The quiet didn’t last.
It never did.
I heard Luca before I saw him—metal on tile, a slow, methodical rhythm as he disassembled his Glock on the kitchen counter. He didn’t need to say a word; the silence between us had already told its story. The weight of Berlin, the file, the name… and what had happened between Matteo and me. It was all there, unsaid, thick in the humid air of the safehouse.
I moved carefully, my body still aching in places I wasn’t used to acknowledging. There was something raw in my skin, something unguarded that hadn’t been there before. Matteo was still in the bedroom, maybe asleep, maybe just quiet—he did that sometimes, vanished into himself when he didn’t want to show the world what he was feeling.
I opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water, the hiss of
