"Some silences aren't empty—they're heavy with everything left unspoken."
The morning came softly, as if the world itself had decided to whisper instead of breathe. Pale gold light filtered through the tall curtains of Lorenzo's room, catching the smoke-gray dust that floated in the air like ghosts refusing to leave.
He lay awake before dawn fully arrived, staring at the ceiling, his hands folded behind his head. Sleep hadn't come easily. It never did when his mind refused to rest — when memories pressed their cold fingers against the back of his skull.
But this morning was different.
The image wasn't blood, or the Bianchi, or the streets that made him what he was.
It was her. Élise.
The way she'd looked at him last night — with a sadness too old for her face. The way she'd said maybe you shouldn't look.
He'd heard confessions in screams, in gunfire, in whispers. But her silence… her silence had a weight none of them carried.
He exhaled slowly, pressing his palms against his face. Che cazzo are you doing, Moretti. He'd built walls higher than any cathedral, and yet she'd slipped through without even trying.
The clock on the wall clicked softly. 7:10 a.m. The house was still. Luca wouldn't be awake for another hour. Matteo, maybe already out — or still drunk from the night before. The estate lived on its own rhythm, steady and loyal, like an old soldier.
But for once, Lorenzo felt out of sync with it.
He dragged himself out of bed, pulling on black slacks and a white shirt, rolling the sleeves up his forearms. A tie hung from the doorknob, but he didn't bother. He hadn't worn one unless someone died or something needed signing. Neither applied today.
Downstairs, the kitchen carried the faint scent of warm bread and ground coffee. It was a good scent — domestic, too gentle for a house like this. He didn't sit at the grand dining table. Instead, he leaned against the counter, watching the steam rise from his cup.
The sound of quiet footsteps made him glance toward the doorway.
Élise stood there, barefoot, wearing a light cotton dress Luca must've found for her. The morning light kissed her pale hair, turning it into spun silver. She blinked when she saw him, as if unsure she should be there at all.
"Good morning," she said softly.
Lorenzo tilted his head, voice low. "Buongiorno."
She hesitated on the threshold, her fingers brushing the edge of the doorframe. Always so careful, as though she expected to be pushed away. He hated how familiar that look was. He'd seen it on boys dragged into the family business before they could grow.
"Luca made coffee," he said simply, nodding toward the machine.
She smiled a little — a faint, fragile thing. "I smelled it."
She walked in slowly, pouring herself a small cup. Her hands trembled slightly, though whether from nerves or habit, he couldn't tell. They stood in silence, the kind that wasn't uncomfortable but too dense to ignore.
"You didn't sleep," she said after a moment.
Lorenzo raised an eyebrow. "How do you know?"
"You look tired."
He almost laughed. Tired was too soft a word for someone like him. But the way she'd said it wasn't judgment. It was observation — quiet, gentle, and far too close to the truth.
"I don't sleep much," he replied.
She stirred her coffee, watching the dark swirl. "I know how that feels."
Their eyes met. Her violet gaze was clear, but something deep inside it was fractured. She didn't need to explain. He could see the ghosts trailing her too.
The morning stretched on like a held breath.
Élise wandered to the glass doors that opened onto the garden. Dew still clung to the grass, and the fountain outside murmured softly, the sound threading through the stillness of the house. Lorenzo followed her with his gaze but didn't move.
She placed a hand on the cold glass, her reflection shimmering beside the sunlit garden. It struck him — how someone could look like both sunlight and winter at the same time. Too soft for his world. Too real to ignore.
"You want to go outside?" he asked.
She startled slightly, turning toward him. "I… yes. If it's alright."
"Come on."
The garden spread wide and quiet, framed by old stone walls wrapped in ivy. Lorenzo walked a few steps behind her, his hands shoved into his pockets. She moved slowly, her bare feet brushing against the wet grass, head tilted back to look at the sky.
"It's quiet here," she murmured.
"It's supposed to be," Lorenzo replied. "My father hated noise. I didn't."
She glanced back at him. "And now?"
He gave a faint, humorless smile. "Now I guess I've learned to live with silence."
Her expression softened. She turned back to the fountain, dipping her fingers into the water. "I've never had quiet like this."
Lorenzo stopped a few paces away, watching her. "What do you mean?"
Her hand stilled on the water's surface. "…Where I grew up, silence was never safe. It meant something was coming. It meant someone was angry."
The words hung in the air, small and sharp. She said them like facts, not wounds. That made them worse.
He swallowed hard, the memory of his father's house flickering in his chest like a wound that hadn't healed.
"I know that kind of silence too," he said quietly.
She looked at him then — really looked at him. And for a heartbeat, neither of them were strangers in the garden of an old criminal's house. They were just two people who had learned to survive too young.
They sat by the fountain eventually, not touching, not speaking much. Just existing in the same space.
The water caught the morning sun, scattering soft light across their faces. Élise held her knees close, chin resting on them. Lorenzo leaned back on his palms, eyes half on the sky, half on her.
She didn't notice how often he looked at her. He didn't mean to. But his gaze kept coming back anyway.
There was something infuriatingly quiet about her presence. No demands. No accusations. Just… there. And somehow, it was louder than all the noise he'd ever known.
This is dangerous, he told himself. She doesn't belong in your world. You don't belong in hers.
Yet, when she turned her head slightly and their eyes met, something in his chest tightened, slow and painful. He didn't look away fast enough.
The garden felt like a world far away from everything she'd ever known.
She'd never walked barefoot on grass that wasn't part of a broken backyard, never stood this long without waiting for shouting to start. Here, the only sounds were water and wind. It felt foreign. It felt too easy to want.
