The corridor outside Valentina’s wing is wrapped in the hush of late hours, lit only by a single brass lamp that casts long shadows across the stone floor.
I follow her through the passage, my pulse steady but strange, as if my body knows something my mind hasn’t named yet. Her gown brushes softly as she walks, the hem embroidered with thread that glints faintly in the low light, something ceremonial in its elegance. She doesn’t speak, but her silence is not cold. It is carved from understanding.
She pushes open a set of wooden doors, and I follow her into a chamber softened by candlelight and the quiet thrum of sleep. The room is larger than I expected.
Windows arch-shaped with pale curtains. A long settee beneath a faded tapestry. And on the far side, near the fireplace, two small beds.
One is empty.
The other is not.
Gabriel is curled beside another boy, older, broader in the shoulders, but still soft at the edges with youth.
His arm is draped around my son in a protective arc, and Gabriel sleeps against him like he’s always belonged there, one hand tucked beneath his cheek, lashes dark against his skin.
The sight undoes something inside me. My knees bend before I know I’m moving. I kneel beside the bed, brushing the sweat-damp curls from Gabriel’s brow, pressing my lips to the crown of his head.
‘He didn’t wake once,’ Valentina says from behind me, her voice low. ‘Not even when mine kicked in his sleep.’
I glance at her. ‘He has not slept like this in weeks.’
‘He will, now.’
Her son stirs slightly, but does not wake. I look at him more closely—he must be fifteen or so, tall for his age, features just beginning to sharpen into the bones of the man he will become. There is a calm about him. The kind boys lose too soon in places like this.
‘He’s good to him?’ I ask.
Valentina nods. ‘Gentle. Watches over him like an older brother should. He knows what fear tastes like. He also knows how to guard against it.’
I rise slowly, tucking the blankets tighter around Gabriel’s frame. My hand lingers there a second longer than it should.
Valentina walks to the window, the glow from the moon gilding the edge of her profile in silver. ‘You should think about enrolling him soon. The longer you wait, the harder it will be. Let him build something normal. A rhythm. A place where he is just a boy, not the son of ghosts and whispers.’
‘I know,’ I say.
‘For now, let him sleep here tonight— if that’s all right?’
It is more than all right. I thank her with a hand on her shoulder, then turn and leave without another word.
The walk back to the south house is a blur of flickering sconces and the hum of my thoughts. I pass a guard. He doesn’t meet my eyes. I don’t ask if he’s seen Enzo. I don’t ask anything. The night feels too delicate to touch.
The rooms are colder than I left them. The fire has gone out, the ash pale and sleeping in the grate. I shrug off my coat and toss it onto the armchair. Something inside me is still pacing. Still wound too tight to breathe.
I turn the lights on, then get a fire going in the hearth. The room begins to glow with a soft, warm light. I press my fingers to my temple and close my eyes. The question is still there, unspoken, rising in my throat like salt from a tide I haven’t dared wade into. What now?
The knock comes just as I reach for the curtain. I open the door without thinking, and there he is.
His shirt is wrinkled. His hands are braced against the frame. His eyes find mine with a force that silences everything.
He does not speak. Neither do I.
He steps inside. I don’t step back. His arms go around me like a storm rolling in, and then his mouth is on mine.
It is the kind of kiss that ruins every kiss before it. Heat breaks open across my chest, down my spine, every nerve alight with something raw and vast and merciless.
His hands slide up my back, anchoring me as if I might vanish again if he lets go. I press into him, lips parting, catching the taste of fury and longing and everything we never said.
He lifts me.
My back hits the wall with a thud that rattles the sconces. I gasp into his mouth. His lips move to my jaw, my throat, my collarbone. My legs wrap around him without thought.
‘I thought you were gone,’ he says into my skin, breath wild, voice breaking like the tide. ‘I thought I’d lost you again.’
His hands move over my body with a need I remember too well, but they aren’t rough.
They’re searching. Savoring.
He drags his fingers along the curve of my back, down to the dip of my hips, as if trying to memorize the shape of me now, not just from memory but from truth. His jaw grazes my neck, and I gasp at the feel of his breath there, hot and raw.
‘You were gone,’ he repeats between kisses, his voice tight with emotion. ‘I tore this house apart, Aria.’
‘I know,’ I whisper. ‘I heard you.’
My dress slips from my shoulders, and he catches it with one hand, guiding it down my body like it’s made of silk instead of nerves. When I stand bare before him, the heat in his eyes makes my knees weaken. He drops to his knees, presses his lips to my stomach, and wraps his arms around my thighs.
‘You are real,’ he says, more to himself than to me. ‘You’re really here.’
I run my fingers through his hair, tugging gently until he looks up. ‘So make me feel like it.’
He stands, shedding his shirt, his belt, everything. Every scar on him is new and familiar all at once.
I trace one with my fingertip as he lifts me again and carries me to the bed.
We sink into the sheets like they’ve been waiting for us. I straddle him, palms flat against his chest, the rhythm of his breath syncing with mine.
