Chapter 6
"Do you think Donato will care about your father’s clean logs?" Tazio whispered, his voice hoarse, shaking with a desperate, ragged intensity from across the desk. "Do you think the syndicate listens to affidavits? If you put your name on a single official sheet of paper regarding that yacht, Donato will have your skin peeled off while you are still breathing, just to see if your father left you a secret account in Switzerland! You don't understand the world you stepped into, Sienna! You think this is the harbor police? This is hell. And the only reason you are still drawing breath is because you belong to me!"
Sienna stood tall, her hands braced on the wood behind her. She did not shrink. She was completely free of his physical grip, her mind racing as she absorbed the raw, frantic terror bleeding through his words.
He wasn't acting like a mobster disciplining a subordinate. He was acting like a man who had seen an executioner's blade descending on her neck.
"I am keeping you alive," he murmured, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, visibly restraining himself from closing the distance. His dark eyes were glossy with a tortured devotion that seemed on the verge of splintering him entirely. "You think I am your captor, *piccola*. But I am the only wall between you and a shallow grave in the lemon groves. If you walk into Donato's sights, I cannot save you."
He stood in the dim glow of the lamp, completely defenseless to her judgment, making no move to enforce his will.
"Never ask for your license again," he pleaded, his voice breaking into a ragged rasp. "Never speak of that night to the syndicate. Swear it to me."
Sienna looked at him.
The door was unlocked behind her; the wide corridor was empty. She could run. She could scream. But looking across the space at the Prince of the Cliffs, stripped of his imperious arrogance, standing exposed and waiting for her answer, she realized the terrifying depth of his conviction. He genuinely believed he was standing between her and a butcher's block.
She took a slow, steadying breath. Under her own power, without coercion, Sienna crossed the room.
She stopped right in front of him, looking up into the bruised darkness of his gaze. She raised her hand and pressed her palm flat against the center of his chest.
His heart was hammering under the silk shirt like a trapped animal.
"I swear I won't go to Donato," she said, her voice quiet, steady, and clear. "I swear it because I don't want to die in a cellar. But hear me, Tazio—do not ever lay hands on me like that again. You don't own me. You don't get to cage me with your grip."
Tazio’s breath hitched. His eyes closed for a fraction of a second, an expression of profound, aching relief washing over his carved features.
"I hear you," he murmured, his voice hoarse.
When he opened his eyes, the obsidian depths were steady, reverent, waiting. He slowly lifted one hand, hovering his fingers an inch above her cheek, asking without words.
"May I?" he whispered.
Sienna held his gaze. In the quiet of the study, the danger and the dark magnetism of this man pulled at her like an undertow, but this time, the choice was entirely hers.
She gave a small, deliberate nod and tilted her face upward, meeting him halfway.
Tazio’s palm settled against her cheek with unbearable gentleness, warm and steady. His mouth touched hers—not with the punishing violence of a jailer, but with a slow, restrained hunger that tasted of dark wine, salt, and desperate gratitude.
Sienna didn't turn away. Her fingers curled into the lapels of his jacket, anchoring herself against him as the kiss deepened, dark and dizzying, a mutual pact sealed in the shadows.
When he finally pulled back, he rested his forehead against hers, both of them breathing in the quiet air of the room. His thumb brushed softly over the curve of her cheekbone.
"You're safe," he whispered against her lips. "I won't let them touch you. I swear on my life."
Sienna looked at him, feeling the warmth of his skin, and wondered why the promise made the air in the room feel so impossibly thin.
***
It was nearly two in the morning when the villa finally descended into silence.
Donato and his convoy had departed an hour earlier, the rumble of their heavy diesel engines fading down the Amalfi coast road toward Salerno. Tazio had been called down to the security gate to oversee the changing of the perimeter watch and inspect the lower terrace sensors.
Sienna lay in the vast king-sized bed in the master suite, staring up at the vaulted ceiling.
The sheets were silk, smooth and cool against her skin, but they felt like a shroud. Her mind was a chaotic whirlpool of conflicting signals.
*Why did he lie about the crew?*
The question refused to leave her. It gnawed at the back of her brain like a rat in the bilge.
Gianni was not a novice. Paolo was an expert marine engineer. If the steering had failed, Paolo would have known how to drop the manual emergency sea anchors within ninety seconds to keep the yacht off the rocks.
And then there was the position of the wreck itself.
Sienna closed her eyes, visualizing the nautical charts she had studied since childhood.
The Faraglioni reef sits on an underwater shelf that angles thirty degrees outward. If a fifty-foot motor yacht lost power north of the shoal during a force-seven squall, the surface current—running south-southwest—would have swept the drifting hull *clear* of the jagged rocks, pushing it into the open waters of the bay.
For the *Sirena* to strike the Faraglioni where it did, the vessel couldn't have been drifting dead in the water.
It had to have been steered directly into the shoals. Under power.
A cold bead of sweat trickled down Sienna's spine.
She sat up in bed, pushing the heavy duvet aside. The room was dark, illuminated only by the faint silver moonlight reflecting off the sea through the panoramic glass wall.
She slipped out of bed, her bare feet making no sound on the polished parquet floor. She needed water. Her throat felt parched, lined with dust and the ghost of dried salt.
She walked toward the ornate bedside table to pour a glass from the crystal carafe. As she reached for the tumbler, her silver bracelet—an old charm bracelet her father had given her, the only piece of jewelry she had kept from her old life—caught on the heavy fringe of the silk lampshade.
The lamp wobbled. Sienna reached out quickly to steady it, her fingers brushing the brass base.
A sharp, metallic *clink* sounded beneath the wood.
Sienna paused.
She leaned down, inspecting the heavy baroque nightstand. The table was an antique piece of carved walnut, anchored securely against the wall paneling. But beneath the lower rim, just above the skirting board, something didn't belong.
She dropped to her knees, tilting her head to catch the sliver of moonlight.
Tucked into the narrow gap between the back of the nightstand and the wainscoting was a small, matte-black rectangular box, no larger than a matchbook.
