If Adrian didn't believe in the woman being the one to cook, it only made Zara admire him more. She would have assumed that all mafia leaders believed in promoting a patriarchal society where women were to be somewhat of their slaves.

But Zara owed him for saving her life.

Multiple times.

And he had joked about his cooking not being edible worthy, so it was up to Zara to take care of him even if it was only as long as she was living under his roof. He had been alone for so long and Marvin had told her that he never let anyone take care of him.

Well, Zara wouldn't let that be while she was his friend.

Although she thought of him as her friend, she knew that she was using that word quite loosely. They did not know each other much, but they were trying to. They knew about each other's interests and they had spent countless nights talking about them.

But who was Adrian really?

That was what Zara was going to find out that night.

She prepared dinner for two in the kitchen - spaghetti and garlic bread, simple and sweet - and decided to take it to his study. He spent most of his time there and that only made her concerned about where he slept. She did not want to trouble him any more than she already was.

She set the dinner and two soda cans on a wooden tray and climbed up the west stairwell that would directly take her to the side of the house where his study was. She knocked on his door using her leg and waited for him to open. But what she heard through the silent night was, "Come in."

Rolling her eyes at this outcome, Zara placed the wooden tray carefully in one hand and quickly opened the door. She peeked inside, halfway in and halfway out. "Knock knock."

Adrian was seated at his study table like he had been the first day she had entered the room and even this time, he was surrounded by papers. But one change that happened was when she walked inside, he started to gather the papers and file them in the binder next to him.

"Sorry, are you working?" She asked, leaning against the door.

"Not at all. Please." He indicated for her to come inside. "I'm surprised that you haven't gone to bed yet."

"And leave you all hungry? Never." She smiled as she set the tray down on his table and sat opposite to him. "I wanted to thank you for everything. I know I'm being more of a burden and not of any help-"

"You're not a burden." He smiled politely. "It's my fault that you feel trapped here, but I really can't help in that. You already know what the Ferraras are capable of. I wish I could tell you what you want to hear....that you are no longer bound here."

"I don't feel trapped." She said, feeling the sudden change. She had kept telling him that she was the prisoner but that was slowly changing with the new terms that she had placed before Adrian. "I feel helpless. There is no way I can help you find out why this is happening and what it has got to do with me." It wasn't like she could continue taking her shooting lessons there. Not while he was in the house.

"It's fine. Trust me." He said. "Is this for us?" He pointed to the food.

"Yes." She brought the plate out and set it before him. "I don't want you to be hungry by working late at night." He opened his mouth and she knew that he was going to tell her that she didn't need to trouble herself. "It was no trouble and I know! I know! You don't like being pampered, but tough deal, Mr. Cardenas. You're stuck with me."

He chuckled. She had imitated him on the word 'pampered' quite well. "Thank you." He took the fork from the tray and started to pick at his food as the two of them started to eat. "How did you know that Italian is my favourite?"

She looked at him, wide-eyed. "I didn't know that. Italian is my favourite."

"Another thing we have in common."

Zara noticed a sheet of paper that was facing her. It looked like a temple and the location was right outside of New York. "What is this?" She asked him, trying to reach for it but decided not to intrude.

Adrian noticed her curiosity and handed the paper to her. "It's supposed to be a sacred place for us. Whenever a gang's wife or husband dies, they get buried there. It's meant for us. It's called the Temple of Penance because that's where we go after a long fight."

"I'm so sorry." She reached for his hand, not being scared to do that. "About whatever happened to your parents."

"I'm sorry about your parents as well."

Zara did not know if he knew what had happened but he was being genuine. So she pursed her lips and gave him a small nod, taking her hand away.

Adrian looked at the tray and reached for the soda. "Oh, this is the one that has less fizz."

"Oh. Shall I get the other one?" She started to get out of her seat.

"I'll get it. Don't worry." He was swift in getting out of the seat and heading for the door. "Please start without me. I'll be back soon." He looked back at her as he closed the door.

Bingo.

Zara felt her emotions take over her. She was alone in the room and all she wanted to know was right before her. She put her hands inside the pocket of her cotton jacket and clicked the EMF regulator that was inside to cancel out the signals of any cameras that could be there in the room.

Waiting for ten seconds, she jumped out of her chair and crouched before the laptop. It was locked, just as she had expected. But that wouldn't stop her. She wasn't the top of her tech class for no reason. She brought out a pen drive from her pocket and inserted it in the side of the laptop. The black screen of coding popped up and it was time to lay out her plan.

She was going to get the information that she needed, even if it meant betraying his trust.

He wouldn't give her the answers, so she was going to take control.

She typed in her personal code of hacking to get all the information about the Ferraras and the Cardenas that she needed from his computer. She could go through the files in the cabinet but it would take her ten minutes every night to get all the information that she would need, and time was something that she didn't have. She had timed how long it took Adrian to leave the room but it was always sometime early in the morning.

But her personal unharmful virus? Now that was something that she could work with.

The computer started having pop-ups that said that she was breaching the firewall. The red against the black screen was unmistakable but as she tried to break through it, she had a mischievous grin on her face.

Whoever created the firewall was smart. It was one of the toughest codes to break and Zara had never seen such perfect coding before. With her heart pounding against her chest that Adrian could return any moment, she had to stop her fingers from shaking into typing the wrong code.

But she was smarter.

Her code worked and she had to resist clapping her hands together in the excitement. The firewall would break slowly with her code so that the main security system wouldn't get alerted. She calculated the time that it would take and the smile vanished from her face.

It would take two weeks.

She did not have time to think about what else to do. She had to make sure that her virus would stay inside the laptop and go undetected while trying to break the firewall. She quickly typed in the code needed for that while her eyes kept glancing at the door, fearing that it would open any time and she would be caught.

But the windows of the breach started to close and the final line of the code appeared.

Shall we get started?

"Yes, please." 

She pressed enter.

⧪

Adrian walked into the room, completely unaware of what had happened. Later that night when his guards would check the security tapes, they would find no discrepancy in the feed because as long as the cameras were concerned, Zara was the damsel in distress, completely helpless against their protection.

As he took his seat back, he did not think that anything was wrong. His laptop lay open and locked, the cabinets were closed and the cameras were working. Nothing could have happened.

But Zara had guilt taking over her. She did want Adrian's friendship, but she valued the truth enough to go beyond to get her hands on the information that she needed about why she was where she was.

And she was not ready for the answers.

*****

@MilaBlue05 telling me this is one
of her favourite parts when I rambled the story 
is definitely one of my favourite moments.