The gilded cage had become Alessia's whole world.
A week passed, then ten days, and Xavier's presence shifted from a resented imposition to a fundamental part of the silence.
He was the anchor in a storm of uncertainty, a human lighthouse whose beam never wavered, even if it was cold.
His routine was the metronome of her isolation.
She knew the exact cadence of his footsteps on the marble when he paced the perimeter of the library.
She knew the faint metallic scent that clung to him not cologne, but the clean, cold smell of gun oil and discipline.
Most tellingly, she knew the rhythm of his breathing when he stood guard just outside the panic room at night, Steady, Unflappable. It was the sound of her own survival.
Her initial resentment had curdled into a brittle, wary respect. She had tried to goad him, to make him talk, to make him react.