Lorenzo sat a short distance away, the sunlight drawing hard lines across his face — cheekbones, jaw, a hint of tiredness beneath the calm. He was quiet. But not in the way people were before a storm. His silence was heavy, restrained. The kind of silence that hid more than it said.
She didn't know why she kept looking at him.
Maybe because he didn't look at her like the others had. Not like someone broken. Not like someone to fix.
But like someone he wasn't sure how to handle.
"You keep watching me," she said softly, not accusing.
He didn't deny it. "I know."
She tilted her head. "Why?"
Lorenzo's jaw flexed, his gaze shifting toward the trees. "…Because I can't decide if you're real."
Élise's breath caught. Real.
She hugged her knees tighter, unsure what to do with a truth like that.
"I don't know if I'm real either," she admitted after a moment, voice barely above the wind.
He turned toward her, something unreadable in his eyes. For a second, she thought he might reach for her. He didn't. His hands remained folded loosely on his lap, but his eyes lingered a little too long.
The silence between them stretched again — not empty, but thick with all the things neither of them dared say.
He stood first, brushing off his hands. "Come inside. It's colder than it looks."
She followed quietly. Her steps were soft on the stone path, and he slowed his pace without realizing it.
Inside, Luca had set breakfast on the small table in the sunroom instead of the massive, formal dining room. Good. Lorenzo didn't want her sitting alone at the end of a table that felt like a mausoleum.
Warm croissants, fruit, and coffee filled the space with a faint sweetness. Élise sat opposite him, folding her hands around her cup. Her shoulders were still tight — as if she wasn't used to eating without listening for footsteps behind her.
Lorenzo broke a piece of bread between his fingers. He wasn't hungry, but he needed something to do with his hands.
"Matteo's handling things today," he said casually. "You'll have the house to yourself."
Her eyes flicked up. "You're going out?"
"Maybe."
Her lips parted slightly. "It's not because of yesterday, is it?"
Lorenzo met her gaze evenly. "No. But it reminded me that the world doesn't forget."
She nodded slowly, chewing on the inside of her cheek. "I don't want to be a problem."
"You're not," he said before he could stop himself.
Her eyes widened a little, surprised at the firmness in his voice. Lorenzo set his cup down, leaning back in his chair. "…Don't think too much about yesterday."
She looked at him quietly. "I don't have to think about it. It's already here."
That hit deeper than he expected.
After breakfast, Élise disappeared into the library. Lorenzo found himself outside in the courtyard with a cigarette between his fingers, the smoke curling against the pale sky. He hadn't smoked this much in months. She was turning him into something he didn't know how to be.
He stared at the fountain, remembering the way she'd said I don't know if I'm real either.
There were moments when he hated her honesty. Not because it was ugly — but because it was something he didn't know how to hold.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. Matteo's name flashed on the screen. A quick message — nothing urgent. Good. He wasn't ready to leave this silence yet.
Hours passed quietly.
Lorenzo eventually returned to the house, drawn to the sound of soft pages turning. Élise sat in the library by the large window, legs tucked beneath her on a velvet chair. A book lay open in her lap, though her eyes weren't on the words. They were on the garden beyond.
She didn't notice him at first, and he didn't announce himself. He just leaned against the doorframe, watching her. There was something about seeing her like this — no fear, no mask, just a girl sitting in borrowed light — that made his chest ache.
She looked up finally, catching him. Instead of flinching, she held his gaze.
"You're quiet," she said.
"You talk like that's a bad thing," he replied.
"It's not. It's just… loud."
His lips twitched. "Then maybe we're the same kind of broken."
Her breath stilled at that. She closed the book slowly, letting it rest on her knees. "Maybe."
Evening slipped in unnoticed, the sky bruising to amber and ash. They hadn't done much that day. No battles. No plans. No escapes. Just… existed.
But for Lorenzo, that was louder than gunfire.
He walked her to her room at the end of the hall, an unspoken habit that neither of them acknowledged aloud. She paused at the door, hand resting on the frame.
"Goodnight, Lorenzo," she said softly.
He nodded. "Buonanotte."
She hesitated, as if she wanted to say something else. In the end, she didn't. She slipped inside, the door closing with a quiet click.
Lorenzo stood there a while longer than necessary, listening to the silence she left behind.
Later, in his study, he stared out at the night through the window. The world was calm. The kind of calm that didn't last. But for now, it was enough.
He touched the cold glass with his fingertips, as if reaching toward something he had no right to want.
Don't get used to this, he warned himself. People like you don't get soft. People like her don't stay.
And yet, for the first time in years, he didn't want to be right.
She sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the faint line of moonlight spilling across the floor. The house was quiet again — but not the dangerous kind of quiet she'd known all her life. This silence felt… fragile. Like a thread that could snap if either of them moved too fast.
Lorenzo's face lingered in her mind. The way he'd watched her without trying to hide it. The way his voice softened when he wasn't guarding it.
It frightened her — not because it was cruel, but because it wasn't. She'd spent her life surviving cruelty. Kindness was the unfamiliar weapon.
She lay down slowly, pulling the blanket to her chest, listening to the house breathe.
Lorenzo
The last cigarette burned down to the filter. He let the smoke curl toward the night, closing his eyes.
In another life, maybe things would've been simpler. But this wasn't another life. This was his — sharp edges, blood on marble, and the ghost of a mother who'd taught him how to love in a world that punished softness.
And Élise…
She didn't fit.
But maybe that was why he couldn't stop looking.