The fire within
733 Words
That night, they didn’t sleep.
They made love with a kind of desperation that bordered on hunger. She tugged his shirt off, nails dragging down his back. He kissed her like she was oxygen, like he hadn’t tasted her in years, not hours.
“You’re mine,” he breathed as he pushed into her, voice raw.
She gasped, head falling back. “Then don’t ever leave again.”
He didn’t.
They moved together like fire meeting fuel, heat building and crashing. Every thrust a vow. Every moan a prayer. When they came, they came together, limbs tangled, bodies trembling, mouths whispering the only truth left between them—
This. Only this.
Love in the middle of ruin.
Unexpected Visitors
The next morning, two men stood at the gates.
Matteo saw them from the terrace. Sharp suits. Dark glasses. Posture that screamed danger.
He poured a second espresso and walked down.
Elira watched from the shadows, a gun tucked into the folds of her robe. Just in case.
Matteo returned alone twenty minutes later, face unreadable.
“They were messengers,” he said. “Not enemies. They brought a proposition.”
Elira’s stomach dropped. “What kind of proposition?”
“Protection. Immunity. The new boss wants peace. And he wants me to broker it.”
She stared at him. “You’d have to go back.”
He nodded once. “Briefly. No violence. No blood.”
“No promises,” she whispered.
His silence was answer enough.
The Hardest Choice
That night, they stood on the beach, wind cold and sea restless. Elira lit a cigarette, something she hadn’t done in years.
“If you go,” she said, “how do I know you’ll come back?”
“You don’t.”
She took a shaky breath. “Then don’t make me watch you disappear again.”
He cupped her face in his hands. “I don’t want to go. But if I don’t, they’ll find us again. Over and over. And one day… they’ll win.”
She looked at him—really looked. At the man she’d once called a monster. At the man who became her home.
“Come back to me,” she said.
“I swear it.”
They kissed, slow and soft and heavy with unspoken fear.
And the next morning, he was gone.
Three Days in Silence
Elira waited.
She didn’t leave the villa. Didn’t eat much. Barely slept.
She kept her phone by her side and jumped at every buzz, every flicker of light through the curtains. The sea grew louder. Her chest tighter.
On the third night, she dreamed of blood.
Of Matteo with a gun in his hand and a wound in his side. She woke screaming, drenched in sweat, reaching for a man who wasn’t there.
The silence felt like a betrayal.
Until the front door creaked open at 4:17 a.m.
And he was there.
Alive. Bruised. But alive.
She ran into his arms and wept.
“I told you I’d come back,” he said, voice hoarse.
“You’re late,” she sobbed, holding him like she’d never let go.
The Life They Stole
Weeks passed.
The messages stopped.
No more letters. No more visitors.
They burned every remnant of the past in a bonfire under a crescent moon—the ledgers, the old IDs, the names they would never use again.
And when the fire died, they were new.
Matteo bought vines. Elira planted herbs. They hired locals to help build a small winery on the back lot. Slowly, joy returned to their bones.
One afternoon, he pulled her into the kitchen, kissed her hard, and asked, “Marry me.”
She laughed. “You already own me.”
“I don’t want to own you,” he whispered. “I want to choose you. Every day.”
She kissed him in answer.
On the Cliff
Their wedding was private. Just the two of them. Barefoot under a fig tree with the sea behind them and a local priest who didn’t ask questions.
She wore white linen. He wore black.
He pressed his vows into her palm instead of saying them aloud, but she understood.
Always.
Even in the dark.
Especially then.
She cried when he kissed her.
Not from sadness.
But from the feeling she never thought she’d taste again—
Peace.
The End.
(A life stolen. A love earned.)
- Writer
