CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Alessia could not bring herself to open the white box. The small rectangle of cardboard sat inside the drawer, silent and accusing. Her fingers had hovered over it twice, but she had shut the drawer quickly both times.

Not yet. Not while Matteo was watching her with eyes too soft, too careful.

His tenderness had grown overwhelming, smothering her under a kind of devotion that felt staged and genuine at the same time. He anticipated her every move before she made it. A chair drawn out for her. Tea already steeped by the time she reached the parlor. A blanket arranged over her shoulders the moment she sat down. His presence lingered like a shadow but gentler, almost coaxing her to believe this was love.

It unsettled her more than his anger ever had.

By the third day of this performance, Alessia could no longer stand it. She needed a moment of air. A moment where his attention did not press into her skin. So she wandered through the villa in silence, barefoot on the polished floors, trailing her fingertips along the cool walls.

That was when she heard it.

A low murmur of Matteo’s voice behind a closed study door. Not the language she knew. Not Italian. Not English. Something sharper, quick syllables tumbling one after another in a rhythm that felt secretive.

Alessia froze.

She leaned closer, pressing her ear lightly against the wood. His voice dropped, then rose again, firm, commanding. She did not recognize a single word, but the tone was unmistakable. Authority. Warning. Control.

The edge of her stomach twisted. Her hand hovered near the doorknob before she caught herself. If she opened it, if he saw her listening, he would know. He always knew. She pulled back, heart racing, and slipped into the nearest corridor, hiding in the shadow of a window alcove.

A few minutes later, the door opened. Matteo stepped out, phone still pressed to his ear. His tone had softened again, almost casual now. He ended the call with a quiet farewell in the same unknown language, then slid the device into his pocket. He looked different in that moment. Sharper around the eyes. Like a mask had been lowered again.

Alessia held her breath, afraid even the sound of her exhale would give her away. She stayed still until he turned down the opposite hall and disappeared from view. Only then did she sink against the wall, clutching her chest.

The thought came unbidden: who had he been speaking to?

And why hide the words in a tongue she could not understand?

Her mind flickered back to the box in the bathroom drawer. She felt suddenly as though everything was being placed around her deliberately. The tea. The pills. The tender way he smoothed her hair as if she might break. And now a language she could not decipher.

It felt like a maze she had been dropped inside, walls moving before she could find a path out.

That night, at dinner, Matteo was all warmth again. He poured her wine, though he did not drink his own. He asked about her day with the tone of a man who already knew every answer. His gaze softened each time she lifted her eyes to his. And when she faltered, when she pushed food around her plate instead of eating, he reached across the table and covered her hand with his own.

“You are too pale,” he said gently. “You need strength.”

Alessia forced a smile, though her chest ached.

She wanted to ask him what language he had been speaking. She wanted to demand who had been on the other end of that call. Instead, she only nodded, taking another bite under the weight of his gaze.

Later, when he guided her upstairs, his hand steady at her back, she kept her face turned away so he would not see the storm in her eyes. When he kissed her forehead before leaving her at her door, she whispered goodnight, though the word felt hollow.

Inside her room, Alessia leaned against the door and closed her eyes. Her pulse still raced with the echo of that secret voice. For the first time, Matteo’s tenderness frightened her more than his threats ever had. And in the silence of the villa, she realized she could not decide which was the greater danger: the man she knew, or the man he hid behind another language.

The villa was too quiet. The kind of quiet that pressed against the walls until her thoughts echoed louder than her footsteps. Alessia stood in front of her vanity, fingers grazing over the silver locket she had once found hidden in the nursery. She had thought she could keep it safe, tucked between folded scarves, but Matteo always had a way of knowing where she placed her secrets.

She had not slept well since that night. Dreams burned hot behind her eyes, filled with smoke and the sound of a crying child. She had woken with her palms slick with sweat, convinced the sound was real, convinced she had forgotten something that mattered.

