Freedom arrived quietly.
Not with open gates or loosened guards, not with promises or permission-but with absence. The subtle, unsettling absence of Luciano De Luca's immediate presence. It happened so gradually that I almost didn't notice at first. Almost.
The mansion still breathed with vigilance. Guards still stood at their posts. Cameras still watched. Men still moved with calculated precision. But Luciano-Luciano was suddenly... elsewhere.
Gone before sunrise. Meetings that stretched into the afternoon. Calls taken behind locked doors. His shadow, once constant, now flickered in and out of my days like a mirage.
And that was how the illusion began.
I woke that morning expecting to feel the familiar pressure-the invisible weight of his gaze pressing against my spine even when he wasn't in the room. Instead, there was silence. Space. A strange, hollow quiet that felt less like peace and more like the calm before something catastrophic.
I sat up slowly, scanning the room. Nothing had changed. And yet everything had.
No guards inside the suite.
No orders barked outside my door.
No silent reminder that I was being monitored every second.
For the first time since arriving in Luciano De Luca's world, I was alone.
Or so it seemed.
I tested it cautiously.
I walked the halls without announcing myself. No one stopped me. I went down the main staircase-something I hadn't done without escort in weeks. Still no reaction. Even the staff seemed less tense, less watchful, as if they'd been instructed to give me space.
By midmorning, the thought crept in uninvited.
Is this it?
The idea felt dangerous just thinking it. Freedom didn't belong in my vocabulary anymore. It was a word that had lost meaning the moment Luciano took me as collateral for my father's debt.
And yet.
I stepped into the garden.
No shadow followed.
The gates stood open-not wide, not inviting, but unlocked.
I laughed softly, the sound foreign to my own ears. It felt wrong. Too easy. Too deliberate.
Luciano De Luca did nothing without intent.
Which meant this wasn't freedom.
It was a test.
I didn't see him all day.
No messages.
No warnings.
No sudden appearances from the shadows.
And the more time passed, the more unsettled I became.
Because Luciano wasn't the kind of man who relinquished control.
He was the kind who tightened it invisibly.
By evening, I made my first real mistake.
I left the estate.
Not far. Just a short walk beyond the gates, down the private road that curved toward the city. The guards didn't stop me. One of them even nodded, stepping aside as if this were normal. As if I had always been allowed to leave.
My heart pounded as the mansion disappeared behind me.
Each step felt rebellious. Dangerous. Thrilling.
I expected fear.
Instead, I felt alive.
The city noise reached me gradually-cars, voices, life continuing without awareness of Luciano De Luca's rules. It felt unreal, like stepping into a memory instead of reality. People passed me without looking twice. No one bowed their head. No one whispered my name.
For the first time in weeks, I was just a woman walking alone.
And that was when I felt it.
The shift.
The air changed. Not dramatically-subtly. A prickle along my spine. The unmistakable sensation of being watched.
I stopped walking.
The street was busy. Too busy. And yet the awareness sharpened until my chest tightened.
Luciano's eyes weren't absent.
They were simply farther away.
I didn't see the man who brushed past me.
I felt him.
His shoulder clipped mine too deliberately. His hand lingered a second too long. My instincts screamed before my mind caught up.
"Sorry," he muttered, already moving on.
But the fear remained.
I turned slowly, scanning faces, searching for something I couldn't name.
That was when my phone vibrated.
One message.
Luciano:
Turn around. Walk back. Now.
My blood ran cold.
I didn't argue.
I didn't hesitate.
I turned and retraced my steps, pulse roaring in my ears. I didn't know how he knew. I didn't know how he saw.
But he always did.
I made it halfway back before I saw him.
Luciano stood beside a black car parked discreetly at the corner, his expression carved from stone. The city lights reflected faintly in his dark eyes, making them look almost black.
Furious.
Controlled.
Terrifying.
"You enjoyed it," he said calmly as I approached.
It wasn't a question.
"I just wanted to walk," I said quietly.
"You walked," he replied. "And now you understand why I don't allow it."
"I didn't ask for permission," I said, defiance slipping out before I could stop it.
His jaw tightened.
"No," he agreed softly. "You didn't."
The drive back to the mansion was silent.
Not the comfortable silence of mutual understanding, but the charged stillness of something coiled too tightly. I could feel his anger vibrating beneath the surface-not explosive, not reckless, but deliberate.
The most dangerous kind.
Once inside, he dismissed everyone with a single glance. Doors closed. The world narrowed to just us.
"You think freedom means absence," he said finally. "You think because I'm not beside you, you are free."
I didn't answer.
He stepped closer.
"Freedom," he continued, "is knowing exactly how far you can go before everything collapses."
I met his gaze. "Then why let me leave at all?"
His eyes darkened.
"Because you needed to see it," he said. "Because you needed to understand that the world doesn't stop wanting you just because I step back."
I clenched my fists. "That man-"
"Was sent," Luciano interrupted coldly. "Not to take you. Not yet. To mark your routine. To confirm something."
My stomach dropped.
"To confirm what?"
"That you would try."
Silence swallowed the room.
"You staged it," I whispered.
"Yes."
Rage flared in my chest. "You let me think I was free."
"I let you experience the illusion of it," he corrected. "There is a difference."
He moved closer, stopping just inches away.
"You are safest when you are watched," he said quietly. "And you are most vulnerable when you believe you are not."
I hated that he was right.
Hated that the world beyond him felt more dangerous than the cage he built.
"You didn't stop me," I said. "You watched."
His gaze burned. "I always watch."
The words weren't romantic.
They were a sentence.
That night, lying in bed, I finally understood the truth that had been circling me since the beginning.
Luciano De Luca didn't deny me freedom because he was cruel.
He denied it because freedom, in his world, was lethal.
And worse than that-
He had taught me to associate safety with captivity.
Protection with possession.
Control with survival.
The illusion of freedom wasn't leaving his world.
It was believing I could survive outside of it.
And as sleep finally claimed me, one terrifying thought echoed in my mind:
If this was only the illusion...
What would real freedom cost me?