The dining room, a cavern of shadow and light, had never felt more like an arena. The massive slab of reclaimed oak, a single, sculptural piece that could comfortably seat twenty, seemed to stretch into an impossible distance, emphasizing the vast, empty space between its three solitary occupants. Overhead, a constellation of minimalist iron pendant lights cast isolated pools of warm gold onto the polished wood, leaving the corners of the room in deep, watchful shadow. The air, usually still and scentless, was now thick with the aroma of roasted fish and lemon, a meal prepared by a tense Mrs. Petrović before her discreet departure. But beneath the culinary perfume lay a heavier, more potent scent: the ozone tang of impending storm.
Jure sat at the head of the table, his throne. He had changed into a dark, tailored shirt, its expensive fabric doing little to soften the predatory bulk of his shoulders. He was a king holding court in a kingdom of one, and the presence of his son was a challenge to his absolute authority. His eyes, the colour of old whiskey, were flat and hard, missing nothing.
To his right, a concession to his son's presence that felt like a violation, sat Mirna. She was a vision of forced elegance, draped in the storm-grey silk dress Jure had bought her. The luxurious fabric, which should have flowed and shimmered, instead hung on her like a shroud, its provocative shortness making her posture even more rigid and self-conscious. She had tried to pull the hem down a dozen times since sitting, her movements small and frantic. She sat perfectly straight, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her spine not touching the back of the chair. She was a figurine on a shelf, beautiful, fragile, and utterly trapped.
Ante sat to his father's left, a deliberate placement that created a tense triangle. He had showered and changed into a clean, simple linen shirt, but he still carried the easy, sun-kenned air of the open sea, an aura that was fundamentally at odds with the claustrophobic tension of the room. His warm, brown eyes, so like his mother's, were troubled, constantly moving from his father's stony face to Mirna's terrified stillness.
The meal began in a silence so profound the click of silverware against porcelain was as jarring as gunshots. Mrs. Petrović's baked sea bass, stuffed with rosemary and fennel, was perfectly cooked, flaking apart at the touch of a fork. But only Ante seemed to have any appetite. He ate with a deliberate normalcy, trying to anchor the room in some semblance of a shared, human ritual.
"The fish is excellent," Ante said, his voice carefully neutral, trying to weave a thread of civility through the stifling quiet. "As good as I remember."
Jure grunted, not looking up from his plate. He took a slow sip of the expensive Pošip wine, his eyes fixed on Mirna. "Mirna doesn't eat much fish," he stated, as if she were not present. "Do you, Mirna?"
The sound of her name, spoken in that low, possessive rumble, made her flinch. Her eyes, wide and luminous, darted from Jure to Ante and back again, like a cornered animal assessing two different, unknown threats. She gave a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of her head.
"No?" Jure continued, his tone deceptively conversational. "I found her by the sea, but she seems to have little taste for its fruits. An irony, don't you think, Ante?"
Ante watched as his father's hand, large and tanned, left his wine glass and settled on Mirna's bare arm, just above the wrist. It was not a gentle touch. It was a claim, a brand. His fingers wrapped around her slender forearm, his thumb stroking the delicate skin there with a casual, terrifying intimacy.
Mirna went absolutely still. The color drained from her face, leaving her as pale as the white linen tablecloth. She stopped breathing for a moment, her entire being focused on that point of contact as if it were a source of searing pain. She didn't pull away. She simply endured, her body rigid, her eyes fixed on her untouched plate.
Ante's fork froze halfway to his mouth. The unease that had been simmering in his gut since he found her in the solarium now boiled over into a cold, sharp dread. This was not the dynamic of a host and a guest. This was not even the fraught relationship of a much older man and a young lover. This was the behavior of a warden and his prisoner. The possessive grip, the way he spoke about her as if she were an object, the sheer, paralyzing terror in her eyes—it painted a picture so dark it made Ante's blood run cold.
"She's very quiet," Ante observed, his voice tighter now, the pretense of casual conversation crumbling.
"Mirna is still recovering," Jure said, his thumb making another slow, deliberate circle on her skin. Mirna flinched again, a full-body shudder she couldn't suppress. "She has no memory, you see. Of anything before I found her. She is… a blank slate. Dependent."
He said the word "dependent" with a dark, sensual satisfaction, as if it were the highest form of compliment. He was proudly displaying his absolute power over her, flaunting her helplessness to his son.
