THE WOLF'S OBSESESION - He wasn't supposed to Love Me

She woke up owned.

No warning. No transition. Just dark, and cold, and the specific understanding that everything had changed while she was unconscious.

Her wrists were zip-tied behind her. Feet bare. A gag behind her teeth tight enough that the corners of her mouth had split.

She didn't remember the window she'd left cracked. The hand over her mouth. The men's voices — low, professional, no shouting.

Shouting would have been better.

She opened her eyes.

High ceilings. Exposed beams. Not her apartment. Not anywhere.

The mattress under her was clean.

That detail snagged. They'd taken her in the night and the mattress was clean. She didn't know what to do with that.

A door opened.

Three men. Two large ones who looked at the wall. And a smaller man — older, gold watch, cigarette half-done. He walked toward her and she scrambled back before she decided not to.

Hit the wall. Pressed flat.

He crouched. Level with her face.

"Your father owes fifty million dollars," he said. Almost gentle. "He has thirty days."

He touched her hair. One stroke.

"Every day he's late—" He spread his hands. "We improvise."

He stood. Said something to the wall. The large men moved.

The elevator was mirrored.

She saw herself. Wild hair. Tear-tracked. Split corners of her mouth. Sleep shorts. Bare feet.

I look like someone this is happening to.

She hated the thought. Hated that it was accurate.

The doors opened into a penthouse.

Dark wood. Leather. Books on three walls, clearly read. No art anywhere — not one painting, not one photograph. She'd spent six years restoring other people's art. She knew what it meant when a room had walls but no windows into anything.

A man stood at the actual window. Back to her. Tall. Dark hair greying at the temples. White shirt, sleeves rolled.

He wasn't watching the city.

He was waiting. The difference was in his shoulders.

He didn't turn when they pushed her to her knees.

Her chin lifted. She hadn't decided to do that.

"De Luca." The small man. "The Rossi girl."

The man turned.

His face was the kind that made you understand the word sharp. High cheekbones. Dark eyes. A scar from his left brow to his hairline. His mouth a straight line — not cruel, not kind.

He walked toward her. Slow. Not theatrical.

He stopped. Looked down.

"Untie her," he said.

Quiet. Almost soft. The bodyguards moved like they'd been shocked.

The zip ties snapped. Her arms screamed. She brought her hands forward and did not look away from him.

He reached down. Found the knot of the gag. His fingers brushed her jaw — careful, unhurried — and untied it.

The cloth fell away.

"Water," he said.

A bottle appeared. He uncapped it himself. Held it out.

Something animal said don't.

She took it. Drank. Hated how good it felt.

He waited without watching her drink. He looked past her shoulder. Every man in that room was watching her. He was the only one who wasn't.

When she lowered the bottle he took it and crouched. Level with her face.

"Do you know who I am?"

"No."

"Dante De Luca." Simple. "Your father stole fifty million dollars from my family."

"My father doesn't have—"

"He used your name. Your accounts. Your signature on the wire transfers." Still quiet. "When the FBI finds the trail — and they will — every line points to you. Not him."

Elena's hands went still.

"He's gone," Dante said. "Left the country three days ago. Your stepmother with him. Fifteen million." Something crossed his face — not pity. The thing that exists just before pity when pity isn't something you allow yourself. "He left you here as the decoy."

The quiet in the room was total.

Her father at Christmas. Pouring wine. You're too smart for your own good, bambina. His hand on her shoulder. The smell of his cologne.

"You're lying," she said.

Dante didn't react.

The silence stretched. Something cracked behind her ribs. Not her heart. Smaller. The place where she'd kept his face.

"Why would you tell me this?" she asked.

"Because I want you to understand what you're here for." He stood. She tilted her head back to keep looking at him and did. "Your father has thirty days. Every day he doesn't pay, I take something from you."

"And after thirty days?"

"We renegotiate."

"What's the last thing?" she asked.

He paused.

Half a second. She saw it — a man asked something he didn't have a prepared answer for. His eyes moved to her face a fraction too fast.

There. She filed it away.

"The last thing you take," she said. "You said every day. What's at the end?"

"Your hope," he said.

He held her eyes when he said it.

"Take her upstairs," he said to the room. "The room at the end of the hall. Not the basement."

Her room had a bed. A window with the latch removed. A bathroom with no lock.

She sat on the edge of the bed.

Not the basement.

She thought about that. About the mattress that had been clean. About the water he'd uncapped himself. About the way he'd looked past her shoulder — like watching her would have been a kind of taking he hadn't decided to do yet.

She pressed her hands flat on her thighs. Looked at the window.

She wasn't going anywhere.

But she also wasn't crying anymore.

She didn't know when she'd stopped.

Your hope, he'd said.

But he'd flinched first.

Fresh zip ties on the same raw marks.

Elena stood between two bodyguards in the elevator. Feet still bare. Throat still copper. Two hours of sleep and her knees already remembered last night's marble.

She knew where she was going without being told.

The doors opened.

Same room. Same windows. Dawn bleeding gold across Manhattan — indifferent, enormous, unconcerned.

Dante sat in the leather armchair at the center of the room. Legs crossed. White shirt still untucked, sleeves still rolled. Like he'd never gone to bed or didn't need to.

His eyes found her the moment the doors opened.

Didn't move while they walked her in.

Aldo stood behind him. Already smiling.

"Put her there," Dante said.

Her knees hit marble. Pain shot up her thighs. She bit the inside of her cheek.

Made no sound.

She would not make a sound.

Dante waited. He had the patience of something that didn't need to hurry. Waited until her breathing s