CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
The apartment was too quiet. Alessia stood just inside the threshold, suitcase still by her feet, staring at the wide windows that framed the city. Marco had not asked her to come here. He had only suggested it, handed her a set of keys with a look that seemed older than his years. She had taken them without a word. The place itself was modest. High ceilings, pale walls, shelves bare but waiting. A single vase sat on the kitchen counter, empty, like it too was holding its breath. Alessia traced her fingers across the cool glass, then turned slowly, scanning every corner as though the walls might speak.

She should have felt relief. Freedom. She should have felt air in her lungs again. Instead, unease threaded through her body. A space without Matteo’s shadow should have been liberating, yet every silence reminded her of him. The way he watched, the way he touched, the way his voice wrapped around her like velvet and iron all at once.

Marco’s men had brought her belongings. Not many. The gallery clothes, the sketchbooks, a few paintings of Serafina that she still could not bring herself to hide. They had left them stacked neatly by the bedroom wall, careful not to linger. Alessia had noticed how they avoided her eyes. Loyal to Marco, yes, but wary of what it meant to house her.

She drifted into the living room, pressing her palm against the large window. The city stretched outward, alive with lights. From up here, everything seemed smaller. Manageable. She whispered to herself, almost in disbelief, “I am out.”

But freedom came with strings she could not see. Because Matteo had let her go. She knew him well enough to understand what that meant. His silence was never surrender. It was calculation. If he had not tried to stop her, then he had already found a way to follow. To claim her, even here.

Her chest tightened. Alessia tugged the curtains closed, shutting out the night. She did not know that across the street, on a roof with a perfect view of her apartment, a small red light blinked to life. Matteo’s surveillance had not lessened. It had sharpened.

Later, she sat curled on the couch, her coat still on, suitcase unopened. A cup of tea had gone cold in her hands. Her body felt restless, jittering with nerves that would not quiet. She wanted to draw, to lose herself in Serafina’s shapes and colors, but her hands would not steady enough to hold a pencil.

She thought of Matteo then. Of how he would have taken the cup from her, replaced it with something warm. Of how his voice would have smoothed over her edges, convincing her that rest was the only answer. It unsettled her how easily she could imagine it.

A sound from the hallway outside snapped her back. Alessia rose quickly, crossing to the door. She placed her ear against it, breath shallow. Silence. Only the hum of the building. Still, she double checked the lock before retreating to the center of the room.

The emptiness pressed closer.

She pulled her sketchbook from her bag and forced herself to draw. Lines first. Circles. A face. But it was his face. Matteo’s. Her pencil traced the curve of his jaw, the slant of his mouth, the dark weight of his gaze. She stopped, pressing the heel of her hand against the page until the graphite smudged. She closed the book with a sharp snap.

Her mind betrayed her even when she sought escape.

Hours later, when she finally lay in the unfamiliar bed, sleep did not come. The ceiling was blank, but she felt the weight of eyes on her all the same. She turned onto her side, clutching the blanket, whispering to herself as though Marco could hear from wherever he was: “I am safe here. I am safe.”

But deep down, she knew safety was an illusion. Because Matteo had not lost her. He had only changed the cage.

And somewhere in the dark, he was watching.
Alessia woke in the small hours with her breath caught in her throat. The dream had come again. Fire. Smoke that burned her lungs. Somewhere, through the crackle and roar, a child’s thin wail cut through. Always the same. Always unreachable. She pressed her palms against her temples as though she could smother the sound, but the echo lingered even when her eyes flew open.

The apartment was dark. The curtains drawn. Yet her skin glistened with sweat, and her pulse thundered in her ears. She sat up, pulling the blanket around her shoulders, staring at the outline of her suitcase still untouched in the corner. Relief should have washed over her. She was away from Matteo. Away from his relentless touch, his questions, his certainty that smothered her.

But guilt lay just beneath the surface.

It gnawed at her when she reached for the photo of Serafina she had placed on the nightstand. Serafina’s smile was soft, untouchable, alive only in this captured moment. Alessia traced the edge of the frame, whispering words she could not bring herself to say aloud in daylight.

Why did leaving Matteo feel like betrayal?

Her chest ached with the contradiction. The man had caged her, twisted her truths, and yet there were nights in the villa when his embrace had been the only thing keeping her from breaking completely. Even now, in the empty bed of the apartment, her body remembered the weight of his hand holding hers, steadying her as though she mattered.

She turned away from the thought, clutching the blanket tighter. Relief, guilt, confusion. The storm rolled through her until exhaustion pushed her back down against the pillows. Sleep came again, shallow and broken, the fire and the child’s cries waiting for her on the other side.

Morning light crept through the curtains, washing the room in pale gold. Alessia moved slowly, her limbs heavy, as though she had been running all night in her dreams. She forced herself to the kitchen, made tea, and stood staring at the steam rising from the cup. She wondered how long she could live like this. Suspended between two lives.

Across the street, a man leaned against the hood of a nondescript car. His gaze fixed on the building, his posture relaxed but his eyes sharp. Mr. Callen. To the world, he was an archivist, a professional with little reason to draw attention. But behind that mask was Cai Navarro, the man Marco trusted enough to place near Alessia when trust had become a rare commodity. He kept his distance, always. Enough that she would not sense him, enough that Matteo’s men might dismiss him as background. Yet every movement in her window caught his attention. He knew when her lights went out, when they flickered back on at impossible hours. He noted the way she hesitated before locking her door, the way her hands trembled when she reached for her keys.

Cai never wrote these details down. They lived in his memory, precise and ordered. Still, watching her stirred something he was not supposed to feel. The job was to protect her, to track the threads of danger that followed her. Nothing more.

But last night, when the curtains shifted and he glimpsed her curled in bed, her face etched with some unseen agony, his chest had tightened with something he refused to name.

He pulled his coat closer around him now, his eyes scanning the street. Matteo’s men would be nearby. He could almost feel their presence, the way trained predators sense each other in the dark. Cai knew Matteo had not loosened his hold. The villa might have released her, but the leash had not been cut.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. A single coded message from Marco. No words. Just the signal they used to ask for an update. Cai did not answer immediately. His gaze lingered on the apartment window where Alessia moved slowly, a silhouette against the pale curtain. She lifted her cup, paused, and seemed to steady herself before sipping.

He exhaled, then typed his response with the precision of someone threading a needle. She is holding on. But she is not free.

Inside the apartment, Alessia set her tea down and rubbed her temples. The dreams, the guilt, the silence pressing at the edges of her world. Relief was there, yes, but it was fragile. It felt stolen, temporary, a glass that might shatter if she breathed too hard. She pressed her forehead against the cool surface of the counter, whispering to herself, “One day at a time.”

She did not know that beyond the glass, Callen was watching. Not as Matteo watched her, with possession. But with vigilance. With patience.

Still, to her, the night would bring only fire and the cry of a child.

And to him, the question of how much longer he could stand on the edges before stepping into the fire with her.