in love with the devil himself

The devil's silence

The mansion swallowed me whole. Again.

I had forgotten how suffocating it was — the ceilings that stretched up into shadow, the corridors that all looked the same, the way the silence here had a weight to it that pressed against your chest and didn't let go. I had spent weeks memorising every inch of this place, every locked door and hidden passage, mapping it all in my head until I finally found my way out.

And now I was back.

Vincenzo hadn't said a single word since the party.

Not when he found me in the crowd, his hand closing around my wrist like he had all the time in the world and no intention of letting go. Not when he walked me out through the lights and the music and the people who had smiled at me like they were saving me — when really they were just using me. Not during the long drive back through the dark, where I sat pressed against the car door and stared out the window and told myself I wasn't afraid.

I was afraid.

I had prepared for anger. I had rehearsed what I would say, how I would hold myself, how I wouldn't flinch no matter what he threw at me. But Vincenzo wasn't angry. He was silent. Controlled. And somehow that was so much worse than shouting would have been — like standing at the edge of a cliff and waiting for the ground to give way.

"You should sit."

I startled. He had stopped at the entrance to the sitting room and turned to look at me, and I hated that I hadn't heard him stop — hated how quietly he moved, like the world bent itself around him.

"I'm fine standing," I said.

His eyes moved over my face. Not unkindly. That almost made it worse.

"You're bleeding through your sleeve."

I looked down. The cut from the party — I'd barely registered it at the time, too focused on getting out, on Aria's voice in my ear telling me to hurry — had soaked through the fabric of my dress in a dark, spreading stain. I hadn't even felt it.

I didn't want to sit. I didn't want to accept anything from him. But my legs had started to shake somewhere between the front door and this room, and I didn't trust them anymore.

I sat.

He crossed to the cabinet by the far wall without a word and came back with a small first aid kit. Then he crouched in front of me — actually crouched, this man who people called the devil himself — and held out his hand, palm up.

I stared at his hand for a moment. Cool. Steady. Patient in a way that felt almost dangerous.

Then I put my arm in it.

He worked quickly and carefully, rolling back my sleeve, cleaning the wound with something that stung just enough to remind me I was still very much awake, then pressing a bandage over it with even, gentle pressure. He didn't look up. I found myself watching the top of his head, the dark hair, the sharp line of his jaw, and thinking that it would be so much easier if he were just a monster.

"They told you they wanted to help you," he said. His voice was low. Quiet.

I said nothing.

"Aria." He said her name the way you'd set something sharp on a table. Carefully. Deliberately. "She has wanted something from me for a long time. You were simply the shortest path to it."

"You don't know that," I said. But even as the words came out, they felt thin. Unconvincing. Like I was trying to talk myself into believing them more than I was trying to convince him.

He looked up then.

His eyes met mine, and for a moment neither of us moved. The fire behind him crackled softly. The room felt very small.

"I know everything that moves in the dark," he said. "That is why they call me what they call me."

I believed him. That was the part I couldn't shake — sitting here with the warmth of the fire on my face and his hands still loosely holding my wrist, I believed every word. And I didn't know what to do with that.

"So what happens now?" I asked. My voice came out steadier than I felt.

He stood, unhurried, and set the kit aside. He was quiet for a moment — the kind of quiet that felt intentional, like he was selecting each word with care.

"Now," he said, "you stop running toward people who want to use you." His gaze held mine. "And you start asking yourself why, out of everyone in that city — they chose you specifically."

He left before I could answer.

I sat alone in the firelight for a long time after that, my bandaged wrist resting in my lap, staring at the place where he'd been.

Why me.

The question turned slowly in my chest, over and over, like a key searching for a lock — and the worst part, the part that made my stomach drop, was that I was beginning to think I already knew the answer.