CHAPTER TWO
1748 Words
By the time I crawl into my apartment that night, the city has squeezed every last drop of strength out of me. My door sticks as usual — swollen wood from the humidity — so I give it the mandatory hip-check to force it open. It groans like a wounded animal before letting me in.
Home sweet home; Or at least, home.
Peeling paint hangs off the living-room wall like dead skin. My couch is technically a mattress, my mattress is technically a mistake, and my ceiling has a spider who stares at me like we’re roommates who hate each other but tolerate the arrangement.
Still, it’s mine.
And I like things that belong to me.
Dropping my bag to the floor, I shrug off my hoodie and toss it over a chair. My pockets feel lighter without the wallet I tried to steal — well, the wallet I did steal. Past tense, very brief victory.
I can still feel the imprint of his hand on my wrist.
Dominic.
He said my name with too much confidence. Too much certainty. As if saying it branded me somehow.
I shake the thought away.
He’s just another rich man. Another problem I should never have brushed shoulders with. Another person who’ll never think of me again.
Except he did think of me.
That smile; that dark, almost amused smile replays in my mind like a sin I didn’t agree to commit.
I turn on my small lamp, only to have it flicker like a dying firefly. I tap it twice. It stays on, which feels like a victory. A small one, but I’ll take it. I start pacing.
My pulse is still too fast. My skin still feels electric. Like something in my life shifted tonight without asking my permission.
I don’t like that.
I live by rules — my rules. And the first rule is simple:
Never let a person with power notice you.
Dominic noticed me.
I scrub a hand through my hair and walk to the tiny kitchenette to grab a bottle of water. The metal cap is cold against my palm. From my window I can hear the traffic, the sirens, the steam venting from pipes under the street all the gritty sounds of survival.
Normal. Safe.
Except… something feels wrong. Like I’m not alone.
The sensation crawls up my spine, making the hairs on my arms rise. I turn slowly, scanning the room. Empty.
Just shadows and cracks and the spider judging me from its corner.
I shake it off and walk toward my bathroom.
That’s when I see it.
My front door; the one I forced open is now slightly open again.
A tiny slit. Barely there. But definitely not closed.
Ice drips through my veins.
I always close that door. Always. The air pressure in this building makes it slam shut on its own.
I move quietly, barefoot on the wooden floor, reaching for the heavy wrench I keep behind the plant pot.
(Yes, I own a plant. No, it’s not alive.)
Wrench in hand, I inch toward the door, my breath held hostage in my throat.
Then ..... Knock. Just one... Soft... Too soft.
My heart slams so hard it feels like it bruises my ribs.
“Who is it?” I demand, voice steady even though my hands tremble around the wrench.
A pause.
Then a voice I shouldn’t recognize this quickly…
“Zara.”
My lungs collapse..... Him. What the hell is he doing here?
I do not open the door.
I do not move.
I just stand there, caught in some invisible snare he left behind.
“How do you know where I live?” I call out.
“You dropped more than your ID,” he says through the door.
Bullshit. I don’t drop things unless I want to.
My feet take two steps closer, traitors.
“Open the door,” he says quietly.
“No.”
Silence.
Then “Someone followed you home.”
My stomach falls through the floor.
Every instinct in me screams run, hide, fight, disappear—but none of those instincts tell me to open the door.
“I don’t believe you,” I say.
“You will if you look down the hallway,” he answers, voice maddeningly calm.
I swallow hard. My apartment is on the third floor of a falling-apart building in the Lower East Side. The hallway lights flicker on a good day. On bad days, they don’t turn on at all.
Tonight, they flicker.
Shadows move where shadows shouldn’t.
Fear slices through me.
“Zara,” he says again. “Open the door.”
I grip the wrench tighter.
The lights in the hall flicker again—once, twice—then go completely black.
My pulse roars in my ears.
And the footsteps begin...Slow... Heavy.
Somewhere down the corridor.
Coming closer.
I don’t think. I don’t weigh consequences. I twist the lock and yank the door open.
Dominic steps inside immediately, taking the wrench gently but firmly out of my hand.
His presence fills my tiny apartment like he was always meant to be here.
I slam the door shut and click the lock again.
His eyes are darker than at the hotel — not cold now, but burning with something sharp, dangerous, alive.
