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Chapter 37: The Girl and the Coin
The island had no name.
Not on any current maps, anyway. Matteo's ferry ticket just called it Isola del Vento. Island of Wind. Fitting, he thought, as the salt-tinged breeze danced through his open collar and blurred the sound of gulls calling above.
The village was small—maybe two dozen stone buildings hugging a bay like they'd been sleeping for centuries. No streetlights. No Aegis infrastructure. No names that lit up in his memory.
Perfect.
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He booked a room in a quiet guesthouse, run by a hunched old woman named Amalia who only took cash and spoke in nods.
The bed was lumpy. The door didn't close all the way.
It was the best night of sleep Matteo had had in years.
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The next morning, he wandered barefoot to the market square.
It wasn't much—two stalls selling figs and dried fish, and a man playing accordion badly for an audience of one cat. But it felt more real than any city Matteo had shaped.
He carried no credentials. No pin. Just a blank Aeon token in his pocket, smooth and silent.
He bought peaches. He tasted sea salt bread. He listened.
And that's when he heard her laugh.
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It wasn't loud. It wasn't performative.
It was the kind of laugh people let slip when they forgot the world was watching.
He turned instinctively, and there she was.
Lina.
Sitting on a bench with a basket full of herbs and paints. Barefoot. Tanned skin. Brown curls tied up messily. She was sketching something—not well, not badly. Just honestly.
Their eyes met for half a second.
Then she looked back to her sketchpad.
"You're not from here," she said.
Matteo blinked. "What gave it away?"
"You look like someone who keeps secrets in spreadsheets."
That made him laugh. For real.
---
They talked.
Not about systems. Not about power.
About the color of the water. The way the trees bent in the wind. The old man who always spat before saying good morning.
She told him she painted because it was the only way to "trap feelings before they ran away."
He told her he cooked. Not often. But with reverence.
She raised an eyebrow. "You a chef?"
"Something like that."
He didn't lie. He just… didn't say.
---
They met again the next morning.
And again the next evening.
Always by accident. Always at first.
But soon, Lina began appearing near where he was. Or maybe he was just always drifting toward her.
They walked the rocky cliffs. Ate olives on the pier. Watched the sky turn from blue to amber in perfect silence.
Matteo found himself smiling without reason. Laughing more than he had since Livorno. Sleeping easier.
And for once, when he dreamed—it wasn't of collapse, or betrayal, or ledger fires.
It was of salt on her skin.
Ink on her fingers.
The way she said "Matteo" like it wasn't attached to a myth.
---
One night, they swam under the stars.
Naked. Free.
No cameras. No system pings. Just breath and water and truth.
Afterward, lying on the rocks, she turned to him and asked:
"Are you hiding from something?"
He hesitated.
Then answered: "No. Just… remembering how it feels not to carry everything."
She nodded. "You don't look like someone who's used to letting go."
"I'm not," he said. "But I'm learning."
---
Later, in his room, Matteo opened his canvas bag.
The blank Aeon token sat at the bottom.
He lifted it. Held it to the moonlight.
And for the first time, he almost engraved it.
Not with a deed.
But with a name.
Lina.
He didn't.
But the impulse meant something.
---
What Matteo didn't know—what he couldn't know—was that two coves away, a man in sunglasses handed a woman a phone.
"He's on schedule," Lina said into the mic. "Routine. Guard's down."
The voice on the other end was sharp.
> "Keep him soft. We need the access window by the end of the week."
Lina's voice didn't waver. But her hand trembled slightly.
She looked back at the sketch of Matteo in her notebook. It wasn't accurate. It was gentle.
Too gentle.
And that… was the beginning of a different kind of fracture.
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End of Chapter 37