"Some silences speak louder than confessions."
By late afternoon, the rain had dried from the cypress leaves. The sky above the estate carried that muted glow of pale gold, where daylight lingers only to be swallowed by evening. Lorenzo stood by the wide window of his study, cigarette burning quietly between his fingers, untouched coffee cooling on the desk beside him.
The smoke drifted in slow spirals, gray against the filtered light. He didn't smoke often anymore — the habit had once belonged to his father, and anything that belonged to his father deserved to be buried. But today, his thoughts pressed too close.
The morning had passed like a fragile truce. Élise had eaten, walked the gardens again with Luca, and spent most of the noon hours in the west wing — silent, careful, like someone afraid to disturb the air itself. He could hear her footsteps sometimes, light as if she were trying to erase them.
It unsettled him.
He was used to people who shouted, bargained, begged. Not ones who simply existed in his orbit — breathing, fragile, and quiet enough to remind him what human sounded like.
He exhaled smoke through his nose, muttering under his breath, "Che cazzo are you doing, Moretti?"
The ghost of his mother's voice seemed to whisper in answer: You don't know how to be gentle, Lorenzo. You only know how to survive.
A knock broke the silence.
"Avanti," he said.
Matteo stepped in, file folder in hand, his usual grin absent. "We have movement."
Lorenzo straightened slightly. "The Bianchi?"
"Two of their men were seen near the southern road. Might be coincidence. Might not."
Lorenzo's jaw tensed. "Coincidence doesn't exist in our world."
Matteo nodded. "Want me to handle it?"
"Not yet. I'll take a drive."
Matteo raised a brow. "You? Personally?"
"I need air." His tone left no room for argument.
He found Élise in the corridor outside the sitting room, her hair catching the muted light like silk. She froze when he appeared — that reflex again, half-fear, half-poise.
"I'm going out," he said simply.
She nodded, voice soft. "Do you… want me to stay inside?"
Lorenzo hesitated. The rational answer was yes. Keep her here, where she couldn't be seen, couldn't remind him of everything he shouldn't feel. But something in him rebelled against leaving her alone in the echoing halls of the house that still breathed ghosts.
"Come with me," he said instead.
Her brows lifted slightly. "Where?"
"Just into town. I need to check something."
She blinked, as if surprised he'd asked at all, then gave a small nod. "Alright."
The car rolled down the gravel drive, the engine a low hum under the late sun. Élise sat in the passenger seat, her hands folded neatly in her lap. She looked out the window, watching the trees pass — their shadows long and liquid on the road.
Lorenzo drove in silence, the familiar landscape unfolding around them. Old vineyards, half-forgotten stone houses, the distant shimmer of a river. He hadn't realized how much the world outside his walls had changed until he saw it through her eyes — eyes that caught every detail with quiet wonder.
"You've never been to this part of Italy before," he said.
She shook her head. "I've never been anywhere, really."
Her voice was matter-of-fact, not self-pitying. It stung anyway.
He glanced sideways at her. "What about France? You grew up there?"
Her hands tightened faintly. "I was born there, yes. But it never felt like home."
He didn't press. He could see the way her shoulders stiffened, the faint tremor that came with the subject she didn't want to touch. And yet, he wanted to ask. Wanted to know who she was before she'd become another name tied to someone else's debt.
Instead, he only said, "You'll like the market in town. It's small. Quiet."
She smiled faintly. "You don't seem like someone who likes quiet."
He huffed a low laugh. "That's the problem. I used to."
The town lay tucked between old hills and narrow streets lined with faded pastel walls. Potted flowers sat on balconies, laundry hung from windows like flags of truce.
Lorenzo parked near the edge of the square. The market was half-closing, vendors packing crates of fruit and bread, the scent of rosemary and sun-warmed stone in the air.
Élise stepped out slowly, her gaze drinking in every detail — the chatter, the colors, the faint music spilling from a café door.
For a moment, he watched her without moving. The way she turned her face toward the wind, the way her fingers brushed the edge of a stall filled with lemons.
He'd forgotten that such small things could still look like salvation.
They walked together, wordless. Occasionally he nodded to someone — an old woman selling olive oil, a man who bowed too politely to not know who he was. Élise stayed close, but not out of fear. Out of uncertainty, maybe.
At one stall, a young vendor offered her a paper cone of roasted chestnuts. She looked startled. Lorenzo paid before she could refuse.
"You didn't have to—" she began.
"I know," he said. "But I wanted to."
Her lips parted as if to argue, then closed again. She took the chestnuts, their warmth seeping into her palms.
They sat at a small stone bench overlooking the square. The church bell tolled somewhere in the distance. For the first time since he'd brought her into his world, Lorenzo felt almost—almost—peaceful.
