Serafina
I chose a warehouse on the outskirts of the northern district—an abandoned space once used for textile shipments. The walls still smelled faintly of dust and old machinery, but the wiring was intact enough for me to manipulate the lighting. I disabled every bulb except the emergency strips near the floor, leaving the room submerged in darkness, broken only by the faintest crimson glow that brushed the concrete. I needed anonymity, impenetrable and absolute.
I needed control, even as everything inside me spiraled beyond it.
The voice modulator rested against my throat, altering every sound I produced into something unrecognizable—low, sultry, distorted. My mask remained tightly fastened. My wig secured.
Even my scent was disguised with an unfamiliar perfume I had selected with shaking hands earlier that day. Every measure of protection was in place, and yet my heart thundered violently as I waited.
A soft metallic click echoed across the room.
Matteo had arrived.
His footsteps were slow, careful, the familiar cadence of a man who walked as if he owned every space he entered, even ones soaked in shadows. But there was hesitation tonight—an uncertainty that made the air vibrate.
“Where are you?” he asked quietly. His voice was rough, darker than usual, weighted with sleepless nights and unanswered questions. “You said you’d meet me. Don’t disappear now.”
I swallowed hard before speaking through the modulator. “Stay where you are. Don’t turn on the lights.”
He exhaled sharply, relief and frustration tangled in that single breath. “I don’t care about the lights. I need to see you.”
“You can’t,” I replied, forcing firmness into the artificial tone. “That was the rule.”
“I hate your rules,” Matteo muttered, taking a single step forward. “You haunt me. Do you understand that? One night, and I can’t think straight. I can’t sleep. I can’t breathe without remembering you. So at least let me look at you.”
“No,” I whispered, and the word wavered despite the disguise. “If you see me, this ends.”
A low, humorless laugh escaped him. “It’s already ending me. What difference does one more boundary make?”
He moved again, and I felt the air shift as he grew closer. Even in darkness, I sensed the heat of his body, the gravity of him, the presence that had once consumed my world. I stiffened instinctively.
“Don’t,” I choked softly. “Don’t come closer.”
He froze, but not entirely. I could hear the tension rippling through him. “You’re trembling,” he said, voice softening unexpectedly. “I can hear it. Why?”
Because you still undo me. Because my body betrays me. Because I survived you, but some part of me never escaped.
I forced steadiness into words that felt like lies pulled through my teeth. “This is… part of the arrangement.”
“No,” Matteo said quietly. “It isn’t.”
The darkness between us thickened. I stepped backward until my shoulder touched the cold metal of a storage container. His following step was softer this time, gentler, almost reverent.
“Let me touch you,” he murmured. “Just touch. Nothing else.”
“You said that last time,” I replied, but the tremor in my voice betrayed me.
“And I kept my word,” he countered, stopping just short of where the faint red strip of light reached his boots. “You led me into something I didn’t expect. Something I can’t stop feeling. If you tell me to leave, I’ll leave. If you tell me not to touch you, I won’t.” His voice dropped, low and devastating. “But if you want me to, even a little… tell me.”
My breath faltered.
Silence stretched, heavy and trembling.
Then, barely audibly: “You may.”
He crossed the remaining distance in a single breath of time. His hands lifted, slow enough that I could stop him, but I didn’t. His fingers brushed the side of my jaw gently, reverently, as if afraid I might vanish like smoke. The moment he touched me, my knees weakened.
“God,” Matteo whispered, thumb brushing my cheek. “You feel exactly like—”
He stopped himself.
Exactly like her. His wife. His ghost. Me.
My heart twisted painfully. The modulator disguised my breath when I exhaled.
He traced the line of my jaw with the kind of familiarity that shattered me. “Tell me your name,” he murmured. “Just your name.”
“No,” I whispered. “Names ruin things.”
“Names make things real.”
“This shouldn’t be real,” I replied, voice breaking behind the machine. “This should be nothing.”
“Nothing?” he repeated, a dangerous softness entering his tone. “You call this nothing?”
His hand slid down my throat, slow and sure, settling above the place where my pulse thundered wildly. He could feel it. He knew how deeply he affected me—even without knowing the reason.
“I haven’t felt like this in years,” Matteo admitted quietly. “Not since—”
Again, he caught himself.
Not since me.
I felt my breath catch sharply. He leaned in, lips brushing the barest whisper of air above my temple. “Tell me why you feel like home,” he whispered.
The words cut through me like a blade.
I shoved him back—not roughly, but desperately, as though the alternative was being swallowed whole. “No more,” I said through the modulator, my voice shaking. “We said this would be brief.”
“You said that,” Matteo corrected, stepping forward again even though I pushed him away. “You make the rules, but I feel them breaking every time you touch me.”
“This is dangerous,” I whispered.
“Then let it be,” he murmured, voice unsteady. “Let me have this danger. Let me have you.”
The desperation in his tone pulled at something deep inside me—something old, aching, and impossible to ignore. Without thinking, my hand rose to touch his face, fingers brushing the stubble along his jaw. He closed his eyes, leaning into the contact like a man starved.
“Please,” Matteo whispered, breath trembling. “Tell me who you are.”
“That can never happen,” I breathed.
His eyes opened, dark and burning. “Then at least let me see you.”
I stepped back so quickly the air cracked between us. “If you see me, everything ends. This ends. You must not know who I am.”
“Why?” he demanded, voice strained. “What are you afraid of?”
You, I thought. I’m afraid of what you still mean to me. I’m afraid of tearing my life in half.
But the words that came out were steadier. “I have boundaries.”
He let out a shaking exhale. “You’re going to destroy me.”
“You’ll survive,” I replied.
“In this darkness?” he whispered. “I’m not so sure.”
I had to leave. Now. Before the truth spilled from me in ways neither of us could contain. I stepped back toward the exit, my heartbeat frantic.
“This meeting is over,” I said, masking my voice and my pain. “Do not follow me. Do not turn on the lights.”
“Wait,” he pleaded, reaching out. “Tell me when I’ll see you again.”
“You won’t.”
A lie. We both heard the lie in it.
I slipped out before he could speak again, slamming the door behind me, leaving Matteo alone in the suffocating darkness.
Outside, I braced against the cold air, trembling violently as my lungs fought for breath.
My marriage was breaking.
My heart was splitting.
And I had just realized something far worse:
I no longer knew which life terrified me more—the one I lived with Adrian… or the one I lived in the shadows with Matteo.