Chapter 5 - Luca
The folded paper square sits between my fingers like a confession, her handwriting pressed deep enough into the paper that I can trace each letter’s indentation.
“The dreams are getting worse.” Five words that make something violent twist in my chest, that same feeling I get right before I make someone scream.
I smooth the paper against my desk, adding it to the collection of six others, each one a piece of her soul she’s trusted me with.
The surveillance feeds glow across my monitors, showing her apartment from six different angles.
Empty now, while she's at work, but I've memorized how the afternoon light hits her kitchen table, where she'll sit tonight to fold another message for me.
My response already waits in my pocket: "Dreams or memories?
" Because I need to know if she's haunted by what was or what could be.
My hands find their rhythm with the tools, muscle memory from years of this work.
Started when I was seventeen, right after the massacre.
Nico said I needed a hobby that didn't involve blood.
Turns out, rebuilding something that's been destroyed appeals to me.
The precision required, the patience. Not so different from my other work.
The afternoon's work still clings to my knuckles, blood from number nine, the construction worker who made the mistake of calling out "Nice tits, sweetheart" when Faith walked past his site at lunch.
The construction worker's eyes went to someone more deserving after I explained, through his screams, exactly what those 'nice tits' he mentioned looked like under Faith's sweater.
Not that I've seen them yet, but my imagination is vivid and his fear needed feeding.
The cleaners already handled the mess, efficient as always.
I check the time—need to clean up before tonight.
But first, I pull up more research on Faith's patterns.
She's been attending pharmaceutical galas, three in the past two months.
Always as someone's plus-one, usually Mrs. Webb or Mrs. Patterson.
Why would a librarian need to network with drug executives?
Her anxiety medication comes from Neumann Pharmaceuticals. The connection feels important but I can't place why. Is she investigating something about her prescriptions? About the company? The pieces don't fit yet.
I pull off my blood-spotted shirt and move to my closet.
Not a suit tonight. Suits suggest business, violence, the man I am during working hours.
Tonight requires something else. Dark jeans, Italian-made, and a charcoal sweater soft enough that when she inevitably touches me, and she will touch me, she'll feel expensive luxury instead of obvious threat.
My phone buzzes. Marco, asking about the Vincent. He wants to know if I'll have it ready for the vintage show next month. I ignore him. The bike is mine, like everything I restore. I don't share.
I check the restaurant reservation one more time.
Corner table, perfect sightline to the door and every other seat.
I've eaten there six times this month, learning the patterns, the blind spots, which server works which section.
Sarah's birthday provides the perfect excuse.
The anonymous flowers I had delivered this morning with a card saying "From your secret admirer" guaranteed she'd want to celebrate.
Libraries don't pay enough for somewhere that nice, but birthdays make people splurge.
One more photograph to write on before I leave.
My fingers work without thought, creating something delicate from nothing.
On the back, I write: "Look for me tonight.
" She won't know where or when, but she'll know I'm coming.
The anticipation will make her hyperaware, searching every shadow, every face.
Exactly how I want her when she finally sees me.
The restaurant hums with expensive conversation and crystal touching crystal in toasts I don't care about. I've been nursing the same glass of wine for thirty minutes, positioned at my corner table where I can see everything.
The hostess tried to offer me a menu three times before my stare made her uncomfortable enough to leave. I'm not here to eat.
Seven forty-five. They're late, but Friday traffic from the library explains it.
I shift the wine glass, catching light from the candle, practicing the exact angle I'll use when our eyes meet.
Every detail planned except her reaction.
That's the variable I can't control, the thing that makes my blood heat like before a particularly satisfying kill.
The door opens. Sarah enters first, loud and excited, wearing a dress she probably bought specifically for tonight. Behind her, two other library workers I've seen but dismissed as irrelevant. And then Faith.
She wears a soft blue sweater I haven't seen before, paired with a black skirt that stops just above her knees.
Her hair falls loose around her shoulders instead of the usual bun.
But it's her eyes that stop my breath. Scanning the restaurant immediately, searching, hunting.
She knows I'm here. Can feel it. Like prey that's just scented the predator but doesn't know which shadow holds teeth.
"This place is incredible," Sarah gushes, practically bouncing. "I can't believe someone sent me flowers. A secret admirer! Can you imagine?"
Faith murmurs something appropriate, but her attention stays on the room.
Her hand touches her purse where I know she keeps my Polaroids, all seven of them wrapped in tissue paper like prayers.
I've watched her transfer them each morning, careful not to crease the edges, treating them like something precious.
The hostess seats them in the middle of the dining room, exactly where I told her to.
Faith takes the chair facing my direction, though she hasn't found me yet.
Her eyes move systematically. Couple at the bar, businessman alone with his laptop.
She's memorizing faces, looking for the one that doesn't belong.
"Faith, you're being weird," one of the coworkers says. "What are you looking for?"
"Nothing. Just… people watching."
But her hand stays on her purse. The waiter approaches their table, and she hardly looks at the menu, ordering the first thing she sees. Her attention stays on the room, on the search.
Sarah chatters about her flowers, speculating who might have sent them. "Maybe that guy from the coffee shop who always flirts. Or the security guard at the bank. He's cute, right?"
Faith makes agreeable noises, but she's not listening. Her eyes continue their sweep, and I know the exact moment she'll find me. Three seconds. Two. One.
Our eyes meet.
