Chapter 38 -
Lucia turned, fixing Nia with a look that was part challenge and part solidarity. "Because you stood up for Gabriel this morning. Because you looked Christian in the eye and called him out on his bullshit. And because I think you are going slowly insane trapped in that pretty room with nothing but your thoughts for company."
She was not wrong. The boredom had been eating at Nia—the endless hours with nothing to do but stare at the chandelier and wonder if today was the day her luck ran out.
"Besides," Lucia continued, moving toward a different section, "small rebellions are all I have left. If I cannot divorce my husband or tell my father to go to hell, I can at least share my books with someone who might actually appreciate them."
Nia followed her past shelf after shelf: history, philosophy, poetry, and fiction organized by era and then alphabetically. Her fingers itched to touch everything, to pull down random volumes and lose herself in words that had nothing to do with kidnapping, murder, or impossible situations.
"Take your time," Lucia said, settling into a leather chair near one of the windows. "We have at least an hour before anyone notices we are gone. Rosa thinks I am having a breakdown in my room, which is not entirely inaccurate. And Matteo is probably having a heart attack trying to figure out where you went."
"You ditched Matteo?" Nia paused, one hand on a spine that read Jane Eyre.
"I told him I needed female time. He looked so uncomfortable he practically ran away." Lucia's smile turned wicked. "Men in this house are terrified of women's emotions. It is our greatest weapon."
Nia laughed despite herself. The sound felt foreign. When was the last time she had actually laughed? Not the bitter, sarcastic kind, but real laughter that came from genuine amusement.
"Go on," Lucia urged, gesturing to the shelves. "Explore. Touch things. This is a judgment-free zone."
So Nia did. She ran her fingers along spines, reading titles at random. Some she recognized; most she did not. There were books in languages she could not identify, let alone read. Italian, probably—maybe Latin. The collection spanned centuries, from leather-bound volumes that looked like they predated electricity to paperbacks with cracked spines and dog-eared pages.
It was the paperbacks that drew her. They felt more real somehow—more human—as if someone had actually held them, loved them, and returned to them over and over until the pages wore soft.
She found herself in a section dedicated to classics: Bronte, Austen, Dickens, Shelley. Her heart skipped when she spotted a worn copy of Wuthering Heights wedged between two pristine hardcovers. The cover was faded and the corners bent; someone had loved this book to death and back. Nia pulled it free carefully, cradling it in her palms like something precious. The pages fell open to a passage near the middle, and she saw cramped handwriting in the margin.
"Heathcliff is an ass but I understand him."
The handwriting was masculine—sharp angles and abbreviated words. Nia traced the ink with her fingertip, wondering who had written it. Leo? One of his brothers? Some previous generation of DeSantos with too much time and too many feelings?
"Find something good?" Lucia asked from her chair.
"Wuthering Heights. One of my favorites." Nia held it up so Lucia could see the battered cover. "Someone annotated it."
Lucia's expression softened. "That was Andrea. She loved that book. Read it at least a dozen times. Leo kept her copy after she died. Could not bring himself to get rid of it."
Nia's throat tightened. Andrea—the ghost that haunted this house more thoroughly than any specter. The woman Leo had loved; the woman whose death had set all of this in motion.
"I should not take this then," Nia said, moving to put it back.
"No." Lucia stood, crossing to her. "Take it. Andrea would have wanted someone to read it. She hated the idea of books sitting on shelves gathering dust. She always said stories were meant to be shared, not hoarded."
"But Leo..."
"What Leo does not know will not hurt him," Lucia repeated. She took the book from Nia's hands and pressed it back into her palms, closing Nia's fingers around it. "Andrea would have liked you, I think. She had the same fire. The same refusal to be intimidated by powerful men."
Nia looked down at the book. At Andrea's handwriting preserved in blue ink: Heathcliff is an ass but I understand him.
"You can borrow anything you want," Lucia said, stepping back. "Consider it a perk of surviving breakfast with the DeSantos. God knows you have earned it."
"Really?" The word came out smaller than intended. Hope was dangerous in this house, but Nia could not help the way it bloomed in her chest. Books. Access to stories. A window into worlds that were not this one.
Lucia's smile was genuine. "Really. Just try not to let Leo see you with Andrea's copy. He has been touchy about her things since she died. But anything else? Fair game."
Nia clutched the book to her chest, feeling something in her ease for the first time since she had been taken. "Thank you. You have no idea what this means."
"Oh, I think I do." Lucia returned to her chair, tucking her legs under her. "I have been trapped in this house a lot longer than you have. Books are the only thing that keep me sane. Well, books and plotting elaborate revenge fantasies against my husband."
"Any good ones?" Nia asked, settling onto the floor near a shelf, the book still pressed against her heart.
"Currently working on one involving superglue and his favorite suit." Lucia's eyes gleamed with mischief. "But I am open to suggestions."
They talked for the next hour—about books, about the mansion, about nothing and everything. For those sixty minutes, Nia almost forgot she was a prisoner. She almost forgot the clock ticking down on her life, or that outside this room, men with guns were deciding her fate.
But only almost. Because even in the sanctuary of the library, she could feel the weight of the house—the secrets buried in its walls and the blood that had been spilled in pursuit of power and revenge. And somewhere in the maze of corridors, Leonardo DeSanto was hunting for answers she did not have—answers that might get her killed.