Now, the memory of Matteo’s voice speaking in that unknown tongue haunted her. Each time he touched her shoulder or tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, she wondered if he was rehearsing the same tenderness for someone else on the other end of that call. Someone who held the truth she was not allowed to touch.

The knock at her door startled her. Soft, measured. Not Matteo’s.

She opened it slowly. Mr. Callen stood there, his posture as straight as ever, his eyes sharp but steady.

“There is something you need to hear,” he said quietly.

Alessia’s stomach tightened.

“Not here,” he added, glancing past her shoulder into the dim bedroom. “Come with me. Just once. Before you forget who you are completely.”

Her breath caught. The words struck something in her, too close to Serafina’s writing on the back of that photograph. For the girl. When she forgets who she is.

Her hand trembled against the doorknob. “Why now?”

“Because you are running out of time.” His voice was calm but certain, the kind of certainty she could not ignore. “Marco is waiting. He has answers. You deserve to hear them without interference.”

The name sat heavy between them. Marco. Her uncle. The shadow who kept slipping coded messages beneath doors and trying to claw his way back into her life. She had almost stopped believing he was real, almost convinced herself he was just another trick of Matteo’s, until Mr. Callen looked her straight in the eyes and said it.

She swallowed hard. “And if you are lying?”

“Then you will know,” he said simply. “But if I am not… you will finally remember who you are meant to be.”

Her chest ached at his words. Remember. The word cut through her, sharper than fear.

Alessia hesitated, then nodded. She pulled on a dark coat, slipping the photograph into its pocket without thinking. The hallway stretched before her like a trial. She moved carefully, her body stiff with nerves, each step toward the courtyard a choice she was not sure she could undo.

The night air was cold against her skin as she reached the gates. The courtyard stones glistened faintly with the remnants of rain, reflecting the yellow light from the villa windows. And there, waiting, was Marco.

Older than the photo. His jaw lined, his hair touched with gray, but unmistakable. His presence was steady, protective, filled with an urgency that did not belong to a stranger.

“Alessia,” he called, his voice rough but certain. “It is me.”

Her heart lurched at the sound. She gripped the iron keys in her palm until the edges pressed sharp against her skin.

But before she could take a step forward, movement caught her eye.

Matteo.

He stood at the far end of the courtyard, shadow framed by the glow of the villa lights. His shoulders squared, his gaze locked only on her. The storm inside his eyes was quiet but consuming, the kind of storm that had destroyed men before they even realized they had been undone.

The three of them were caught in the triangle of that courtyard.

Marco’s face lit with hope. Mr. Callen stood back, watching her carefully, waiting for her to decide. And Matteo… Matteo did not move. He only watched her, every muscle in his body restrained by something more dangerous than rage.

The air thickened around her.

Marco called again, softer this time. “Come to me. You know I would never leave you.”

Alessia’s knees felt weak. A hundred questions crowded her throat, but none of them left her lips.

She looked back at Matteo. He stepped forward slowly, his expression unreadable, his eyes never once leaving hers. When he stopped, the silence between them grew unbearable.

Then he spoke. His voice carried across the courtyard with deliberate calm.

“Make your choice.”

The keys slipped slightly in her grip.

Alessia’s breath came fast now, uneven, caught between the past that begged her to remember and the present that chained her to the man whose arms had become both prison and shelter.

She felt the weight of Serafina’s photograph against her heart. The echo of Marco’s voice calling her name. The promise in Matteo’s tone that sounded less like a request and more like a verdict.

The courtyard did not move. No one stepped closer. No one retreated.

The night stretched around them, thick with secrets, waiting for the moment that would shatter everything.

And Alessia stood at the gates, unable to lift her foot forward, unable to turn back, caught between two men whose truths threatened to consume her either way.

Her fingers clenched tighter around the keys, but they did not open the lock.

Not yet.

The only sound was the wind pushing through the iron bars, carrying with it the weight of a decision she was not ready to make.