Four
1006 Words
I started leaving my apartment at different times.
Some mornings I left before sunrise, slipping into the street while the sky was still bruised with blue. Other days I waited until late, pretending my schedule was normal, even as my stomach knotted with dread.
I stopped taking the same routes.
I memorized side streets, counted footsteps, paused at shop windows just to see who paused with me. Florence, once beautiful and open, shrank into corridors and corners.
Every man in a gray jacket made my pulse spike.
Every reflection felt like a mistake.
At the museum, I requested longer hours in the restoration wing—quiet, windowless, safe. Or so I thought. I ate lunch alone, phone face down, pretending I wasn’t waiting for something I didn’t want to arrive.
Still, the feeling followed me.
Like someone reading over my shoulder.
The first message came on a Thursday.
I was washing my hands in the museum restroom when my phone vibrated in my bag. The sound was sharp in the tiled silence. I dried my hands too quickly and pulled them out.
Unknown Number
Florence has rules.
My chest tightened.
The exact same words I had thought in my head the day I noticed the man.
I stared at the screen until the letters blurred. Then I typed back before I could stop myself.
Who is this?
The typing indicator appeared immediately.
Then vanished.
The message disappeared from my phone as if it had never existed.
No sender.
No history.
Nothing.
I stood there, breathing hard, palms braced against the sink.
This is about the alley, I told myself.
This is because you saw the murder.
They were warning me. Testing how far fear could bend me.
That night, I walked home with my keys threaded between my fingers like claws.
The street outside my apartment was empty.
Too empty.
I noticed the scratch as soon as I reached my bicycle.
It ran clean and deliberate along the metal near the lock—no accident, no random scrape.
A rose.
Its stem is sliced through with a thin blade.
I didn’t touch it.
I stared until my eyes burned.
Someone had taken the time to carve that symbol where I would see it. Not to damage the bike—but to mark it.
To mark me.
I wheeled the bike inside and locked my door, hands shaking so badly I dropped my keys twice.
Inside, I paced, checked windows, and checked the lock again. I told myself I was safe. They wanted silence, not blood.
But when I finally lay down to sleep, my phone buzzed again.
Unknown Number
Good. You’re learning.
I didn’t reply.
I turned the phone off completely and pressed it under my pillow, as if hiding it could make me invisible.
In the darkness, I replayed the alley one more time—the sound of bone meeting stone, the man’s breath rattling as he fell.
I hadn’t screamed.
I hadn’t run.
And now, I am being punished for surviving.
As sleep finally dragged me under, one thought burned brighter than fear:
If this is only the beginning…
What happens when they stop being patient?
****************
The message stayed on her phone for twelve seconds.
That was all.
Twelve seconds was enough.
Leo watched the mirrored feed from his tablet as the text appeared on Amara’s screen—white letters against black, clear and direct.
Florence has rules.
His jaw clenched.
“They’re getting bold,” Lino said quietly from behind him.
Leo didn’t answer. His focus narrowed to the timestamp, the originating signal, the speed with which it vanished.
The Romanos were showing off.
They routed the message through a dead relay, bounced it twice, then wiped it from her device remotely. Clean work. Old-school intimidation dressed in modern tools.
They wanted her to feel watched, Leo thought.
And they want me to know they can reach her.
“She typed back,” Lino noted.
Leo saw it. The typing indicator flared, then stopped. The message disappeared.
Daniela stood frozen in the museum restroom, reflected in the mirror—face pale, shoulders tense, eyes darting as if she was waiting for the walls to close in.
Leo’s chest tightened unexpectedly.
“Do not contact her,” he said sharply.
Lino hesitated. “She’s scared.”
“Yes,” Leo’s voice was clipped. “That’s the point.”
He stepped away from the screen, forcing his hands to relax.
The Romanos weren’t trying to hurt her—not yet. They were asking a question only people like Leo could hear.
Is she under protection?
And Leo was answering with silence.
For now.
A second alert flashed on the tablet later that evening.
Physical marking detected.
The feed switched to a street-level camera outside Amara’s building. She stood frozen beside her bicycle, staring at the etched symbol near the lock.
The rose.
A blade through the stem.
Lino swore under his breath. “They’ve marked her.”
Leo’s expression darkened.
“That symbol isn’t for her,” Leo said. “It’s for me.”
The Romanos were escalating—layer by layer, never touching flesh, never crossing into open violence. Not yet.
They wanted Leo to break his own rule.
No contact.
No exposure.
No weakness.
“She’s moving the bike inside,” Lino said. “Smart.”
Leo watched as she struggled with the door, fear written into every tight movement. When she finally disappeared into the building, the feed went dark.
Silence filled the room.
“She won’t last like this,” Lino said carefully. “Civilians don’t.”
Leo turned slowly, his eyes cold.
“She’s stronger than they think.”
And maybe stronger than he’d intended.
Leo exhaled, long and controlled.
“Double surveillance,” he said. “No visible presence. No interference.”
“And if they escalate again?”
Leo’s gaze hardened.
“Then I stop being patient.”
Because the Romanos believed fear was a language they owned.
But they are about to learn they were wrong.
- Writer
