(Aria)
The house doesn’t feel victorious.
It feels restrained—like something dangerous has chosen stillness, not because it’s satisfied, but because it’s calculating.
I wake before dawn, heart already racing, my body refusing the comfort of sleep. The room is quiet, too quiet, the kind of silence that presses against your ears until you start hearing things that aren’t there. I sit up slowly, pulling the sheets around myself, staring at the faint outline of the curtains.
Not enough to stain anything important.
Luca’s words from the night before return without permission. Calm. Controlled. Spoken the way other men might discuss weather or business margins.
I swallow and swing my legs off the bed.
Four years ago, blood ended my life as I knew it.
Last night, blood was simply… managed
