Elena stood frozen behind the hedge, her heart hammering so loud she was sure they could hear it.
The man — Alessandro — hadn't moved from where he stood nor Had he looked away. He was just standing there staring directly at the spot where she was hiding like he had x-ray vision or something and honestly at this point she wouldn't even be surprised if he did.
"Boss," one of the men said, nodding toward the hedge. "Someone's there."
Alessandro tilted his head slightly, like he was mildly inconvenienced and not like he had just shot someone thirty seconds ago. "I know" he said quietly.
Elena's brain was screaming at her to run. Her legs apparently did not get the memo because she wasn't moving, she was just standing there frozen like an idiot while the most dangerous man in Milan stared straight through a hedge at her.
"Bring her to me."
That got her legs working.
She spun around to flee and took exactly two steps before one of the men appeared in front of her like he had materialized out of thin air, which was unfair, deeply unfair, and she opened her mouth to scream and his hand came up immediately.
"I wouldn't do that" he said.
Elena closed her mouth.
He wasn't rough about it, he just took her arm, turned her around and walked her back toward the gate like she was a child who had wandered somewhere she shouldn't have, which was humiliating on top of everything else that was currently happening to her.
Alessandro was watching her walk toward him with that same unbothered expression he had when he shit that man and she hated him immediately, she decided that right then, before he had even opened his mouth again.
He looked at her for a moment.
Then he said "Elena Rossi."
It wasn't even like a question. He already knew her Ofcourse, many elites knew her.
She lifted her chin "you're in my garden" she said, because apparently that was what her brain decided to lead with.
He raised his brows, "I was invited" he replied.
"By who."
"Your father."
That landed somewhere uncomfortable in her chest but she kept her face neutral, she had been trained since childhood to keep her face neutral, it was basically the only useful thing those etiquette lessons had given her.
"It doesn't mean you should kill… somebody in my damn garden Mr." She snapped and he just smirked and stared at her.
She looked at him properly now that she was close enough to. He was tall, broader than he had looked from a distance, with dark eyes that were doing that thing where they moved over her face like they were reading her. His suit probably cost more than most people's cars. There was nothing about him that didn't look like a man who had just committed murder in someone's garden, which was perhaps the most disturbing thing about the whole situation but mmm he was a gorgeous man, no doubt about that.
"I won't say anything." Herwords came out quickly, practically tripping over each other "I swear, I didn't see anything, I was never here, I'll go back inside right now and—"
"Stop talking" he ordered like she was a mosquito making so much noise.
She stopped and inhaled sharply.
He clasped his hands behind his back and looked at her with the kind of patience that wasn't actually patience, it was just control wearing patience's clothes "you were somewhere you shouldn't have been" he said "and now you know something you shouldn't know."
"It was an accident—"
"I know that too."
"So then— let me"
"In my world" he said, cutting her off without raising his voice "accidents don't change outcomes."
Elena's stomach dropped.
She searched his face for mercy, hesitation, anything — and found nothing. Just those dark eyes looking back at her like she was a variable he was calculating.
She was going to die in her own garden in a dress that cost four thousand euros and Sofia was going to spend the rest of her life wondering what happened to her best friend. Oh no!
"I have a proposition for you little kitten." Alessandro said.
She blinked "what?"
He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and turned his phone toward her. He showed a photograph of her father, sitting across from men she didn't recognize, papers spread out between them, the kind of photograph that told a whole story without needing a single caption.
Elena's jaw tightened.
"Your father is a careful man" Alessandro said, pocketing the phone "but careful men still leave trails and I have every single one of them." He paused and smiled at her before he continued."I have no interest in destroying him. That would be inconvenient for everyone involved I guess, you know I'm such a good man." He said sarcastically.
"Then don't" she said.
"That depends entirely on you princess."
She looked at him "what do you want."
He held her gaze and said it simply, like it was the most reasonable thing in the world "come with me. Stay somewhere safe, somewhere I can keep an eye on you, until I decide the situation has been handled."
Elena stared at him "you want to keep me."
"I want to make sure you don't become a problem actually and like I said, I want to keep you safe."
"I just told you I won't say anything—"
"And I just told you that words don't mean much in my world" he said "I need something more reliable than a promise."
The music from the ballroom drifted over the hedges between them, something slow and elegant, completely disconnected from everything happening on this side of the estate. Elena could hear her father laughing somewhere inside. She could picture the whole room, golden and warm and completely oblivious.
She looked back at Alessandro.
"And what if I say no?"
He tilted his head slightly "I think you already know the answer to that actually."
She did. That was the worst part, she already knew.
Elena exhaled slowly through her nose and looked down at the ground for a moment, at her heels on the stone path, at the life she had been standing in twenty minutes ago before it had quietly, completely changed. Gosh! She shouldn't have come out!
"How long?" she asked.
"I'll let you know."
"That's not an—"
"It's the only answer I have" he said sternly. "you have ten minutes to go inside, say whatever you need to say, and come back here." He held her gaze one last time "don't test me by running Elena. I'd find you before you reached the fuckin street."
Then he turned away from her like the conversation was over because for him it was.
Elena stood at the gate for a long moment and laughed bitterly.
Then she turned around and walked back toward the house on legs that felt like heavy, the party noise getting louder with every step, the normal world pulling her back in even though she already knew she was leaving it.
Ten minutes.
She had ten minutes.