The room is dark.
Outside, the wind threads itself through the cracks of the window frame, humming low and mournful, as if it knows what is coming.
I lie awake, eyes fixed on the ceiling that I cannot see, that I can only feel above me like a weight pressing down.
Gabriel sleeps beside me, curled around the stuffed fox he never parts with, his breath warm and even against my shoulder.
In one day, I will find a way to vanish again, to erase this place from our story like the many before it.
We were never meant to stay here.
I had let the sweetness of routine soften me, the safety of silence lull me into believing in permanence. But I know better. I always have.
I shift slightly, trying not to wake him. The old floor groans under the house’s bones, and I count the seconds between each sound, waiting for stillness.
My hand remains under the pillow where the knife is hidden. It has not left that spot in two years. It never will.
The moment I start to drift, there is a soft thud just outside.
Then a creak, too low for Gabriel to hear, but it cuts through me like a blade against glass.
I freeze.
My eyes dart toward the window.
Nothing. No shadows, no movement.
I hold my breath, and the silence swells around me. It is too perfect. Too whole.
And then a hand clamps over my mouth.
I jerk up, a cry crushed in my throat.
My fingers find the hilt of the knife, but the grip on me tightens.
I struggle, elbow twisting back, legs ready to kick, until a scent hits me.
Clean soap. Leather.
Something darker beneath, like storm-wet earth and memories that never died.
My body goes rigid.
I know that smell.
I know it as well as my own breath.
Enzo.
I stop fighting. My chest rises too fast, too shallow. The hand over my mouth loosens, and I gasp once, sharply.
My eyes meet his in the dark, and for a moment I wonder if this is a dream.
Or a punishment.
He says nothing.
His face is carved like stone, those eyes narrowed with something I do not recognize, something harder than the man I once loved, but no less familiar.
I don’t know what he sees in me, but he searches for it. Maybe the truth.
Maybe just the lie I became.
He leans in, breath warm at my ear, and whispers,
‘Get up. Slowly. Come with me.’
I glance at Gabriel, who hasn’t stirred.
My palm slides against the blanket as I nod, then push the covers aside. I move carefully, careful not to wake the boy who has already been dragged through too many of my past horrors.
My bare feet meet the cold floor, and I rise, knees shaking. Enzo takes my hand.
It’s the first time in five years that he has touched me.
His grip is strong, not cruel. It anchors me, and I hate that my fingers close around his without thinking.
I should be running.
Screaming.
But I shut the door to the bedroom behind me, and follow.
We go through the small hallway, past the table where Gabriel’s crayons still lie scattered from earlier.
My throat burns. I should never have let myself make this place a home.
The living room is dimly lit by the dying coals in the hearth. E
nzo does not speak as we stop near the old bookshelf.
I turn to face him, the silence stretching long enough that I can feel it pool at my feet.
When he finally speaks, his voice is lower than I remember, rougher. ‘You look the same.’
The words take me by surprise. I blink, once, twice, then press my lips together. ‘You don’t.’
His mouth twists into something like a smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
He paces once, then stops, arms crossed over his chest.
The coat he wears is tailored, crisp, but his eyes are wild. Not angry, but close.
‘You should have told me,’ he says.
There are so many ways I can respond.
All of them would be lies, because in the end, all roads seem to have led me back here, with Enzo back in my life.
Maybe it won’t matter.
Maybe I’ll die knowing my son will at least have his father back.
Maybe I’m still dreaming. So, I say nothing.
He waits, then steps closer. ‘You disappeared. Not a word. Not a trace. You think that went unnoticed? You think I didn’t bleed trying to find you?’
‘I had no choice.’
His laugh is a low, bitter thing. ‘There’s always a choice.’
‘I had Gabriel,’ I say softly, and it hits the air like a confession.
He stills, and for the first time, he looks past me, down the hall. Toward the room we left behind.
‘You should have told me,’ he repeats.
I drop my gaze to the floor. ‘I didn’t trust you.’
‘You didn’t trust me?’ His voice rises, but one look from me and he takes it down a notch. This, this kind of softness, is unexpected from him.
