The house did not welcome her.
It consumed her.
By the third morning, Mila realized the estate had a rhythm—and she was only a note in its pulse, one small sound among many. The walls seemed to watch, corridors shifted in her mind as if alive, and the floors remembered her every step. She did not need to be watched; the house knew where she belonged.
Sofia's instructions had grown sharper, colder.
"You do not move beyond your floors. You do not touch what is not yours. You do not speak unless spoken to. You do not think unless thinking is ordered."
Mila nodded, swallowing hard. Words were dangerous here; thought was more so.
The uniform clung to her like a sentence: black dress, white apron, flawless anonymity. She disappeared into it. She polished, dusted, scrubbed—but the walls did not thank her, and the floors did not forgive her mistakes. Mistakes were noticed.
And so was she.
Alessandro DeLuca never announced himself. His presence crept into rooms before he appeared, an imperceptible weight in the air that made her chest tighten, her stomach coil. Staff stiffened, silence fell like a curtain, and Mila felt her spine straighten despite herself. She was not allowed to flinch.
It was in the library, the third day. She had been dusting shelves she could barely name, when a shadow fell over her hands.
"You missed a spot."
The voice was low. Controlled. Close enough to make her flinch, but far enough that she couldn't run.
"I—I'll redo it," she stammered, fumbling with the cloth.
"No."
He didn't move toward her. Yet she felt cornered, trapped against the polished wood. His presence pressed against her skin like smoke, invasive and suffocating without touch.
He wiped the banister with precision, careful, almost intimate.
"You're learning," he said. "That's good."
"I'm trying," she whispered, almost as if the word could save her.
He tilted his head, studying her reflection in the polished wood rather than her face. "Trying implies choice."
The word lodged in her throat. Choice had no meaning here.
"Do you know what you are, Mila?" His voice was soft. Not cruel, not angry—just a statement of fact.
"I—I don't know," she said, trembling.
"You are collateral," he said. "A guarantee. A reminder. Everything your father owes belongs to me. You are the debt made flesh."
The words pressed in on her chest, making breathing a conscious effort.
"I'm a person," she said, voice breaking despite herself.
Alessandro's faint smile was the kind that promised nothing but inevitability. "Temporary. That is a temporary condition."
He leaned closer, and she swallowed against the urge to recoil. His presence was a weight she couldn't lift, a claim that needed no signature.
"You are not here because I want you," he said. "You are here because I allow it. Every step you take, every breath you draw, is permission granted. Forget that, and you cease to exist."
Mila's knees trembled, and she gripped the banister like it could anchor her to reality. Chains would have been simpler. Chains could be fought. Chains had edges she could see. But this… this was possession. Erasure without violence. Control without bruises.
"Do your job," he finished, stepping back into the shadows. "Obedience is the only currency this house respects."
The door closed behind him, and the silence of the room pressed down on her. She did not cry; tears were luxury. Privacy did not exist here.
That night, alone in the staff room, she scrubbed her hands raw. Each burn, each sting, reminded her that she was alive. That she existed. The uniform lay folded neatly on the bed, immaculate, waiting to remind her of her place.
Sleep came in fragments. She dreamed of corridors with no doors, of chains that did not bite flesh but wrapped around her name, squeezing until it disappeared.
She woke to the sound of silence, the house already moving without her, already perfect without her. She pulled the uniform over her skin and became the shadow the estate demanded. She moved through rooms, carried trays, dusted railings—each act a reminder that she was neither guest nor servant, but something far darker:
Property.
Not stolen. Not captured. Owned. Marked. Accounted for.
And somewhere above her, in the upper floors behind locked doors and guarded halls, the Devil of Ravello slept.
Because what belonged to him no longer screamed.
It only obeyed.