Lucia
The suite is too big. That’s the first thing I notice once the door closes behind me and the silence settles in.
The space stretches in directions I don’t need.
Living area. Desk. Windows that look out over a city I don’t know yet.
Everything is soft and expensive and deliberately impersonal, not meant for someone who counted exits an hour ago and still does it automatically.
I stand there for a moment with my bag still on my shoulder, like if I don’t move, none of this will become real.
It does all the same.
I drop the bag by the couch. Kick off my shoes with a carelessness that feels almost rebellious.
Walk to the window and press my forehead lightly against the glass.
The city below is waking up, early and indifferent.
Cars move in neat lines. Lights flick on floor by floor.
People go to work. Life continues as if I didn’t just dismantle my own.
My body finally registers how tired I am.
My mind doesn’t care. I throw on a nightdress and lie on the bed, staring at the ceiling, heart still running on adrenaline and borrowed calm.
Every time I close my eyes, images stack on top of each other, too fast to separate.
Marco’s hand on my wrist. His pupils blown wide.
The way the apartment felt like it was holding its breath.
Then the elevator doors, sliding shut. Then the stranger’s mouth inches from mine, stopping because he chose to.
That part won’t let go of me.
I roll onto my side and reach for my phone, thumb hovering over the screen like there might be something waiting for me if I look long enough.
Then I stop myself. There’s no one to call.
No one who won’t come with questions or expectations or concern sharp enough to turn into control. No one who wouldn’t ask where I am.
I don’t want to be found.
Hunger creeps in instead. Sharp and insistent, the kind that doesn’t care about timing or finances or whether I deserve comfort.
Room service is a terrible idea. I know that immediately. I don’t know what’s coming next. I don’t know how long I’ll be here. I shouldn’t be spending money on things that disappear as soon as they’re consumed.
I order food, anyway. When it arrives, I eat standing up, barefoot on carpet that probably costs more than my last month’s rent. The normalcy of it—fork, plate, warm food—hits me harder than I expect. My throat tightens. It feels like permission I didn’t ask for.
After, I sit at the desk and try to plan. I write things down. Practical things. Cities I could go to where Marco wouldn’t look first. People I could email without explaining too much. How long my savings might stretch if I’m careful.
If I’m careful.
I stop when I realize I’ve written it four times in a row, like repetition might turn it into protection.
That’s when I reach into my bag.
And don’t feel my wallet. The absence is immediate and absolute.
I freeze, hand still inside the bag like if I don’t pull it out, I can undo the mistake. My chest tightens, breath going shallow and fast, panic already crawling up my spine.
No.
No, no, no.
I dump the contents of the bag onto the desk. Phone. Charger. Lip balm. Keys. Receipts. I check again, slower this time, fingers pressing into seams, zippers opened and reopened like the wallet might materialize if I’m thorough enough.
It doesn’t.
The panic spikes fast and hot, skipping past mild concern and going straight for catastrophe.
My ID.
My address.
My name.
Everything Marco would need if he wanted to find me.
I picture him tearing the apartment apart, checking drawers, checking accounts, calling people I didn’t even realize he knew about. I picture him calm instead of angry, which is worse. Marco when he’s decided something is terrifyingly efficient.
Security checkpoint.
The memory hits me all at once. Setting the bag down. Pulling things out too fast. Thinking I’ll fix this later because later always felt safer than now.
I sink back into the chair, chest tight, vision swimming, fingers curling against the edge of the desk to keep myself grounded.
This is how it happens, my mind supplies unhelpfully. Not in dramatic moments. In small, stupid oversights that open the door just enough for someone else to step through.
A knock sounds at the door. I jolt so hard, my chair scrapes loudly against the floor. My heart slams into my ribs, sharp and painful. For half a second, I can’t breathe at all. My mind races through possibilities too fast to choose one.
Room service.
Security.
Hotel staff.
Or him.
My gaze snaps to the door like it might give something away if I stare hard enough. I don’t move. I don’t answer. I stand there, frozen, every muscle pulled tight, listening for another sound.
The knock comes again.
I take one shaky step backward, pulse roaring in my ears, already calculating exits that don’t exist, already bracing for a confrontation I told myself I’d escaped.
My hand lifts toward the door… and stops. Whoever is on the other side of it has power.