‘No,’ I say, letting the syllable stand in silence. ‘I had no reason to. Enzo, you didn’t really act like dad-material back then. I gave you enough chances. You may have meant well, but you used me from the moment you laid eyes on me. I wasn’t your property, Enzo. That would have… that would have made you the same as every other person who has ever loved me while holding a gun to my back.’
My mouth starts to tremble, and the heat behind my eyes finally breaks.
I wipe the tears away with the back of my hand, furious with myself for letting them fall.
I glance at him once, then force my voice to stay level. ‘You can argue with me if you want. You can tell me I’m wrong. You can say I’ve twisted things, that I made it worse than it was. But don’t just stand there. If you really believe it wasn’t like that, then say so.’
He opens his mouth as if to argue, then snaps it shut.
I wrap my arms around myself, not for warmth, but to hold something in.
My ribs feel too fragile for this kind of ache. ‘Luca wants you dead.’
‘And you?’ I ask, lifting my chin. ‘Do you want me dead, too? That’d make things easier, wouldn’t it?’
He doesn’t answer.
He turns to the window, the shadows slashing his features in the firelight.
When he speaks again, his voice is hoarse, almost whispery, and completely unlike him. ‘I came to see if it was really you.’
‘And now that you’ve seen me?’
He faces me. Something rises behind his eyes. Anger. Hurt. Longing. I can’t tell anymore. ‘Now I need to know the truth.’
I laugh, perhaps a little wildly. ‘Why would you want to listen? I didn’t think you ever cared for anything the spoiled Lombardi princess had to say.’
Enzo’s eyes bore into mine. ‘You’re right, I misjudged you. But you hid my son from me.’
There’s no point lying about it, so I don’t even try.
Instead, I square my shoulders and ball my palms into fists, making sure he hears me slow and clear.
‘Gabriel is mine,’ I say, drawing out each word. ‘I gave him life, I did it all on my own. You don’t get to just show up and claim him, Enzo.’
He takes one step closer, his furious stare pinning me in place more effectively than any command.
I feel my spine press to the plaster behind me, the wall cool against my back, grounding me even as my pulse ricochets through my throat.
There is no kindness in his eyes now, only something raw and barely contained, the kind of fury that simmers not from hate, but from betrayal, from yearning left too long to rot.
His hand lifts. For a breath, I flinch, because I know how much anger he carries, how tightly it coils beneath his skin.
But his fingers land not on my throat or my arm, but at my waist.
His grip is firm, fingers splayed over my ribs, and it jolts through me like a brand.
His other hand follows, pressing flat to the wall beside my head, caging me in.
‘Stop—’
Before I can form the protest in my mind, let alone say the words, he crushes his mouth to mine.
There is no preamble, no hesitation, just the collision of mouths that never forgot each other, the frantic need of five years packed into a single, scorching kiss.
His hand at my waist tightens, dragging me against him, and I let him, because I have no defenses left to raise. Not against this. Not against him.
I gasp as his teeth catch my bottom lip, and he takes that sound like an invitation, deepening the kiss with a hunger that threatens to unravel me entirely.
My hands, traitorous and trembling, reach for his shirt, fingers curling into the fabric as I pull him closer. I feel the muscles of his back shift under my palms, taut with tension, with restraint on the edge of shattering.
He lifts me.
Just like that.
My legs wrap around his waist without thought, without resistance.
I know this rhythm, this dance.
It is carved into my bones, etched into the secret places of my memory where only he ever lived.
He presses me against the wall with the full weight of his body, and I moan into his mouth, the sound swallowed between us like a vow neither of us can name.
His lips tear from mine, dragging a hot trail along my jaw, down the column of my throat.
I tilt my head back, giving him more, always more, because there is no part of me that does not still belong to him.
‘You should hate me,’ I breathe, voice ragged.
‘I do,’ he growls, teeth grazing my pulse. ‘I hate that you left. I hate what you did. I hate that I still want you this much.’
His head lifts. Our eyes meet. Whatever remains between us, it blazes now, untamed and feral, a storm we never learned to survive.
His mouth finds mine again, rougher this time, and I know without a doubt that we are falling back into something too dangerous to name, too inevitable to stop.
