I don't know how to breathe around him.
Not without forgetting who I'm supposed to be.
Every time Alessio touches me, I feel something foreign take root inside me. Not just warmth. Not just fear. It's need—terrifying in its intensity. He holds me like I'm made of something precious, but looks at me like he could burn the world to the ground and smile while doing it.
He said he saw me two years ago.
Two years.
Long before I knew his name. Long before I knew mine could cost me my life.
I should be scared. Furious. Screaming.
But I'm not.
I'm still curled against him, wrapped in his scent and his strength, and my body has betrayed me by feeling safe here. My brain screams at me to pull away.
My heart stays silent.
It's the silence I don't trust.
"I can't sleep," I whisper.
He strokes my hair, slow and steady. "Why?"
"Because I don't know where this ends."
"Neither do I."
That should scare me more than it does.
He doesn't ask me to stay. Doesn't beg me to go.
He just lies there, breathing like I'm anchoring him to something human.
After a while, I slip out of his arms and whisper that I want to go to the library. He lets me. But I feel the weight of his gaze as I walk away, like a tether tied tight around my ribs.
The estate at night is cold and silent, every creak of the wood sounding like a gun cocking. I wrap his oversized hoodie tighter around me and pad barefoot through the maze of hallways, down the grand staircase, and into the library.
I need answers.
I need her.
My mother.
Not the smiling woman in photographs, not the ghost in the back of my memories. I need the version of her who survived this world. Who knew how to play it, and still tried to keep me out.
She hid me from all of this.
Why?
What was she protecting me from?
The fireplace in the library is cold, but I curl up near it anyway, brushing my fingers over the spines of ancient books stacked haphazardly on the coffee table.
Most of them are fiction. One is a leather-bound photo album that looks untouched.
The last time I opened one of these, I was eight years old and still thought family secrets were things like where Dad hid the Christmas presents.
This one feels heavier than it should.
I flip it open.
The first page is ordinary—an old picture of my mother and father at a garden party, smiling like the world was theirs. I turn the page. A birthday. A blurry snapshot of me blowing out candles.
Another page. Another life.
But then I hit something different.
A sealed envelope, tucked between pages.
My name on the front.
Elena
In her handwriting.
My hands tremble as I pull it free.
The paper is yellowed at the edges, the seal broken, as if it had been opened once… but carefully pressed shut again.
I unfold the letter.
My Elena,
If you're reading this, it means I failed to keep you safe the way I wanted. You're in the place I never wanted you to find. Among the people I tried to protect you from. But if you're reading this… then the time for hiding is over.
There are things you must understand about our family. Things I couldn't tell you when you were small. Things that would have painted the world in shadows before you had a chance to see the light.
Your father loved you. I loved you. But love is not enough in a world where power is currency, and loyalty is a blade pressed to the throat.
Alessio Moretti is not your enemy. But he is dangerous. Be careful with your heart, my darling.
And if you find the key hidden in the black book, know that what you unlock will change everything you think you know about who you are. And who he is.
- M.
I stop breathing.
The black book?
What black book?
I scramble to my feet, heart pounding like a drum in my ears. I scan the shelves—hundreds of titles, arranged with no logic. I move to the desk instead.
That's when I see it.
A small, black leather-bound volume with no title, tucked between a silver globe and an old lamp.
I grab it.
Flip it open.
It's not a book.
It's a journal.
The pages are filled with elegant, slanted handwriting—my mother's. The ink faded in places, but still legible.
But that's not what makes my heart stop.
It's the hollowed-out space cut inside the center of the book.
And inside it?
A small, antique key.
Cold and heavy in my palm.
What the hell does it open?
"Elena?"
I whirl around.
Alessio stands in the doorway, his eyes tracking every detail—my posture, the book, the key in my hand.
"What is that?"
"A journal. My mother's."
He steps inside, slow and measured. "And the key?"
"I don't know yet."
He doesn't move closer.
"I didn't know that was here," he says quietly.
"I believe you."
His shoulders drop slightly in relief. "Can I see it?"
I nod and hand it over.
He examines the key, turning it over in his fingers.
"This isn't just symbolic," he murmurs. "This unlocks something real."
"I think so too."
"We'll find it," he says. "Together."
And something about the way he says together makes me feel like I've already chosen a side.
Even if I haven't admitted it yet.