Romano's Obsession

LUCIA The club is loud tonight. Not that it is ever quiet. Club Nero never sleeps, never slows, never lets you catch your breath. The music pulses through the floor and up through my feet like a second heartbeat I never asked for. Coloured lights sweep the room in lazy arcs red, blue, purple painting everyone in shades they don't deserve. I weave between bodies with a tray balanced on one hand and my smile fixed firmly in place. Always smiling, moving and never stopping. That is the only way I know how to survive. "Another round over here, sweetheart." I don't flinch at the word. I stopped flinching at words like that a long time ago. I scribble the order and keep moving. Table four, Table seven, Back to the bar, Smile, Nod, and Move. This is my life at eleven o'clock on a Friday night. My name is Lucia Cafiero. I am twenty-two years old and a Psychology student living in a one bedroom apartment with a leaking tap. I work two jobs. I only have forty-three euros in savings until my next paycheck. Glamorous, I know. Marco catches my eye from across the bar and gives me the look "Pick up the pace, Lucia". I resist the urge to roll my eyes and quicken my steps. Three more hours. Just three more hours and I can go home, pull off these heels that are slowly killing me and sleep for exactly five hours before my six AM shift at Café Dolce. I can do three more hours. I always do. Sofia appears at my elbow near table six, eyes a little too wide, lipstick slightly smudged. "You see the men that came in twenty minutes ago?" She tilts her head toward the back of the club. "Far right booth. Don't stare." I almost stare. I catch myself. "What about them?" "Marco says stay away from that section tonight." Her voice drops. "Don't walk past if you can help it." "Why?" She gives me the look that means she doesn't know and doesn't want to. Then she disappears back into the crowd. I exhale and adjust my tray. Fine. Stay away from the far right booth. Easy enough. The next hour passes in the usual blur of orders and aching feet. I fall into the rhythm of it the only meditation a girl like me can afford. Don't think about the electric bill. Don't think about tomorrow's lecture. Just table numbers and drink orders and getting through the night. I am heading back from the bar when the music cuts out. Mid beat. Gone. The silence lands so suddenly that half the club freezes glasses halfway to lips, conversations hanging unfinished in the air. A confused murmur ripples through the crowd. Then the doors at the far end burst open. Men in black flood through the entrance moving with terrifying calm people stumbling out of their way, glasses shattering, a woman screaming somewhere to my left. Instinct moves faster than thought. I drop behind the bar. My tray clatters to the floor. I press my back against the cabinet and pull my knees to my chest, heart slamming so hard against my ribs I am convinced the whole room can hear it. Then gunshots. Two. Three. Screaming. The thunder of feet. Furniture crashing. I squeeze my eyes shut and make myself as small as possible, shaking so hard my teeth nearly chatter. "Don't move. Don't breathe. Don't make a sound." I don't know how long I will stay like that. Time stops meaning anything when fear takes over completely. Slowly terrifyingly slowly the screaming fades. The footsteps thin. The chaos settles into something worse than noise. Silence. The kind that follows something irreversible. I crack my eyes open and peer carefully around the edge of the cabinet. The club is almost empty. Overturned chairs. Abandoned glasses. A woman's heel is lying on its side near the entrance. The coloured lights still sweep the room lazily as though the world didn't just tilt completely off its axis. And in the middle of it all Bodies. I press my hand over my mouth. Three men. On the floor. Still. Standing over them unhurried, completely calm, like a man who has just finished something as ordinary as a phone call is the most terrifying presence I have ever seen in my life. Tall, Dark suit, Broad shoulders that swallow the light behind him. He speaks low Italian to the men flanking him, his voice too quiet to catch, his back partially turned. I should press back behind the cabinet. I should not be watching. But I cannot look away. And then as though he feels it he turns. His eyes find mine across the wrecked and silent room and lock on with a precision that hits like something physical. Dark. Absolutely steady. Completely unreadable. The most dangerous eyes I have ever seen. My heart stops. He crosses the room toward me. Slowly. Unhurried. Like he has all the time in the world and I am going absolutely nowhere. He stops two feet away and looks down at me crouched on the floor with an expression I cannot name something shifting behind those dark eyes, something that wasn't there a second ago. He reaches down. Wraps one large hand around my arm and pulls me to my feet in a single movement. "Let go of me," I whisper. His eyes drop to my face. Something moves through them. He doesn't let go. "What is your name?" Low, quiet, with a deep Italian accent. "Lucia," I breathe before I can stop myself. Something crosses his face. Brief. Almost imperceptible. He looks at me for one long moment really looks and then he turns to the man beside him. "Portala via." Take her. ---