THE DON'S BLIND SPOT

CHAPTER 4: UNDER THE SURFACE

SERAPHINA'S POV

Living with Aurora slowly rewired my sense of normal.

Mornings became soft things, sunlight spilling through thin curtains, the smell of coffee drifting through the apartment, Aurora humming as she moved around the kitchen barefoot and carefree. I learned her habits quickly, the way she liked her eggs slightly overcooked, the way she talked with her hands, the way she filled silence without realizing it. She made space feel safe, like danger had no permission to cross the threshold.

That illusion didn’t last.

It started subtly, in ways I couldn’t explain without sounding paranoid. A man across the street who stood a little too long pretending to smoke. A car parked downstairs that changed but never truly disappeared. The faint sense of being observed, not watched closely, just accounted for. I told myself it was my past catching up to me, my nerves still raw from running, my body refusing to relax even when my mind wanted to.

Aurora noticed my distraction but brushed it off easily. She always did. Everything slid off her like the world had agreed never to hurt her.

“You’re overthinking,” she said one morning, pushing a mug into my hands. “Rome does that to people. Too much history. Too many eyes.”

I smiled and nodded, not trusting myself to say what I felt. Because the truth was, the eyes I felt on me weren’t the city’s.

They belonged to him.

Alessio De Luca didn’t appear often, but when he did, the air shifted. The café quieted without effort. Conversations softened. People straightened as if they had forgotten themselves for a moment and suddenly remembered where they were. He never looked rushed. Never looked uncertain. He carried himself like the world had already been decided and he was merely walking through the aftermath.

I tried not to think about him. Tried not to remember the way his gaze lingered, not hungry, not desperate, just intent. As if he were reading something written beneath my skin. That kind of attention unsettled me more than any obvious threat ever had.

The first time we spoke alone stayed with me longer than it should have.

He came into the café near closing, the sun already sinking, the street outside washed in amber light. Aurora wasn’t there. She had stepped out to meet a supplier, leaving me to handle the last few customers. When the door chimed, my head lifted instinctively, and there he was.

I felt it before I thought it, that tightening in my chest, the instinctive awareness. He didn’t smile. He didn’t soften. He simply looked at me, like this was expected, like I was exactly where he had anticipated I would be.

“Your sister stepped out,” I said, wiping my hands on a towel.

“I know,” he replied.

That was all. No explanation. No apology. Silence stretched, thick and deliberate. I realized then that he used it intentionally, let it press against people until they filled it themselves. I didn’t.

I held his gaze. Refused to fidget. If he wanted me uncomfortable, he would have to work for it.

“You don’t look like someone who enjoys being watched,” he said eventually.

The words landed too close to something I hadn’t voiced. My spine stiffened. “Neither do you.”

Something flickered in his eyes then. Not surprise. Interest.

He ordered coffee and paid without comment, leaning against the counter like he belonged there, like the café itself answered to him. I poured the drink with hands steadier than I felt, aware of his presence in a way that made my skin warm and my thoughts sharp.

“Why Italy,” he asked.

I froze for half a second, then shrugged. “Change of scenery.”

“That’s rarely the reason people cross oceans.”

I met his eyes again. “Sometimes it is.”

He studied me, not like a man evaluating beauty, but like one measuring weight, consequence, risk. It made me feel exposed in a way I didn’t like, in a way that reminded me too much of my past. I handed him the cup, our fingers brushing briefly, the contact sending a shock through me I hadn’t expected.

He noticed. Of course he did.

He left without another word, but the echo of him stayed long after the door closed.

After that, he was everywhere without being present. His name slipped into conversations, into Aurora’s casual stories, into the atmosphere of rooms he wasn’t even in. My awareness of him sharpened, and with it, a slow unease settled under my skin.

Aurora invited him over for dinner one night like it was nothing. Like he wasn’t a man who made my instincts scream and my pulse quicken at the same time.

“He’s family,” she said, smiling. “Don’t look so tense.”

I tried not to.

Dinner was quiet, controlled. Alessio spoke little, listened more, his attention shifting between Aurora and me in subtle ways I couldn’t track. He asked polite questions. Nothing invasive. Nothing obvious. That made it worse. He was too careful, too deliberate, like he already knew the answers.

Afterward, Aurora fell asleep on the couch, wine finally catching up to her. Alessio helped carry her to her room, movements gentle, almost reverent. Watching him with her unsettled me more than anything else. He wasn’t just powerful. He was protective. That kind of devotion came with rules I didn’t understand.

When he returned to the living room, his gaze found me instantly.

“You should lock the door at night,” he said quietly.

My breath caught. “I do.”

“Good.”

There was a pause. The apartment felt smaller suddenly, quieter, like the walls were listening. “You don’t ask many questions,” he continued.

“I’ve learned not to.”

“From experience.”

“Yes.”

He nodded, accepting that without pushing. It should have comforted me. It didn’t. It felt like permission being granted, like a boundary being marked rather than crossed.

After he left, I couldn’t sleep.

I lay awake staring at the ceiling, replaying moments I hadn’t realized mattered. His presence. His silence. The way people reacted to him. The way Aurora trusted him without hesitation. The way my body responded before my mind could catch up.

I had come here to disappear, to rebuild quietly, to exist without fear. Instead, I felt like I had stepped into the orbit of something massive, something with gravity strong enough to pull me apart if I got too close.

And the worst part was, some part of me wanted to.

The realization scared me more than any threat ever had.

Because I knew that if I wasn’t careful, if I let curiosity outweigh caution, Alessio De Luca wouldn’t just see me.

He would consume me.

And I wasn’t sure I would survive wanting him.