DANTE'S PERSPECTIVE
I didn’t stop. Different women. Same routine. New names I didn’t bother to learn. I took them in silence, let them crawl on top of me like they mattered, let them scream my name like it meant something. It didn’t. None of them did. They were just holes I filled to forget the one woman who dared to deny me. Catalina. My wife. The one who left without a sound. Who kissed my cheek like a loyal bride and disappeared like a ghost. She didn’t take a single thing, not even her perfume. Just left me with a silence so loud I fucked through it night after night just to feel like I still had control. But I didn’t. I was losing it. Every mDANTE'S PERSPECTIVE I didn’t stop. Different women. Same routine. New names I didn’t bother to learn. I took them in silence, let them crawl on top of me like they mattered, let them scream my name like it meant something. It didn’t. None of them did. They were just holes I filled to forget the one woman who dared to deny me. Catalina. My wife. The one who left without a sound. Who kissed my cheek like a loyal bride and disappeared like a ghost. She didn’t take a single thing, not even her perfume. Just left me with a silence so loud I fucked through it night after night just to feel like I still had control. But I didn’t. I was losing it. Every m
DANTE'S PERSPECTIVE Night After the Ambush – Emergency Hideout, Siena They fucked me up. I’ve taken bullets before. Knives. One time a man tried to crush my skull with a pipe and I laughed while spitting teeth. But this, This was planned. Precise. Someone wanted me dead, and they wanted it loud. The bandages wrapped tight around my ribs itch like hell, and every breath I take feels like chewing glass. I can’t sit still. My legs won’t let me. I should be home. I should be in our bed, pressed against the soft curve of her back, face buried in her hair. Jasmine and fresh sheets. That’s what she smells like when she sleeps. That’s what home smells like. But instead, I’m here. In this goddamn hideout, tucked behind a vineyard no one touches. Because if I go home now, I’m leading them straight to her. And if they to
CATALINA'S PERSPECTIVE LIBRERIA FIORETTA He came to the bookstore again.Of course he did.His shirt was half open. His eyes, bloodshot. He looked like he hadn’t slept. Like he'd fucked every girl in Rome and still couldn’t get hard.I sipped my tea.Watched him from behind the counter.He didn’t speak. Just stood there. Silent. Caged.“Sit,” I said.He obeyed.I didn’t look at him again.Not for the next hour.Not even when he shifted on the couch like his skin didn’t fit.He waited.Because he remembered what my mouth felt like wrapped around his cock.Because he remembered what it meant to be inside me, and not know if he’d survive.I walked past him on my way to the back.He reached for me.I slapped his hand away.I didn’t stop walking.“Not today,” I said.He followed me like a dog.I didn’t turn around.
Nico's Mansion, Four Days After the AshesNico twirled the crystal dagger between his fingers, lounging across his silk-draped divan. The girl beside him was asleep, or dead. He didn’t care enough to check.The fountain outside had stopped running days ago.Ashes clogged the lion’s mouth.“La Rosa Nera,” he muttered with amusement, lifting the black-stained paper once more, her kiss pressed into the center. “Dramatic little dove.”The first few notes had amused him. The gifts, corpses, whispers, ruins of his puppets, were almost flirtatious. He’d laughed. Ordered wine. Fucked someone on top of one.But the laughter had stopped.So had the information.Three of his best informants vanished within forty-eight hours. Another was found with his eyes sewn shut and a lipstick mark smeared across his severed tongue.Every time he moved to retaliate, someone else moved faster. Cleaner. Meaner.Not his
Nico's Mansion. The girl straddling Nico was giggling. Naked, dripping in perfume that masked the rot of the room. Her lipstick was smudged down his abdomen, her hands sticky with sweat and wine. His belt was still around her neck, tight enough to silence, loose enough to tease. On the sofa beside them, another girl, blonde, was snorting off a mirror. Third one tonight. Nico didn’t even look at them. “Carlos,” he said, sucking the cherry from his whiskey glass, “if you want intel, you have to stop pretending you’re worried about payment.” Carlos stood awkwardly in the corner, not meeting the girl’s eyes as she slid down Nico’s chest. “I’m asking because it’s time-sensitive,” Carlos muttered. “You said La Rosa Nera warned you-” “And I said she entertained me.” Nico smiled. The cherry stem dangled from his lips like a noose. “There’s a difference.” Car
CATALINA'S PERSPECTIVE The Morning AfterI slipped into the mansion before sunrise.Unnoticed.The guards, Dante’s or mine, never looked twice. That was the point.The scent of him still clung to my skin. Not Nico. Power. The kind that leaves bruises where no hand touches.I hid the dress. The heels. The evidence. Everything slipped into the false bottom of the closet, tucked beneath silks and lace I wore for show.Then the water washed me clean. But not empty. Never that.I didn’t ask where Dante was.I already knew.Blood clung to him like perfume. Someone paid for what he felt when he saw me in that bookstore with Luca.But Catalina Moretti?She slept like a girl with no sins left to confess.~~~~~Morning. Libreria Fioretta.The bell above the bookstore door rang soft. Innocent. It didn’t belong to men like him.But there he was.Nico wa