Chapter 3
1043 Words
The click of the gun froze the air.
I didn’t turn.
I didn’t breathe.
I just felt the barrel pointed at the back of my spine — cold, precise, intentional.
The guard beside me reached for his weapon.
Massimo spoke first.
Quiet.
Low.
Controlled.
“Don’t.”
That one word stopped everyone.
Not because it was shouted.
Not because it was threatening.
But because he said it like he was already in charge of the outcome.
The rainwater slid down his jaw, dripping onto the polished floor. His shoulders were relaxed, posture unbothered — like this wasn’t danger, but inconvenience.
The man behind me — the one holding the gun — let out a shaky breath.
“Step away from her,” he demanded.
Massimo didn’t step back.
He stepped forward.
Not fast.
Not aggressive.
Just one single step — quiet, deliberate — like he was entering a conversation instead of a standoff.
And for a second, I forgot about the gun behind me.
Forgot about the cold metal near my spine.
Forgot everything except the way Massimo’s eyes were on mine.
Not on my fear.
Not on the gun.
On me.
“Who sent you?” Massimo asked calmly, without looking away from me.
The gun trembled slightly.
So did the voice behind me.
“You think I’m going to tell you that?”
“No,” Massimo said, and his voice softened in a way that made the hallway feel smaller, more intimate.
“You’re not.”
The guard beside me whispered, “Miss Hale, get down—”
The barrel touched my back harder.
“No one moves,” the gunman snapped, voice breaking.
My breath shook.
Massimo watched me — only me — and for the first time since that alley, his expression changed.
Something subtle.
Something almost impossible to see unless you were looking for it.
Concern.
Not panic.
Not fear.
Just a recognition that I was in danger — and he didn’t want that.
Not because of politics.
Not because of alliances.
Because of me.
“Ophelia,” he said quietly.
My name again.
Soft.
Measured.
Sure.
“Yes?” The word came out barely above a whisper.
His voice dropped even lower — intimate, like a secret placed gently into my hands.
“Breathe.”
I hadn’t realized I’d stopped.
My lungs trembled as I pulled in air.
The man holding the gun barked, “Don’t talk to her!”
But Massimo didn’t acknowledge him.
His gaze stayed on mine, steady, grounding — pulling me back into my body.
“Good,” he murmured, barely audible.
“Now stay with me.”
The hallway felt suspended — like time paused just long enough to allow this moment to exist.
Just long enough for me to see him clearly for the first time.
The sharpness.
The restraint.
The dangerous patience.
But beneath it — something human.
Not softness.
Something more fragile than that.
Something unpracticed.
He took another slow step forward.
The gunman behind me panicked. “Don’t— I will shoot her, I swear—”
Massimo finally looked at him.
Not with anger.
Not with threat.
With the cold, quiet certainty of a man who had seen death so many times that it no longer required raising his voice.
“No,” Massimo said.
“You won’t.”
The gunman flinched.
Because Massimo wasn’t guessing.
He knew.
Silence tightened.
My heartbeat was loud in my ears.
Massimo spoke again — still calm, still soft, still for me.
“When I move you’re going to drop,” he said.
My pulse stumbled. “I— I don’t know how—”
“You won’t have to think,” he murmured.
“I’ll be there.”
He said it like a fact.
Like gravity.
Like there was no version of this moment where he wasn’t already between me and the gun.
The gunman’s breath grew unsteady. “I—I said don’t move—!”
And then —
the smallest sound.
A floorboard shifting.
Behind him.
Someone else in the house.
The gunman turned —
The barrel left my back.
And Massimo moved.
He didn’t lunge.
He didn’t rush.
He stepped into the space between us like it was already his.
His body blocked mine, shielding me completely, before I even realized I had moved.
The gunman fired.
I felt the sound, not the bullet — Massimo’s hand on my shoulder pushing me gently but firmly behind him, out of the line of fire, as if this were not chaos, but choreography.
He didn’t look back at me.
He didn’t need to.
I was already behind him.
Breathing.
Alive.
The gunman stumbled — tackled by the second guard who had come from behind — the weapon skittering across the marble floor.
Massimo didn’t look at the gunman.
Didn’t look at the guards.
Didn’t look at the chaos he had just shifted.
He looked at me.
Up close.
Closer than before.
Close enough that I could see the rain still clinging to his lashes.
Close enough that I could feel the heat of him.
Close enough that my pulse was no longer mine alone.
His voice was soft when he spoke.
Not gentle.
Just true.
“You don’t belong in their world,” he said.
My breath caught.
“Then why am I in yours?” I whispered.
For the first time — the first real, undeniable time — something flickered in his eyes.
Not warmth.
Not softness.
Recognition.
As if he already knew the answer.
He opened his mouth to speak—
But footsteps thundered up the staircase.
We both turned.
My father appeared.
And he was not surprised to see Massimo.
He looked at him like a man seeing a debt come due.
“Massimo,” my father said.
“Senator,” Massimo replied, voice unreadable.
My father’s gaze flicked to me.
Then to the gun on the floor.
Then back to Massimo.
“We need to talk,” he said.
And Massimo answered:
“No.
We need to negotiate.”
He wasn’t here to threaten.
He was here to claim.
And I realized — with a quiet, undeniable certainty —
Whatever this was?
Whatever tie now existed between us?
It had just become irreversible.
- Writer
