Page 61 of Twisted Addiction

He was there—Antonio—hood up, cigarette glowing, leaning casual as rot against a crumbling wall. Time had not softened him. Three years of knowing his face meant I could read the smug cruelty in his posture even before his mouth formed the words.

“You actually had the nerve to show your face in Lake Como?” I asked, my voice cutting through the quiet.

He didn’t even flinch—just took another drag, exhaling smoke like a man savoring the calm after someone else’s funeral.

My hand tightened around the gun. I kept the barrel low—pointed more at the pavement than at him—because the last thing I needed was to give him cause to act. “What do you want, Antonio?” I asked.

My voice was less steady than I intended.

He laughed, a short, sharp sound. “What do I want? I want to know what kind of story ends with you shooting the great Dmitri Volkov.”

He pushed off the wall and walked toward me, slow and certain. “You always did have...a flair for drama.”

His eyes slid past me, toward the basilica’s dark silhouette, and something like curiosity—and hunger—flickered there. “News travels fast in this town.”

“Keep walking,” I said. The words came out brittle. My pulse hammered in my throat. “You don’t want to be here.”

Antonio’s grin widened. “And miss the show? Not a chance.” He flicked ash from his cigarette, casual as a man discussing the weather.

“Dmitri’s delaying fulfilling the agreement we made—the one that forced me to send you back to Lake Como after... well, after the kidnapping,” he said, slow, viscous, almost savoring the words.

His dark eyes glinted in the dim light, amusement curling across his lips.

I froze, my stomach twisting.

My hands still trembled, the memory of blood, of Dmitri jerking from the shot, still raw in my chest.

“What... agreement?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper. “I thought he paid some enormous ransom to get me out!”

Antonio chuckled, low and dangerous. “You think we are poor? No amount of money could ever get you back. It was a... heavy sacrifice from him. One he made willingly.”

He leaned back against the wall, exhaling smoke, letting the weight of the words settle between us. “Not my place to tell you the details.”

Shock slammed into me like a freight train. My mind raced. He sacrificed what? For me?

My fingers tightened around the bag strap, the echoes of the gunshot still ringing in my ears. “Is that... is that why you’re here?” I asked, my voice trembling but sharp with rising anger. “To push him into fulfilling this... agreement?”

Antonio’s smirk widened, eyes flicking to mine, hungry and dangerous. “Partly,” he said.

I narrowed my eyes. “If Dmitri doesn’t fulfill his part of the agreement... what? Kidnap me again?”

He chuckled. “He’ll fulfill it. Don’t worry.” His certainty was unnerving, the kind that made my skin crawl. Then he leaned forward, voice dropping sharply. “Have you figured out who Seraphina is yet?”

The name detonated in my chest.

My mind flashed to Elena’s sister, the mysterious Seraphina she’d mentioned earlier, a shadow in a game I didn’t understand.

“Seraphina?” I repeated, the word heavy on my tongue, tasting like ash.

“Remember the note I slipped you at Lupo Nero a few months back?” he asked, casual, almost teasing, but every syllable dripped with intent.

I did—crumpled and worn, folded so many times it had nearly disappeared. I had opened it once, saw the single word written in stark capitals: SERAPHINA.

The memory pressed down on me, sudden and suffocating, leaving a bitter twist of dread curling in my stomach.

“Seraphina was a lie,” I said, clinging to Giovanni’s story. “A story Dmitri spun to make me paranoid.”

Antonio laughed, a short, ugly bark.