The question is whether they’re about to use it.
The knock comes a third time. Softer this time, like whoever is on the other side has realized I’m not answering on purpose.
My pulse is loud enough to drown out reason. I swallow against the dryness in my throat and force my feet to move. Not toward the door yet. Just enough that I’m not trapped between panic and stillness.
I grab the only thing within reach that could make me feel less helpless—a heavy glass tumbler from the minibar tray. I hold it low at my side like it’s not ridiculous.
Because it is ridiculous.
Because if it’s Marco on the other side of that door, a glass won’t save me.
The peephole is too high for my height unless I stand on my toes. I do it, anyway, careful not to make noise, my forehead almost touching the door as I angle my eye to the small fisheye lens.
The hallway is empty.
My stomach drops. That’s worse, somehow. Empty hallway means someone stepped out of view. Means someone is waiting. Means…
A quiet voice carries through the door, muffled but unmistakably calm. “It’s me.”
My blood turns cold.
Not because it’s Marco.
Because it’s him. The stranger from the plane. The man with scarred knuckles and quiet eyes. The man who said You’re safe now like it was something he could deliver with his hands.
I lower off my toes slowly, glass still clenched tight enough that my fingers ache. I blow out a breath that sounds like it hurts and inch the deadbolt open, keeping the chain on. The door cracks just wide enough for me to see him through the gap.
He stands a step back, exactly where he can’t be accused of crowding me. Same suit. Jacket off now. White shirt open at the throat like he’s already started loosening himself out of the don-shaped armor.
He holds something in his hand.
A wallet.
Mine.
My grip on the glass goes slack so suddenly, it almost slips. “Oh my God,” I choke out.
“You left this at the terminal,” he says.
“I…” My voice catches. I clear my throat. “You didn’t have to bring it all the way here.”
“I know.”
Silence stretches between us, dense and intimate. Not empty. Weighted. Full of the things he could say and doesn’t. Full of the things I want and refuse to admit.
I feel him in the space like heat. Like gravity. Like the line of his attention is a touch that stops just short of skin. His gaze flicks to the glass still in my hand and then back to my face, and there’s something in the way he looks at me that makes my pulse trip.
Not pity.
Not judgment.
Recognition.
As if he understands what it costs to open a door even an inch.
I should take the wallet and shut the chain again. I should thank him and let the hallway swallow him back into anonymity.
Instead, I step back. Not because he asked. Because I want him to come in. Because the suite behind me is too quiet, and the silence is shaped like Marco’s breath on my neck and the slam of doors and the sound of my own heart trying to outrun my body.
Because he’s here and my brain is already rewriting him into a threat my body refuses to believe.
He doesn’t move right away. He waits. Like he’s giving me one more chance to change my mind without losing face.
Then, slowly, he steps forward. The movement is unhurried, but it still makes my insides tighten. Not fear. Awareness.
The air shifts when he crosses the threshold, like the room takes him in and decides it belongs to him. Like the space recalibrates around his body without him ever raising a hand.
The door closes softly behind him. A quiet click. A sound that lands somewhere low in my chest. We stand a few feet apart, the space between us buzzing with everything we didn’t do earlier. Everything we both pretended didn’t exist.
The wallet is in his hand. I can see the way his fingers hold it. Careful, precise, like he’s practiced restraint so long that it’s become muscle. Scarred knuckles. Clean nails. A man who can break things and chooses not to.
I swallow. “Thank you,” I say, and it means Thank you for bringing it and Thank you for not asking why I’m shaking and Thank you for not looking at me like I’m broken and Thank you for existing in a way that doesn’t demand pieces of me as payment.
His eyes hold mine, steady, unreadable in the way dangerous things are unreadable. Not blank.
Contained.
“You’re welcome,” he says, yet the words don’t feel like politeness. They feel like a promise he isn’t supposed to make.
He extends the wallet. I reach for it. Our fingers brush. Just skin to skin. A glancing touch. An accident.
It feels like a spark. Something sharp lights under my skin and runs straight up my arm, straight into my throat, and suddenly I’m too aware of my own breath, too aware of how close he is, too aware of the fact that nobody is forcing this.
His gaze drops to our hands as if the contact matters to him, too.
I don’t pull away.
Neither does he.