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Siena Costa didn’t believe in monsters.
Until the night she watched them walk into the club. The stench of cheap perfume, cigarette smoke, and sweat clung to her skin like a second outfit. She’d just finished her fifth shift this week—heels digging into her ankles, her smile fake and fading. The dim lights of Club Vela flickered overhead, casting a golden haze on everything it touched. Her tray wobbled in her tired grip as she passed the rowdy table in the back. “Shake it, baby,” one of the men barked, waving a crumpled dollar. She ignored him. Like always. This wasn’t about pride. It was about survival. Her daughter, Luna, was fighting a battle Siena couldn’t afford to lose. And Siena had made a deal—with God, the universe, whatever was listening: Take everything from me, but leave her alive. But maybe the devil had overheard. Because when the front doors slammed open, time stopped. A man stepped inside. No, not just a man. A storm in a suit. Broad shoulders, ruthless eyes, and the kind of presence that silenced even the drunkest beasts. His entourage fanned out behind him like shadows—but Siena only saw him. Adriano Valtasari. Her past. Her nightmare. Her once-upon-a-time. The tray crashed to the floor. Glass shattered. Her breath froze. He hadn’t changed. If anything, he was more dangerous now—sharp jaw, harder stare, and a smile that promised destruction. He looked right at her. Like he’d been looking for her. And then he walked toward her, slow and deliberate. “Siena.” His voice was whiskey and sin. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Not when every step he took crushed the years between them. The years she spent hiding. Healing. Bleeding. “You disappeared,” he said. “And you took something from me.” Her heart slammed against her ribs. “I took nothing.” He leaned in, lips near her ear. “Then explain the little girl I saw outside the clinic yesterday. The one who looks just like me.” The room spun. Her legs buckled. Adriano caught her, held her too tight. Too close. “You have one choice, Siena,” he whispered. “Be mine again… or your daughter pays the price.” --- She shoved him back. “Don’t touch me.” Adriano didn’t flinch. “You lost the right to say that when you lied to me.” “I did what I had to do.” “For what? To protect her? Or to punish me?” His words sliced deeper than they should have. But Siena had no armor left—not tonight. She spun around, heading for the staff door, but his hand caught her wrist. The contact burned. Familiar. Dangerous. “You don’t get to run this time,” he said softly. “You owe me.” “I don’t owe you anything.” He moved closer, crowding her against the wall behind the curtain. The pulsing beat of the music from the dancefloor thudded in her ears, but it couldn’t drown him out. “I buried my father for you,” he said. “Broke an oath. Burned a future. And you vanished.” Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them away. “Don’t pretend you did it for me.” His gaze darkened. “I don’t pretend, Siena. I take. And now I’m taking back what’s mine.” A bitter laugh escaped her lips. “You want revenge? Fine. Kill me. But leave Lucia out of this.” That name. His expression shifted—just for a breath. “You named her Lucia?” She froze. Too late. Something flickered in his eyes. Something raw. Real. “I need to see her,” he said. “No.” “Then you leave me no choice.” Siena trembled. She hated him. Hated how he could still make her feel like that terrified nineteen-year-old girl caught between love and fear. Adriano leaned in, his breath hot on her skin. “Tomorrow. Ten a.m. My house. Bring her.” She shook her head. “I won’t—” “If you don’t show up,” he cut in coldly, “I’ll come find her myself.” And then he was gone. Just like before. But this time… He wasn’t leaving without his daughter. --- Adriano’s footsteps faded into the night, swallowed by the silence he always left behind. Siena stood in the hallway, hands trembling at her sides, her heart pounding loud enough to drown out her thoughts. She leaned against the wall, eyes shut tight, willing herself not to cry. But the tears came anyway. Hot. Silent. She had known this day might come. She just hadn’t expected it to feel like drowning. He looked the same. No—worse. Colder. Sharper. Like a man who had made peace with his demons and invited them to stay. And now he wanted her to hand over Lucia. Her baby. Her whole world. Siena pressed a hand to her chest, as if that could hold her together. If she went to his house, she’d be walking into a trap. But if she didn’t—he would come for them. And Adriano never made empty threats. She turned slowly, heading back into the clinic room, where Lucia waited with a coloring book and a juice box. Her dark curls fell across her forehead, her smile wide and carefree. Innocent. Siena’s heart shattered all over again. "Are we going home now, Mommy?" Lucia asked. Siena forced a smile. “Soon, baby.” But in her mind, a clock had started ticking. And tomorrow at ten a.m., the Devil would be waiting. ---The afternoon lay over the apartment like warm glass — heavy, unmoving, clear enough to see every particle of dust turn gold where the light caught it. The city beyond the half-closed shutters hummed in a faraway key: a scooter passing two streets over, a window creaking somewhere higher up, the soft insistence of summer trying to outlast itself.Lucia had fallen asleep on the sofa, one arm draped over a small herd of toy animals she’d left mid-adventure. A marker rolled lazily from her open hand, leaving a pale green streak on the pillow. Siena moved it aside, brushed a curl from the child’s forehead, and stood there for a moment, watching the even rise and fall of her chest. The rhythm grounded the room.The air was thick enough to slow thought. Siena crossed to the bookshelf and opened the lowest drawer — the one she hadn’t touched in months. Inside lay a small wooden box, its corners worn smooth, its velvet lining faded from blue to a kind of thoughtful gray. She lifted it with bo
