The threat is more direct.

The atmosphere in the penthouse was thick, heavy with a silence that vibrated like a string about to snap. Adrián watched Magi with a frigid calm—a predatory stillness she had learned to fear more than his outbursts of rage. The silver dress was no longer there, but the memory of the failed "transparency" hung in the air like a reproach.

"Your Italian gentleman," Adrián began, dragging out his words with refined venom, "seems to believe he is collecting aesthetic experiences instead of signing contracts. His caution has ceased to be elegant; it has become a lack of respect for my time."

Magi stood her ground, though her nerves were raw and searing inside. She knew the time Lorenzo and Costa needed to spring the trap was running out.

"He’s a man of details, Adrián," she argued, keeping her voice level and professional. "He’s securing his flanks. If we push him too hard, he’ll retreat to Milan and we’ll have lost months of work."

"Men who lose themselves in details end up buried by them," Adrián countered, walking toward her with that lethal elegance that defined him. He stopped inches from her face. "You’ve earned his trust, Magda. But trust without a signature is just noise. And I don’t pay for noise."

Adrián turned away and, with a fluid motion, picked up the black leather whip resting on the side table. The sound of the leather snapping softly against his own palm made Magi’s mouth go dry.

"If I don’t have that signed contract by the end of the week," he continued, his voice dropping to a conversational whisper, "I’ll have to accept that your approach is ineffective. And you know what I do with tools that don't work."

Magi realized she had to play her final card, the riskiest of all.

"The problem isn't my approach, Adrián. It’s Emilio," she blurted out, locking her eyes onto his. "Lorenzo isn’t an idiot. He knows he’s being watched. He feels like prey, and no prey signs a voluntary surrender. If you truly want him to fall, I need him to lower his guard. I need him to believe this is an intimate decision—a pact between him and me."

Adrián arched an eyebrow, halting the motion of the whip. A slow, dangerous smile spread across his lips.

"Are you suggesting a meeting alone? Without surveillance?"

"I’m suggesting you let me give him the illusion of privacy," Magi insisted. "In a neutral place, without your men at the door. That’s where a man like him relaxes. That’s where he signs."

Adrián studied her in silence, weighing betrayal against ambition. The silence stretched until it became unbearable. Suddenly, Adrián’s arm moved with lightning speed.

CRACK!

The whip cut through the air and struck Magi’s thigh, tearing the fine fabric of her trousers and leaving a line of searing fire on her skin. She choked back a scream, clenching her teeth until her jaw ached, but she didn’t flinch. She **** herself to hold his gaze as the pain pulsed in her leg.

"That," Adrián whispered, pointing to the wound that was beginning to bleed slightly, "is only a preview of what will happen if this 'private meeting' doesn't bring me what I want. You’ll have your space, Magda. I’ll pull Emilio back. But if you fail me, or if you try to disappear, I swear there won't be a corner in this world where leather won't find your skin."

Magi nodded, feeling the cold sweat on her neck and the heat of her own blood.

"I won't fail you," she replied, with a determination born no longer of fear, but of a cold, focused hatred.

As she left the penthouse, limping imperceptibly, Magi felt the pain of the wound was the fuel she needed. She had cleared the field for Lorenzo and Costa. She had gotten Adrián’s hounds off her back. But the price had been marking her body with the promise of her own execution. The game had reached its point of no return: either Soler fell this weekend, or she would be the next one destroyed.