When our eyes lock, something cracks in my chest like bones breaking to reset properly.
Twenty-four nights of being unknown, of being nothing but shadows and paper, end in a look that burns through me.
She sees me. Not my name, not my family, just me.
The monster who loves her in the only way I can: completely, violently.
Her lips part slightly, water glass trembling in her hand as those hazel eyes stay locked on my pale ones. She knows. Not my name, not who I am, but she knows what I am. Her guardian. Her watcher. The one who sharpens her knives and kills her fears.
My hand tightens on the wine glass until I'm surprised it doesn't shatter.
Every instinct screams to cross the room, to grab her wrist, to make her say my name.
Instead, I lift the glass. Control is what separates me from the crude men I kill for her.
A toast to her, to this moment, to the end of hiding.
The candlelight catches the crystal, sending fractured light across my table, and her breath visibly catches.
The water glass returns to the table with a soft click that sounds like thunder for how aware I am of her every movement.
"Faith?" Sarah's voice breaks through. "You okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."
"I… excuse me. Restroom." She stands on unsteady legs, purse clutched against her side.
The path to the bathroom requires walking past my table. Twenty feet of distance that feels both endless and instant. She moves slowly. Careful, deliberate, trying not to trigger the chase instinct. Too late, little faith. I've been hunting you for weeks. The chase ended the moment you walked in.
I don't look up as she approaches, but every nerve in my body tracks her movement. Nineteen feet. Twelve. Eight.
"Little faith," I whisper as she passes, just loud enough for her to hear.
She freezes. Her body goes rigid, hand white-knuckled on her purse strap.
For three heartbeats, she stands perfectly still, processing the voice that matches her guardian, that the man in the corner booth is the one who's been in her apartment, who knows about her knife, who folded seven paper promises.
Then she continues to the bathroom on legs that shake slightly, the blue sweater trembling with each breath.
I take a sip of wine, savoring the way her perfume lingers.
Vanilla and something floral that makes me want to follow her, to corner her in that bathroom and show her exactly how much control I've been exercising.
But not yet. This is her choice to make. Her move in our game.
She emerges three minutes later, having splashed water on her face from the darkness under her eyes. Instead of walking past my table again, she takes the long way around, circling the entire restaurant to avoid me. Smart girl. Except.
When she returns to her table, Faith doesn't look away.
She sits, food untouched, hand constantly finding the pictures in her purse like she's checking they're still real.
Her friends chatter around her, but she's gone somewhere else entirely, fallen into this moment where we exist in the same space, breathing the same air, no longer separated by shadows and surveillance cameras.
I pull out my Polaroid camera, shooting while she watches, a show just for her. The image takes shape between my fingers, and I see her lean forward slightly, lips parted.
When I'm finished, I stand, dropping cash on the table that's triple what the wine cost.
The path to the door takes me past their table.
I don't look at her, don't acknowledge her existence, but my hand finds her chair as I pass.
The photograph slides onto the fabric where she'll find it when she stands.
My fingers brush the back of her neck where her pulse hammers against skin that's silk-warm and slightly damp from nervous heat.
The touch lasts half a heartbeat but I memorize the texture, adding it to my collection of stolen pieces of her.
Then I'm gone, out into the Chicago night where November air burns my lungs. But I only make it half a block before I stop, standing in the shadows where I can see through the restaurant window. She's already found the Polaroid, flipping it over with those same trembling fingers.
On the back, my message: "Tomorrow. Rosetti charity gala. Come claim me."
She reads it three times, I count, before carefully adding it to her collection.
Sarah says something that makes the others laugh, but Faith stays quiet, touching the paper through her purse.
She knows tomorrow everything changes. She'll walk into my world without knowing it, seeking her guardian among Chicago's elite.
Back at the mansion, I'll return to the Vincent, let my hands work while my mind processes. By tomorrow night, I'll know more. Faith will be in my territory, where I can watch her reactions to everyone, catalogue who makes her tense, who she avoids.
For now, I replay that moment when our eyes met, when she saw me and didn't run.
She stays another twenty minutes out of politeness, pushing food around her plate while Sarah opens presents from the other librarians.
I watch from the street, hands in my pockets, looking like any other man waiting for someone.
But I'm memorizing how she holds the Polaroid up to the light, trying to see through the paper to read the words again.
Finally, she makes her excuses. Headache, long day tomorrow, needs to prepare for some event. Sarah hugs her, says something that makes Faith force a smile, then she's walking toward the door. Toward me, though she doesn't know I'm still here.
I fade deeper into shadows as she exits, watch her stand on the sidewalk looking both ways. Not for traffic. For me. Her hand clutches her purse like a lifeline, and I can see her lips moving. Counting, maybe. Or praying. Both feel like worship from where I'm standing.
A taxi pulls up, but before she gets in, she does something that breaks me. She pulls out the Polaroid again, holds it to her lips, and kisses the paper like it's something sacred. Like she's kissing me. The gesture is so innocent, so fucking pure, that something violent rips through my chest.
The ride home, I think about the Vincent waiting in the garage.
About tearing apart something broken and making it whole.
About Faith's mother's suspicious death.
About pharmaceutical connections. About how tomorrow, she'll walk into a room full of Chicago's nightmares, and I'll be the worst one there.
But also the only one who belongs to her.
My little faith, brave enough to see me, to approach me, to kiss my fucking message.
Tomorrow can't come fast enough.