Until he saw the man across the street.
Tall. Too still. Hands in pockets. Eyes on them.
Lorenzo's muscles tightened. Instinct. Years of training and bloodshed crawling back into his veins like ice.
Élise followed his gaze. "Do you know him?"
"No." His voice was low, flat. "And that's the problem."
He rose smoothly, finishing his coffee and discarding the cup. "Let's go."
She stood, confusion flickering into worry. "Is something wrong?"
"Not yet."
They walked back to the car. Lorenzo didn't look back, but he could feel the man's stare like a weight between his shoulder blades.
When they reached the car, Matteo's earlier words replayed in his mind — Two of their men were seen near the southern road.
The Bianchi were testing boundaries.
And now they'd seen her.
The drive back was quieter than before. Élise watched him carefully, her voice soft. "Was he… one of them?"
Lorenzo kept his eyes on the road. "Maybe."
"Does that mean they know where you live?"
He glanced at her, reading the tremor beneath the calm in her voice. "They already knew. They always know."
She looked out the window again, the world blurring by. "Then why bring me out here?"
His fingers tightened on the wheel. "Because I refuse to live in a cage. And neither will you."
She turned toward him. "But what if they hurt you because of me?"
He met her gaze, blue colliding with violet. "They'll have to find me first."
Something in his tone made her fall silent. It wasn't bravado. It was promise.
Back at the estate, dusk had deepened into velvet. The lights glowed warm through the tall windows, and the faint scent of rain still clung to the garden stones.
Luca met them at the door. "Everything alright, signore?"
Lorenzo nodded once. "Have two men guard the west road tonight. No questions."
"Subito."
As Luca vanished down the hall, Élise followed Lorenzo into the study. He poured himself a drink — whiskey this time — and gestured to the chair across from him.
She didn't sit.
Instead, she stood by the window, her reflection faint beside his in the glass. "You don't have to protect me."
He turned slightly. "You think I'm doing this for you?"
She hesitated. "Aren't you?"
Lorenzo's eyes darkened. "I'm doing it because this house doesn't need another ghost."
Her breath caught, but she said nothing. The air between them seemed to tighten, pulling invisible threads.
He took a slow sip of whiskey, his voice low. "You remind me of her."
"Your mother?"
He nodded once. "Not because you look like her. You don't. But there's something in the way you look at the world — like it hurts, but you still expect it to be kind."
Her lips parted, words trembling but unspoken.
"And I can't stop seeing mother in your eyes," he said softly, almost to himself.
Silence.
Élise turned away first, her hand brushing the windowpane. "Then maybe you shouldn't look."
Her voice wasn't sharp — just sad.
Lorenzo set the glass down with a soft clink. "Maybe not."
He stepped closer, the faint space between them humming with tension. For a heartbeat, neither moved.
Then Luca's voice broke through the hallway. "Signore, dinner is served."
The moment fractured, like glass catching light.
They ate together in near silence. The meal was simple — pasta, wine, bread. Élise barely touched hers. Lorenzo watched her from across the table, his thoughts a tangled storm of memory and instinct.
She wasn't supposed to be here. She wasn't supposed to matter.
And yet, the house felt less haunted when she was in it.
Afterward, she rose first. "Thank you," she said softly.
"For what?"
"For letting me see something other than fear."
He said nothing as she left the room. The echo of her footsteps faded up the marble stairs, leaving only the low hum of the fire.
Later, when the house had gone quiet, Lorenzo found himself outside again. The night was cold, stars scattered faintly over the horizon.
He stood by the fountain, cigarette in hand, the same place he had the night before.
The reflection that met him this time wasn't his mother's face, but his own — tired, angry, and something else he didn't want to name.
Behind one of the upper windows, a soft light glowed in Élise's room. He watched it flicker once, then fade.
He didn't realize he'd whispered aloud until the sound reached his ears:
"Stay alive, piccola. That's all I ask."
The cigarette burned out between his fingers.
Sleep came slowly that night. The house breathed around her — creaks and sighs and distant murmurs. She lay awake, watching the ceiling shadows move like ghosts.
She thought of the market, of the man who'd watched them, of Lorenzo's calm that felt too practiced to be real.
And yet, when she closed her eyes, she didn't see fear. She saw the way he'd looked at her when she'd said maybe you shouldn't look.
There had been something raw in his silence — not anger, not pity. Just… understanding.
For the first time, she wondered who he might have been if the world hadn't demanded he become someone else.
The clock struck midnight.
Outside, rain began again — soft, steady, endless.
And somewhere deep within the walls of the Moretti estate, two restless hearts kept time with it — each waiting for something neither knew how to name.