QUIET STORMS

The rain didn’t stop for two days.

It tapped against the glass like it had something to say—soft, persistent, always there. The kind of rain that made the world feel suspended, like time itself had curled up and gone still.

Aria didn’t leave her room much during the downpour. Luciano had offered her freedom in his own way—a twisted version of it—but she needed space. Not physical space. Just distance from the way his eyes lingered. From the weight of being wanted by someone like him.

She found herself pacing. Writing. Reading old journals she had packed away in her memory and tried to forget.

One evening, she opened the small drawer of the writing desk and found a pen. Just a pen. But it reminded her of her old life. Of filling notebook margins with poetry and trying to stitch herself back together through metaphors and half-rhymes.

She didn’t know why, but that night, she wrote a letter.

Not to anyone.

Not even to herself.

Just… to the silence.

⸻

“To whoever’s listening,”

“There’s a version of me that used to believe in softness. In trust. In good men. I don’t know where she went, but I think she died somewhere between betrayal and survival. Now, I’m something else. Someone else. Not broken. Just reshaped. Sharper.”

“He doesn’t scare me the way he used to. That’s the problem. He sees me now. And worse, I see him too. I see the cracks. The anger. The grief he hides in his hands when he thinks no one’s watching.”

“I don’t want to belong to anyone. But I’m not sure I belong to myself anymore either.”

“I don’t know if that’s love. Or something darker wearing its skin.”

⸻

She folded the letter and tucked it under her pillow like a secret prayer.

And then, the knock came.

Not urgent. Not loud.

Just… Luciano.

She knew before she opened the door.

He stood there, hands in his pockets, rain clinging to the collar of his coat.

“I thought you might be asleep,” he said quietly.

“I’m not.”

“I figured.”

He didn’t ask to come in.

She stepped aside anyway.

Luciano entered like he belonged, but tonight, his edges felt duller. He wasn’t in armor. Not emotionally. Not even physically. His shirt was wrinkled. His hair slightly damp. There was something tired in the set of his mouth.

He sat on the edge of the chaise lounge, elbows on his knees, looking down at the carpet.

“I was thirteen when my brother died,” he said.

No warning. No context. Just the truth, dropped like a stone.

Aria’s breath caught. She didn’t sit. She just listened.

“He was the only person who saw me before the world twisted me into this.” He paused. “It wasn’t a clean death. It wasn’t… fair. And I think a part of me never stopped bleeding after that.”

She said nothing.

Because what do you say to a man who’s built a kingdom on pain?

Luciano exhaled, slowly. “Every time I feel close to someone, I remember what it cost me last time. So I push. I burn things down before they can leave me.”

Aria moved closer, barely a step. “You’re not the only one who’s lost someone.”

His eyes flicked up to hers.

“I know,” he said. “That’s why I don’t understand why I can’t stop wanting you.”

She didn’t look away. “Maybe because I remind you of what you never got to save.”

Silence stretched between them.

Then he stood.

For a moment, Aria thought he might leave. That he’d said too much, peeled back too many layers.

But instead, he walked toward her. Not with hunger. Not with heat.

With something quieter.

Need.

He reached out slowly, fingers brushing her jaw.

No demands.

No promises.

Just presence.

When he kissed her, it wasn’t fire this time.

It was rain.

Soft, steady, endless.

⸻

They didn’t undress.

They didn’t need to.

She leaned into his chest as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her gently onto the bed. They lay there for hours—fully clothed, barely speaking, listening to the storm outside and the storms inside them.

His heart beat steady beneath her ear.

A strange comfort.

Like holding hands with a monster and realizing the monster was once a boy who lost everything.

⸻

The next morning, Aria woke alone again.

But this time, she didn’t feel abandoned.

On the nightstand was a single page, torn from a notebook.

Luciano’s handwriting—elegant, sharp.

“There are no cages left to build around you.”

“I’ve tried.”

“I think you live in the parts of me that still believe in redemption.”

—L

Aria held the note to her chest.

And for the first time since her world was torn apart, she let herself cry.

Not from fear.

But from something that felt dangerously close to hope.