Chapter 3 - The House That Never Went Dark
Roman DeLuca's mansion had seventy-three rooms.
At night, every single one remained illuminated.
Hallways.
Bathrooms.
Closets.
Guest rooms nobody used.
Even the swimming pool glowed beneath underwater lamps until sunrise.
Sienna noticed immediately.
“You're afraid of the dark.”
Roman stood beside the library fireplace.
“No.”
“You own approximately four thousand light bulbs that disagree.”
His jaw tightened.
Five years earlier, Roman and his younger brother Nico had been kidnapped by a rival crew.
They had been locked underground for three days.
No windows.
No light.
Roman escaped.
Nico didn't.
Roman never slept in darkness again.
But lately even light wasn't enough.
He slept forty minutes at a time.
Sometimes less.
His doctors prescribed medication.
He refused it.
His security team rotated outside his bedroom.
It made no difference.
Until the opera house.
Until Sienna.
“Why me?” she asked.
“I don't know.”
“That isn't reassuring.”
Roman placed an envelope on the table.
Twenty thousand dollars.
“For one night.”
Sienna stared at it.
Lucy needed tuition next year.
The mortgage company had given her thirty days.
Twenty thousand dollars represented months of breathing room.
“Rules,” Sienna said.
Roman raised an eyebrow.
“I stay in the chair. You stay on your side of the room. You don't touch me. Nobody takes my phone. I leave whenever I want.”
“Agreed.”
“And I don't work for the mafia.”
Roman's mouth curved faintly.
“Of course not.”
“That sounded sarcastic.”
“It was.”
Sienna sat in the leather chair beside his bed.
She opened an electrical engineering manual.
Roman lay down.
The lamps remained on.
Twenty minutes passed.
Then thirty.
Then she heard his breathing change.
He was asleep.
Not restless.
Not fighting nightmares.
Simply asleep.
Sienna looked over the book.
The most feared man in Philadelphia was lying beneath a gray blanket with one tattooed hand resting beside his face.
He looked younger asleep.
Less dangerous.
Almost ordinary.
At 6:15 a.m., Roman opened his eyes.
He had slept seven uninterrupted hours.
He stared at the ceiling.
Then at Sienna.
She was asleep in the chair with the manual across her stomach.
Roman quietly stood.
Marco appeared at the doorway.
“How long?” he whispered.
“Seven hours.”
Marco stared.
Roman looked back at Sienna.
“Pay her forty thousand.”
“You promised twenty.”
“I changed my mind.”
Marco smiled.
“That sounds dangerous.”
Roman's expression became unreadable.
May you like
“It is.”
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