The morning entered without knocking — soft, wide, yellow. It slid over the tiled floor and climbed the edges of the table, finding what the night had left behind: two cups, a half-folded towel, and the smell of boiled water cooling in the kettle. Siena opened the kitchen window with the slow precision of someone who hadn’t slept properly but refused to let exhaustion decide the day. The latch clicked; air moved in. Milan’s hum rose from below — coffee machines, early scooters, someone dragging a chair across a terrace. The apartment was no longer a refuge under siege. It was simply awake. She moved quietly through her small rituals: kettle refilled, flame lit, cups arranged in a straight line though no one asked her to. Her hands carried a faint tremor of fatigue, the kind that lingers after vigilance rather than fear. Steam began to bloom again, and the kettle started its first shy hiss. The front door lock turned. Footsteps, unhurried. Adriano entered, sleeves rolled, jacket fo
Morning came quietly, like it didn’t want to wake anyone.No alarms, no noise from the street yet — only a pale kind of light slipping around the curtains.Siena sat on the edge of the small bed, shaking down the thermometer. The red line climbed, then settled. 36.9. Good.She breathed out. “Okay, piccola. All good.”A small voice, still fogged with sleep: “Mama?”“I’m here,” Siena said, brushing a curl from her daughter’s face. “Morning.”Lucia blinked. “Bath?”“Just a little one. Warm water.”Lucia smiled, eyes still half-closed. “Bubbles?”Siena laughed softly. “Always bubbles.”---Steam filled the small bathroom, smelling of soap and something like almonds.Siena tested the water with her wrist, nodded once, and poured in a handful of bubble mix.Lucia’s eyes went wide. “Look! It’s puff-puff!” she said, slapping the surface gently.“The bubbles are laughing,” Siena answered, rolling her sleeves higher.Lucia blew at the foam until it scattered, then squealed when a drop landed on
Morning arrived the way hospitals prefer it — orderly, fluorescent before it was golden. The corridor lights brightened by degrees, the night monitors handed off their pens, and the soft wheels of the vitals cart resumed their half-hour pilgrimage from door to door. Through the thin, pale blinds of Observation 7, daylight gathered itself into a sheet and laid it across the floor.Lucia slept on her back, the blanket a neat line under her arms, the pulse-ox clip blinking its tiny red heart at the tip of her finger. The monitor read it in calm numbers: oxygen 99, heart rate in the high eighties, respirations even, blood pressure a narrow, sensible bookend to the night. Siena, who had not closed her eyes so much as taught them how to rest while open, sat where she had sat for hours, one hand on the blanket at Lucia’s shoulder, the plastic parent band warmed to her skin.A nurse slipped in first, wristwatch set five minutes fast the way some people bait time. “Good morning,” she said in a
They transferred Lucia upstairs when the sun was still a rumor at the edge of the city. The elevator doors opened onto a quieter floor, the kind built for waiting rather than crisis — low voices, long corridors, daylight that would arrive slowly and take the edge off metal and glass. Observation Room 7 was small, rectangular, and cleared of everything that could make a mother feel in the way. A narrow bed. A recliner that pretended to be comfortable. A monitor mounted high, its screen already alive with thin lines and numbers. A rolling pole with a saline bag hung but capped — ready if needed, unnecessary if luck held. Lucia lay on her back, blanket tucked under her arms, a tiny adhesive band across the crook of her elbow where the cannula sat like a promise not yet called in. The pulse-ox clip glowed red against her finger, a little jewel that pulsed with each artifact of the heart’s work. The blow-by nozzle had been removed; the mask coiled at the base of the pole like a snake out
The hour before dawn makes every room honest. Color drains to ash; sound thins to a thread. The safe apartment breathed in long, even measures — vents whispering, pipes settling, the city outside reduced to a pulse behind glass.Siena had stopped pretending not to sleep. Somewhere between three and four she’d let her body fold into the chair by Lucia’s bed, a throw blanket slid haphazardly over her knees, her head tilted against the high back. She kept one hand free, palm resting on the mattress, two fingers lightly touching the edge of Lucia’s blanket where the rise and fall would tell her more than any clock. The bandage over her palm tugged when she flexed; it itched the way healing does when it decides to, not when you ask.Lucia lay on her side facing her, hair looped into soft curls against the pillow, breath a quiet tide. A line of stuffed animals kept sentinel at the foot of the bed — fox, rabbit, a soft bear whose ear had been loved thin. The nightlight in the corner had surr







