Chapter 3: A New Beginning

Two years later…

Elena Romano stood in the center of her private gallery, a far cry from the woman she used to be. For two years she had carefully rebuilt her life, thriving far away from a chaos she had refused to remember.

In this new world of hers, she was Elena Romano, a successful art dealer, cultured, mysterious, with a tragic story of widowhood that she always never explained in detail. No one ever questioned further, and her she allowed the past to rest in peace. Her eye for art spoke for her, and in Rome’s elite society where she hid in plain sight, silence covered in elegance was a language everyone respected.

She was giving a private tour to one of her wealthiest clients… Giovanni Tarini, a real estate mogul with a known weakness for impressive art, and dangerous appetite for beautiful women.

“This piece is magnificent signora,” Giovanni said, stopping in front of a beautiful oil painting of a Sicilian coastline at dusk, “it’s breathtaking… dark, and almost tragic.”

Elena chuckled, observing the painting and the man who stared at it. She was impressed by his taste.

“It’s about longing,” she replied dreamily. “And the inability to return to something that once belonged to you.”

Giovanni looked away from the painting to study her face carefully. “You speak as though from experience signora.”

She smiled politely… “Don’t we all have an experience?”

He chuckled. “Touché.”

They continued their tour through the rest of her collection, while he admired and praised. After a while, he paused and looked into her eyes.

“I’m hosting a private masquerade next weekend signora Elena. At the Palazzo Doria, an exclusive circle of businessmeb, art collectors, and investors. I’d love for you to come.”

The polite smile never left her face, but her body stiffened a little slightly. She had been careful to avoid certain kinds of events in the past two years, especially parties, not since she buried Isabella Lorenzo beneath a fake death certificate and brilliantly crafted lie in Sicily.

“Thank you,” she said, “but I don’t usually attend such functions.”

“I insist signora,” Giovanni said with a sly smile. “There’s someone I would like you to meet, a French collector who is a good friend of mine. He is obsessed with Roman works, and he'd love your collection.”

She looked at him cautiously. Business was something to be taken seriously, especially with a client as powerful as Giovanni.

“I’ll think about it.” she said slowly with another polite smile.

“That’s all I ask signora,” he said, reaching into his pocket and handing her a small, engraved invitation. “But something tells me you could use a night of magic… Just once.”

When she had seen him off with a promise to deliver his purchase to his residence, she walked back slowly to her office and locked the door behind her. She sat there, staring at the invitation for a long time. Then almost as if her hand had a mind of its own, she put the invitation down and picked up a photo frame that was turned downward on her table.

Inside the picture were three people, A young and beautiful Isabella, bright-eyed and innocent, her father Don Antonio beside her, smiling despite the lines of stress on his face, and a small girl who looked just like her, clinging to her dress. The girl wasn't her daughter, just a little cousin at a family party. That photo was all she had left of her old life, and it had come to mean something else now…  what-if?

She sighed as she ran her hands over her younger self.

Two years… for two years she had lived in silence, learned to be a ghost, invisible to Luca Moretti, his father Nico, and to anyone who might have thought about looking for her. She had found refuge in Rome, Art had given her an escape, but peace was still out of her reach.

She opened a drawer and pulled out a small box, the type used in keeping letters. She brought out a neatly folded page…  the photograph of the divorce paper, printed from the photo she took, signed in Luca's trembling hands.

She remembered that night too well… his confused eyes when she forced him up on the bed, reluctant despite the effect of the drug… the slight shake in his voice when he asked, “What are you doing Bella?” 

She had only given him one cold and quick answer. “Saving myself.”

…

Later that evening, her assistant, Carla, knocked on the door, startling her from the sleep she had drifted off into.

“Sorry to disturb you signora, but there’s a delivery for you. It has no name, just this.”

She handed Elena a small parcel. Inside was a beautiful rose, and a note handwritten in neat calligraphy:

“For the mysterious widow who hides masterpieces in plain sight. Let Rome see you, even just for a night. …Giovanni.”

…

That night, after she had taken a long bath and was standing in front of her bedroom mirror, brushing her damp hair. Her mind wandered yet again, uninvited, to the dark years she had spent locked in silence. Without joy or laughter… now she had a built a wall so high around herself that even her own heartbeat could not escape.

She thought about Giovanni’s invitation again, the masquerade ball didn't have to be a return to the world, it could be a moment. A single night where Isabella could remain buried, and Elena could indulge herself a little.

For one night, she would not be a fugitive, she would not be the mysterious widow, or the daughter of a murdered Don, or the bride of a man who destroyed her family.

She would just be…

Alive.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror, her beautiful and well shaped body, the tender breasts and brilliant curves. The woman staring back was a delicate flower, but in her new found silence, she was more dangerous than men with guns. But beneath all that was still a woman, a woman who missed physical touch, the heat of intimacy, the need to be wanted without blood in the background.

She smiled and reached for the invitation again. “I’ll go,” she whispered to herself.

She deserved a bit of pleasure, even if only for one night…

 And just like that, the first domino fell.