Elena Voss had never liked the dark.

Not the soft kind that settled over New York after midnight, full of taxi horns and distant sirens. The real dark. The kind that swallowed sound and left only the rush of blood in her ears. That was the dark that found her on a narrow road outside Palermo, the night the sky refused to show a single star.

She had come to Sicily for work. A high-paying private event for a client who wanted “authentic Mediterranean elegance” and refused to listen when she suggested a venue closer to civilization. Three days of site visits, vendor meetings, and smiling through language barriers had left her exhausted. All she wanted was the quiet of her hotel room and a glass of something cold. Instead, her rental car sputtered once, twice, then died on a stretch of road lined with black trees and nothing else.

She sat behind the wheel for a full minute, staring at the dark dashboard. No phone signal. No passing headlights. Only the low hum of cicadas and the faint smell of salt carried on the wind from the sea she could not see.

“Fantastic,” she muttered, and climbed out.

The night air was warmer than she expected, thick with the scent of dry earth and something floral she could not name. She opened the hood because that was what people did in movies, even though she knew nothing about engines. The metal was still hot under her palms. She leaned in, phone flashlight shaky in her hand, and tried to pretend she had a plan.

She never heard the car approach.

One moment the road was empty. The next, twin beams cut through the dark and pinned her in place. A black SUV rolled to a stop twenty feet away. The doors opened. Two men stepped out. Broad. Silent. The kind of silence that felt practiced.

Elena straightened slowly, heart already climbing into her throat.

“I don’t need help,” she said, voice steadier than she felt. “I’m fine.”

Neither man answered. One moved to the left, the other to the right, cutting off any path back to the driver’s side. She took a step backward and felt the bumper of her useless car press against her thighs.

“I said I’m fine.”

The larger of the two reached her first. His hand closed around her upper arm—not bruising, but firm enough to make the message clear. She twisted hard, drove her elbow back, and connected with something solid. He grunted. The second man was already there. A cloth pressed over her mouth and nose. Chemical sweetness flooded her lungs.

She fought. Kicked. Scratched. The world tilted sideways. Her knees gave out. The last thing she saw was the black open mouth of the SUV and the cold glitter of a watch on a stranger’s wrist as he caught her before she hit the ground.

—

She woke to the sound of water.

Not the sea. Something smaller. A fountain, maybe. Soft, rhythmic. Her head throbbed in time with it. She was lying on something firm and expensive—leather, from the smell. A couch. Her wrists were free. So were her ankles. That detail registered slowly, through the fog.

Elena opened her eyes.

The room was large and dimly lit by two lamps with heavy shades. Stone walls. Dark wood. Floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto a night so black it could have been the edge of the world. She was still wearing the same clothes from earlier: white blouse, black trousers, the low heels she had regretted the moment she put them on. Someone had removed her blazer and folded it neatly over the arm of a chair.

She sat up too fast. The room spun.

A door opened to her left.

The man who walked in did not look like someone who needed to kidnap women off dark roads. He looked like the kind of man who had other people do it for him. Tall. Broad through the shoulders. Black shirt open at the throat. Dark hair pushed back from a face that belonged on a sculpture and then ruined with something harder. A scar cut through his left eyebrow. His eyes were the color of wet stone.

He stopped a few feet away and studied her the way a man might study a new acquisition.

“You’re awake,” he said. His English was smooth, the accent Italian but controlled. “Good.”

Elena’s pulse slammed against her ribs. She swung her legs off the couch and stood, ignoring the way the floor tilted. “Who the hell are you?”

“Luca Ferrante.”

The name meant nothing to her. She filed it away anyway. “Where am I?”

“My home.”

“I want to leave.”

“No.”

The single word landed with quiet finality. He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. Elena felt the first real spike of fear then—not the sharp kind from the roadside, but something colder that settled low in her stomach.

She forced her chin up. “You can’t just take people.”

“I already did.”

