immediately. A perfect handprint marking him as mine.

He does not flinch, does not retaliate. He simply stands there watching me as though he expected this. As though he has been waiting for me to finally see him clearly.

"Feel better?" he asks quietly.

"No."

I push past him, shoving against his chest when he doesn’t move quickly enough. He lets me go this time, stepping aside as I stalk toward the door. My heart pounds against my ribs, adrenaline and fury making my hands shake.

"This doesn't change anything," he calls after me.

I stop at the threshold, turn back to look at him one final time. He stands surrounded by the evidence of his surveillance, my handprint still burning red against his cheek. For a moment I think I see regret in his eyes. Pain. But it disappears so quickly, I might have imagined it.

"You're right," I say. "It doesn't change anything. Because nothing was real to begin with."

I walk away before he can respond, leaving him alone among the scattered photographs and broken illusions.

I pass by Victor Costa, whose face is drawn in anger much like the expression on Lorenzo's face, and my bare feet carry me up the stairs, past the guest room where I should've been sleeping, straight to the master bedroom where I can still smell him on the sheets.

I close the door and sink to the floor, my back against the solid wood. The rage is already fading, leaving behind something worse. Something that feels dangerously close to grief.

Because for a few hours, I allowed myself to believe that the man who held me last night might be different from the killer who took those photographs. That the tenderness in his touch might be real rather than calculated.

But Lorenzo Santoro is exactly what he has always been. A predator. A weapon. A man who follows orders without question or conscience.

And I am exactly what he said I am. A liability. A problem to be solved when convenient.

The birth certificate might name Emilio Costa as my father, but that changes nothing fundamental about my situation. I’m still trapped. Still alone. Still completely at the mercy of men who see me as an asset rather than a person.

The only difference now is that I no longer have any illusions about my captor. About what he is capable of. About how little my life means to him.

I hear Victor's low voice questioning my captor, but Lorenzo's response is too quiet to make out. Still, I can hear the edge in his tone. They're discussing me. Planning. Making decisions about my future as though I have no say in the matter.

I pull my knees to my chest and close my eyes, trying to block out the sound of their voices. Trying to forget the way Lorenzo's hands felt against my skin. Trying to pretend that somewhere in this nightmare, there might still be a way out.

But the undeniable truth sits between us now.

He is the Sin Eater. And I am just another transgression to be consumed.