I guide him inside me, the stretch and slide of it making me shudder. His hands grip my hips, his brow furrowed with restraint. But I don’t want his restraint.
I want everything. I begin to move, slow and deep, my nails dragging down his chest. His eyes stay locked on mine. ‘Say it,’ I whisper, gasping as his hands slide up my sides. ‘Say you still want me.’
‘I never stopped,’ he replies. ‘You’re mine, Aria. No matter what this house takes from us, no matter who tries to break us, you will always be mine.’
He thrusts up into me, hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. I ride him harder, our bodies slapping together, slick and breathless. He curses beneath me, one hand slipping between my thighs, teasing me until my breath breaks and my body arches against him. ‘Oh,’ I cry out, my mouth parted as breathless moans leave my lips. Even as I’m falling apart above him, his arms slide beneath my legs, lifting me effortlessly, our bodies still joined.
I gasp, my head falling back as he sits up against the headboard, taking me with him. I straddle him now, his cock still inside me, thick and hard, pulsing in a way that makes my breath catch. He’s so deep I can barely think, every inch of him buried in me, pressing into places that feel like they were made for this.
He grips my hips, holding me down on him, not letting me move yet. ‘You feel that?’ he asks, voice rough and low. ‘That’s how deep you are in me. I want you to feel it in your belly, in your spine. I want you to remember what it means to belong to me.’
‘I do,’ I whisper, hands braced on his chest, nails digging in as my walls flutter around him, already aching again. ‘I never forgot.’
He pulls me down, slowly at first, grinding up into me until I feel him press so high inside of me I swear I see stars. My hands slip to the back of his neck, clinging, desperate, as he thrusts up into me with punishing force, each movement thick with the kind of need that doesn’t burn out.
The bed rocks beneath us, but I barely feel it. All I know is the stretch, the fullness, the steady grind of his hips as he fucks me deeper than I thought possible. My thighs tremble against him. He growls, one hand sliding between us to press against the tender, swollen place where I’m already dripping for him again.
‘Right there,’ he mutters, his breath hot against my mouth. ‘You feel that? That’s where I want you to come. While I’m still inside. While you’re locked around me.’
His words hit like a spark to dry leaves. I moan, high and helpless, as the heat builds again, fast and sharp, spiraling up through my spine. My hips rock harder, grinding down into him, and he meets every movement, his eyes locked on mine with no softness, only hunger.
‘Enzo,’ I choke, my voice cracking. ‘I can’t—’
‘You can,’ he growls. ‘You will. Give it to me.’
I break. My body clamps around him, pleasure tearing through me so hard I scream, every muscle drawn tight, every inch of me wrung out by the force of it. He bites my shoulder, not hard enough to break the skin, just enough to keep me in his arms as I shatter.
With a low groan, he moves me again, guiding my body onto its side as he settles behind me. His hands are firm, sure, one sliding beneath my thigh to lift it, the other bracing against the mattress as he lines himself up.
A beat later, he thrusts in—thick and deep—pushing into the slick heat of me with a greedy sound that makes my breath catch in my throat.
The stretch is intense from this angle, a deep, dragging pressure that makes my leg twitch in his grip. He grunts as he sinks all the way in, the sound low and ragged against the back of my neck.
The rhythm he finds is a slow buildup of pleasure, each stroke wet and lewd, our bodies meeting with the slap of skin and the slick squelch of how soaked I still am for him.
His cock drags against every swollen nerve as he fucks me from the side, the sounds of it—wet, thick—filling the room between breathless moans and the hiss of his voice in my ear.
‘Listen to that,’ he growls, his palm tightening on my thigh. ‘You hear how hungry your body is for me?’
I can’t answer. I can only whimper, the noise barely escaping my throat as my walls clench around him again, fluttering, soaked, desperate.
The slap of our bodies grows louder, messier, the suction and slip of his cock inside me so filthy it sounds like sin made flesh.
My fingers curl around the bedsheet. His name falls from my lips in a whisper and then again, louder.
‘Enzo, please.’
‘Come with me,’ he groans. ‘Let me feel you. Let me come inside you.’
‘Give it to me, every last drop,’ I cry out, and moments later, a thick warmth floods my insides. He growls something guttural and slams into me once, twice more before he shudders hard and goes still, buried deep, spilling into me with a sound torn from his chest.
There is, of course, a soft silence in the aftermath, with his cock still inside me as I lie in the bed, his arms wrapped around my waist and chest. ‘I’m leaving tomorrow,’ he says eventually.
It’s expected, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. ‘Okay.’
‘Aria—’
I simply shake my head. ‘No, I’m okay. Don’t worry about it.’
‘I promise.’ His voice drops to a whisper now, and he kisses my shoulder. ‘That once this job ends, you and I and Gabriel—it will be different.’
Unsure of what he is alluding to, and heart full of fear as to how this job will end, I press my body back against him, moving in silence until he is hard once more.
Then, I turn, and we fuck once more, then again, until the hazy drive of a sex-filled sleep takes us both under.