He walked closer. She held her ground until he was near enough that she had to tip her head back to meet his eyes. He smelled clean—soap, something woodsy, and underneath it the faint metallic hint of danger. Up close, the scar looked older than she expected. His gaze moved over her face, her throat, the open collar of her blouse, with open, unhurried interest.

“You were careless,” he said. “Alone on that road. No signal. No one waiting for you. Easy.”

“Fuck you.”

A faint smile touched his mouth and vanished. “We will get to that.”

Heat flashed through her—anger, disbelief, and something else she refused to name. She took a step back. He followed. Another step. Her shoulders hit the stone wall. He placed one hand beside her head and leaned in just enough that she felt the heat of his body without quite touching her.

“My men will not hurt you unless you make it necessary,” he said. “Neither will I. Not in the way you’re imagining. But you are not leaving. Not tonight. Not for a long time.”

“Why?”

His eyes dropped to her mouth. “Because I decided I want you.”

The simplicity of it was almost worse than a complicated reason. Elena’s breath came shorter. She could feel the wall at her back and the solid presence of him in front of her, caging her without even using his hands.

“You don’t know me.”

“I know enough.” His voice dropped. “I watched you for three days. The way you walk. The way you argue with vendors who try to cheat you. The way you smile at strangers when you think no one is looking. I decided then.”

Nausea rolled through her. “You’re insane.”

“Possibly.” He lifted his free hand and brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek with the back of his fingers. The touch was light. It still made her flinch. “You have one year, Elena Voss.”

Hearing her full name in his mouth felt like a violation of its own.

“One year,” he repeated. “You will stay here. You will eat at my table. Sleep under my roof. You will not try to run, because there is nowhere to go that I cannot find you. In that time, I will take what I want from you. Your body. Your time. Your resistance. If, before the year ends, you fall in love with me… you may stay. If not, I will put you on a plane and you will never see me again.”

She stared at him. “That’s not a choice. That’s a threat dressed up as one.”

“It is the only offer you will get.”

His hand moved from her hair to the side of her throat, resting there, thumb brushing the hinge of her jaw. Not squeezing. Just present. Claiming the space. Elena’s pulse hammered against his fingers. She hated that he could feel it.

“And if I say no?”

“You already did. It changes nothing.”

He leaned closer. His mouth hovered near her ear. When he spoke again, the words were soft enough that only she could hear them.

“I am going to ruin every idea you have about what you can endure. And when I am finished, you will not know whether you want to kill me or beg me to keep going.”

Elena turned her head sharply, intending to spit something vicious, but his mouth caught hers instead.

The kiss was not gentle. It was a statement. His lips parted hers with steady pressure, tongue sliding against hers in a slow, deliberate claim. One of his hands stayed at her throat; the other gripped her hip and pulled her flush against him. She felt the hard line of his body, the controlled strength in every line of him. For a second she went rigid. Then she bit him.

He made a low sound that was almost a laugh and kissed her harder, tasting the small violence she offered like it pleased him. When he finally pulled back, her lips felt swollen and her breathing was uneven.

Luca looked at her for a long moment, eyes darker than before.

“Sleep,” he said. “Tomorrow we begin.”

He stepped away, and the sudden absence of his heat left her colder than the stone at her back. He walked to the door without looking over his shoulder.

“Someone will bring you food and clothes. Do not try the windows. The fall will kill you before my men ever reach you.”

The door closed behind him with a soft, expensive click.

Elena stayed against the wall until her legs threatened to give out. Then she slid down to the floor, arms wrapped around her knees, and stared at the dark windows that showed her nothing but her own reflection—wide-eyed, mouth reddened, hair mussed from a stranger’s hands.

Somewhere in the house, water still trickled from the fountain she could not see.

One year.

She had three hundred and sixty-five days to survive the man who had decided she already belonged to him.

And the worst part—the part that made her press her thighs together and hate herself for it—was the faint, traitorous heat still lingering where his body had pressed against hers.

She closed her eyes and tried to remember how to breathe.