He walks to the window and stands there in silence for a moment, scanning the street below as though reading a moving puzzle.
“Someone was watching your building,” he says quietly.
“You’re paranoid,” I whisper.
He turns toward me.
And it’s the first time I realize Dominic Moretti is not a man who gets paranoid.
Paranoia requires fear. Dominic doesn’t fear. He anticipates.
“This isn’t the kind of neighborhood strangers stumble into by accident,” he says. “Especially not in the dark.”
He steps toward me. Not fast. Not threatening. But with purpose.
“Why would someone follow me?” I ask.
He studies my face, unreadable. “I’m trying to figure that out.”
“You think it has something to do with you?”
“I know it does.”
He says it like a fact he’s tired of living with.
My throat goes dry. “Who are you?”
His jaw tightens. “Someone with enemies.”
“Great,” I mutter. “That makes me feel safe.”
“You should feel safer than you did before I walked in.”
Something in his tone — low, steady, absolute — makes my chest tighten.
He walks past me, his shoulder brushing mine. The contact is barely there, but it burns like a live wire.
“Do you usually let strange men into your apartment?” he asks without looking back.
I bristle. “Only the ones who know my name without permission.”
He stops. Turns.
The corner of his mouth lifts; a small, dark curve that shouldn’t make my skin feel this warm.
“Are you always this hostile?” he asks.
“Only when I’m awake.”
His eyes glint. “Good.”
My heartbeat stumbles.
He walks to my door again and tests the lock we both already know is lousy.
“This won’t protect you.”
“From who?” I demand.
His voice softens in the most unsettling way.
“People looking for me.”
I swallow. “And why would they confuse me with you?”
“They didn’t see your face,” he says. “They just saw you near me.”
“That’s not my fault.”
His eyes meet mine — and for a breath, I feel the weight he carries. Heavy. Old. Dangerous.
“No,” he says. “It’s mine.”
The air thickens between us, heavy enough to crush.
He steps closer.
“Don’t leave this apartment until morning.”
I stiffen. “You don’t get to order me around.”
“I do when it concerns your safety.”
“Why should you care?”
His gaze is a storm now.
“Because you crossed my path,” he says quietly. “And I don’t let anything happen to the people who cross my path.”
“That’s a weird rule.”
“It’s not a rule,” he murmurs. “It’s a habit.”
Dangerous habits. My breath shakes.
He steps back, the tension snapping like a stretched wire.
“I’ll check the hallway before I leave,” he says.
“No,” I blurt out.
He pauses.
I don’t know why I said it. Maybe because the hallway feels wrong. Or because him leaving, even for a moment, feels worse.
“You shouldn’t go out there alone,” I say, forcing my voice steady. “Whoever’s out there—”
His expression softens in a way that makes my chest ache unexpectedly.
“No one out there can touch me,” he says. “But they might try to touch you.”
Heat crawls through me — not romance, not exactly. More like something dark, protective, forbidden.
“What are you?” I whisper.
His answer is almost a whisper.
“Someone you shouldn’t get close to.”
Too late.
He hesitates — just a split moment — before unlocking the door.
“Stay behind it. Don’t open it unless I say your name.”
Then he steps into the hallway.
The darkness swallows him whole.
I grip the edge of the door frame, breath lodged in my chest, wrench back in my hand.
Seconds pass. Then minutes. Silence. ...Then,Footsteps. Fast Running, not Dominic’s.My heart stops.
Then his voice cuts through the hallway like a blade:
“Zara. Open the door.”
I don’t hesitate.
I pull the door open; Dominic steps inside and shuts it in one swift motion. His expression is calm, too calm.
“What happened?” I whisper.
He looks down at me, eyes deep and unreadable.
“Nothing you need to know.”
A lie.
He shouldn’t lie so quietly.
So gently.
It makes the truth feel terrifying.
He walks past me, toward the door again.
“I’ll be back,” he says.
“Why?” I ask.
He stops. Doesn’t turn.
“Because someone is watching you now.”
My stomach twists. “You said they were watching you.”
His voice grows softer.
“Not anymore.”
He walks away.
And that night, long after he’s gone… I feel eyes on my window. I don’t sleep.
Not even for a second.
- Writer
