Chapter 5
"Send whoever you like," Tazio said coldly. "The sea keeps what it takes. Good night, Donato."
Without waiting for a response, Tazio turned, hauling Sienna with him toward the archway that led to the villa's private wing.
His pace was swift, almost bruising. Sienna had to half-jog to keep up with his long, furious strides, her silk hem tangling against her ankles. He didn't speak a word as they ascended the marble stairs, his hand locked around her wrist like a titanium shackle.
When they entered the grand corridor leading to the master suite, Sienna pulled back with all her weight.
"Tazio, stop! You're hurting my arm!"
He halted so abruptly that she nearly stumbled into him.
They were outside his private study, the corridor illuminated only by amber wall sconces. Tazio swung around, his chest heaving, his face pale with a ferocious, volatile energy she had never seen before.
He didn't release her wrist. Instead, he pulled her into the alcove, looming over her until she could feel the rapid, violent thunder of his pulse against his ribs.
"What did I tell you?" he hissed, his eyes burning into hers, dark and terrifying. "What did I say to you before we went down there?"
"I answered his technical question!" Sienna gasped, her heart hammering. "I didn't say anything about your cargo! Tazio, I told him the truth—no one can dive that trench without commercial equipment!"
"You spoke to him!" His free hand came up, hovering near her face in trembling agitation. "You gave him a professional opinion! Do you think he looks at you and sees a girl? He sees a tool! He sees a diver he can kidnap, drag out onto a barge, and force down eighty meters of black water to verify my words!"
"Then let me verify them!" she cried out, her voice cracking with raw emotion. "Tazio, if he suspects you, let me go to the maritime board! I pulled you out of the water! I can sign an official salvage affidavit stating the hull was destroyed by the squall! I can testify that the currents dragged the ship into the rocks! My father had forty years of clean logs with the coast guard—my word has legal standing in Salerno! I can clear your name with the Don!"
The moment the words left her mouth, Tazio froze.
The fury in his face vanished, replaced by an expression so chilling, so starkly devoid of humanity, that Sienna’s breath died in her throat.
His eyes widened slightly, the pupils dilating until the irises were swallowed in ink. He stared at her as if she were not his lover, but a specter that had just walked through a solid wall.
"Testify?" he whispered.
The word was barely an exhalation, but it carried the weight of a death sentence.
"Tazio..."
"You want to go to the maritime board?" He stepped forward, forcing her back until her shoulders hit the heavy mahogany double doors of his study. He loomed over her, his arms planting against the wood on either side of her head, caging her. "You want to stand before a syndicate tribunal and describe the conditions of the wreck?"
"To help you!" she pleaded, tears of shock pricking her eyes at the sudden ferocity of his change. "Donato thinks you failed! He thinks you lost forty million euros of syndicate capital through incompetence! If I swear an oath that the storm was an act of God, he has to accept the loss and leave you alone!"
"You will swear nothing," Tazio snarled, his voice vibrating with a terrifying, suppressed panic. "You will not speak to the coast guard. You will not file a salvage log. You will never utter the name of the *Sirena* outside these walls again!"
He reached past her, shoving the study door open, and pulled her inside.
The room was vast, lined with towering bookshelves, navigational charts, and antique maritime brass. A massive mahogany desk dominated the center, covered in encrypted satellite phones and legal folios.
Tazio crossed to the corner of the room, where a built-in steel safe stood concealed behind a faux panel of books. With swift, aggressive movements, he punched a six-digit code into the digital keypad.
The heavy safe door swung open with a muffled thud.
Tazio reached into the top drawer and pulled out a leather binder—her salvage bag. The worn canvas pouch she had carried on the *Nettuno* for five years.
He unzipped it, his long fingers violently rifling through the contents until he drew out two plastic-laminated cards: her Italian Commercial Diving Class II Certification, and her Coastal Salvage Master's License.
"Tazio, what are you doing?" she cried, lunging forward to grab them.
He caught her wrist, holding her off with cold efficiency, and drew a gold-plated Dupont lighter from his vest pocket.
*Flick.*
A crisp blue flame danced in the dim study.
"No!" Sienna screamed. "Tazio, that took me four years of apprenticeships! My father signed the log hours before he died! Don't!"
Tazio didn't burn them. Instead, he snapped the lighter shut, his jaw set in a hard, brutal line. He tossed the cards into the deepest compartment of the safe, followed by her passport and the keys to her old harbor flat.
He slammed the steel door shut. The electronic lock beeped twice, sealing them inside.
"They stay there," Tazio said, turning to face her. His chest was rising and falling rapidly, his eyes dark with an obsession that made the hairs on her neck stand on end. "You are done with the water, Sienna. You are done with salvage. You are done with the docks."
"You have no right!" she yelled. She stepped back, rubbing her wrist where his grip had been, her chest heaving with fury and betrayal. "You can't take my life away! I saved you! I dragged you out of that sea!"
"And I bought you with the life you gave me!" he roared back, the sound echoing through the cavernous study like a gunshot.
The sheer volume of his voice knocked the words from her mouth.
Tazio surged toward her, his expression twisting with an agonizing mix of rage, terror, and absolute possessiveness. His large hands reached out, moving to seize her shoulders, to physically haul her against him and command her obedience.
"Don't touch me!" Sienna cried, violently slapping his reaching hands away. She recoiled against the edge of the mahogany desk, her eyes blazing with raw fury. "Keep your hands off me, Tazio! Step back!"
Tazio froze instantly.
Her refusal struck him like a physical blow. His hands hung suspended in the empty air between them, his fingers twitching, the violent momentum abruptly arrested.
He didn't grab her. He didn't strike back or reassert control.
Instead, the predatory dominance drained out of his posture, leaving behind a stark, hollow shock. Slowly, deliberately, Tazio took two steps backward, dropping his arms to his sides. He yielded the floor, letting her breathe, accepting the sting of her rejection without retaliation.
The heavy silence stretched between them, thick with tension. He stood several paces away, giving her a completely clear path to the door, proving that she was not under physical threat.