Ante felt a surge of nausea. A blank slate. His father, a man whose conscience had been eroded by decades of ruthless acquisition, had found a beautiful young woman with no past, no identity, no one in the world to miss her. And he had brought her here, to this isolated fortress, and was now in the process of inscribing his own warped desires upon her.
Mirna's eyes met Ante's for a fleeting second across the vast table. In that brief connection, he saw it all: the silent scream, the desperate plea for help, the bottomless well of fear. It was a look that bypassed thought and spoke directly to his soul. Then, just as quickly, her gaze skittered away, dropping back to her plate, as if even that momentary connection was a dangerous transgression.
Jure saw the exchange. A dark cloud passed over his features. His grip on Mirna's arm tightened infinitesimally. "Eat something, Mirna," he commanded, his voice losing its false warmth. "You need your strength."
He released her arm to gesture towards her plate with his fork. The moment his hand was gone, a tiny, shuddering breath escaped her, the first Ante had seen her take in minutes. She picked up her fork with a trembling hand and pushed a single, tiny piece of fish around her plate. She lifted it to her lips, but she couldn't seem to make herself eat it. She placed the fork back down, the food untouched.
The rest of the meal passed in a suffocating parody of a family dinner. Jure attempted to steer the conversation towards Ante's work, a transparent effort to reassert a normal father-son dynamic, but his questions were sharp, probing for weaknesses, for failures. Ante answered tersely, his attention irrevocably captured by the silent, trembling girl across the table.
He watched the subtle language of her terror. The way she jumped when Jure's knife clinked too loudly against his plate. The way she subtly leaned away from him whenever he shifted in his seat. The absolute, frozen obedience that was so much more frightening than any outburst of tears or anger. This was a terror that had been baked into her, a constant, humming state of being.
When Mrs. Petrović's famous rozata was served, its creamy caramel custard a sweet, familiar memory from Ante's childhood, the tension reached its peak. Jure took a bite and made a show of enjoying it.
"Mirna has a sweet tooth, I've found," he said, a sly, knowing look in his eye. He picked up his own spoon, scooped up a portion of his dessert, and held it out to her lips. "Here. Try it."
It was the most intimate, most dominative gesture of the evening. He was not asking her to feed herself; he was feeding her, like a child, or a pet. It was a public demonstration of her total submission.
Mirna stared at the spoon as if it were a weapon. Her lips parted slightly, but they were trembling too much. A small, choked sound, a sob strangled in her throat, escaped her.
That was the final straw for Ante.
"I think she's capable of feeding herself, Father," Ante said, his voice cold and clear, cutting through the thick air like a blade.
The silence that followed was explosive. Jure's head snapped towards his son, his eyes narrowing to dangerous slits. The spoon remained hovering in the air between them.
"I am taking care of her," Jure said, each word dripping with icy venom. "She is my responsibility. I suggest you remember that."
"She's a person, not a responsibility," Ante shot back, his own temper, usually so even, finally fraying. "And she looks terrified."
The word hung in the air, undeniable and damning. Terrified.
Jure's face darkened with a thunderous rage. Slowly, deliberately, he placed the spoon back on his own plate with a sharp, final click. He never took his eyes off his son.
Mirna saw the storm breaking between them. The conflict, the raised voices—it was her worst nightmare amplified. With a small, desperate whimper, she pushed her chair back from the table, the legs screeching against the marble floor. She didn't look at either of them. She simply fled, a blur of grey silk and flying hair, disappearing from the dining room and leaving a void of charged, hostile silence in her wake.
Jure turned his furious gaze from the empty doorway to his son. The pretense was gone. The mask of the civilized host had shattered.
"You will not interfere," Jure said, his voice a low, dangerous whisper. "Do you understand me? She is mine."
Ante stared at his father, the man he had spent a lifetime trying to understand, to please, to distance himself from. In that moment, he saw him with a terrifying clarity. He wasn't just a difficult man. He was a monster. And he had a beautiful, broken bird in his cage.
"No, Father," Ante said, standing up from the table, his meal unfinished, his appetite gone. "I don't understand. And I don't think I ever will."
He turned and walked out, leaving Jure alone at the head of the vast, empty table, a king in a crumbling castle, his fist clenched white around his wine glass, the ghost of her fear and his son's defiance hanging heavy in the air. The battle lines had been drawn, not over business or legacy, but over the soul of a girl who had no memory, and the war for Mirna had just begun.