Aria POV
The nightmare always ended the same way.
Luca's voice, low and unhurried, traveling through the ventilation grate while I lay pressed flat against the wall, barely breathing. I’ll kill her myself. And then the silence that followed, worse than any answer he could have given, because the silence meant he was thinking it over. Weighing me. Finding me wanting.
I woke up gasping in the dark of Roman's spare room, my fingers twisted in the quilt, the unfamiliar ceiling pressing down on me like something solid. For three full seconds, I was nobody. I didn't know the room, or the smell of pine resin in the walls, or the distant sound of the compound settling around me. I was just a body, clutching fabric, heart slamming.
Then my hand moved on its own. Reaching toward the nightstand.
