Chapter 3 Violet
VIOLET
The east wall is trying to kill me.
Not literally, though the scaffolding does creak in ways that suggest it’s considering murder.
Every measurement I take reveals another layer of damage I missed yesterday.
Water infiltration from the roof. Salt crystallization eating through the plaster.
A crack I swear wasn’t there last week, spreading like a slow-motion lightning strike toward the only intact fresco on this side of the nave.
Four hundred years this building has stood here. Four hundred years of earthquakes, wars, neglect, the occasional flood. And now it’s decided to fall apart on my watch.
Story of my life.
I’m balanced on a platform about fifteen feet up, camera pressed to my face, documenting the latest crisis, a section of painted angel wing that’s starting to separate from the wall beneath it.
The pigments are still vivid. Cobalt blue, the expensive kind made from ground lapis lazuli.
Someone paid a fortune for that color in 1623.
Now it’s hanging by a thread of degraded lime mortar, ready to flutter to the floor like a dead leaf.
“Don’t you dare,” I mutter at it. “I will stabilize the absolute shit out of you. Just... stay.”
The angel doesn’t answer. Neither does the wing. But it doesn’t fall either, so I’m counting that as a win.
I lower my camera and reach for my notebook, jotting down coordinates and damage codes in the shorthand I’ve developed over years of fieldwork. E-7, saltcyrs, detach 40%, pigment stable, priority 1. It looks like nonsense to anyone else, but to me, it’s a map of everything that needs saving.
And there’s so much that needs saving.
The morning light shifts as a cloud passes over the sun, dimming the interior from gold to gray. I check my watch. Nearly eleven. I’ve been up here for four hours, and my lower back is staging a protest that’s about to turn into a full rebellion.
Time for a break. Coffee. Maybe one of Rosa’s pastries if she’s feeling generous, though her generosity usually comes with commentary about my weight or my solitude or both.
I’m packing up my equipment when I sense it.
Someone watching.
The sensation is different from yesterday’s paranoia on the street. It’s sharper and more immediate. Like standing too close to a space heater. That awareness of something present that wasn’t there before. I turn slowly, keeping my movements casual, and scan the cathedral floor below.
A man stands in the nave.
He’s positioned near the fourth column, half in shadow, but there’s enough light to make out the basics.
Tall, dark hair, with a classic Italian handsome face.
He’s wearing an expensive suit that looks out of place in this crumbling cathedral.
He doesn’t look like a tourist. Tourists wear bright colors and sensible shoes and expressions of vague cultural guilt.
This man wears his clothes like armor and stands like he owns the ground beneath his feet.
He’s looking directly at me, his piercing dark eyes boring into me.
Okay. Not creepy at all.
I consider ignoring him. This is a public building, technically, even if it’s been closed for restoration.
People wander in sometimes. Usually lost tourists or old women who want to light candles for the dead.
But something about the way he’s watching me, not moving, not pretending to examine the architecture, just watching, makes the back of my neck prickle again.
Jesus, Murphy. Maybe he’s just interested in the work. It happens.
I finish securing my camera bag with deliberate calm, then make my way down the scaffolding. Each rung is automatic by now, my body moving through the descent while my brain registers details about the stranger below.
He hasn’t moved. Hasn’t shifted his weight or checked his phone or done any of the normal fidgety things people do when they’re waiting. Just... stands there. Patient and still.
Like a predator at a watering hole.
The thought is ridiculous. I shake it off as my boots hit the marble floor.
Up close, he’s worse.
Not worse in a bad way. Worse in a dangerous way. The kind of beautiful that makes you forget basic self-preservation instincts, like how you shouldn’t approach wild animals or accept drinks from strangers or notice the exact way a man’s jaw curves into his throat.
Eyes so dark they’re almost black, fixed on my face with an intensity that feels physical. Mediterranean coloring. Sharp cheekbones that could cut glass. And that suit, dark gray, no tie, the top button undone in a way that somehow looks more deliberate than casual.
He’s looking at me like I’m the only interesting thing in a building full of baroque masterpieces.
Which is flattering and also deeply unsettling.
“Can I help you?” My voice is steadier than I feel.
“I apologize for disturbing you.” His English is perfect, barely accented, with the kind of precision that suggests expensive schooling. “The caretaker said it would be acceptable to observe.”
Tommaso let him in? The old man guards this place like a dragon hoards gold. He barely tolerates me, and I’m here on legitimate business.
“Observe what, exactly?”
A corner of his mouth lifts. Not quite a smile. Something more controlled. “The restoration process. I have an interest in preservation.”
“Most people with an interest in preservation make appointments.”
“Most people don’t find themselves passing a cathedral with its doors open and an artist at work.”
Artist. I snort before I can stop myself. “I’m not an artist. I’m a conservator. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” He takes a step closer, and I catch his scent, something expensive cutting through the limestone dust. Citrus and wood and leather, clean and sharp and completely wrong for a space that smells like centuries and decay.
“You spend your days returning beauty to broken things. That seems like artistry to me.”
Okay. That’s... actually a good line.
I cross my arms, camera bag bumping against my hip. “Most people think conservation is just glorified cleaning.”
“Most people are wrong about most things.” His dark eyes drop to my hands, callused and stained with work, and his expression shifts. Interest, maybe. Or recognition. Like he’s seen something he expected to find. “You work with your hands. Not just documentation.”
It’s not a question.
“When needed. The formal restoration team won’t arrive for another month. I’m just doing emergency stabilization where I can.”
“Alone?”
“I prefer it.”
Why am I explaining myself to this man?
He nods slowly, gaze drifting past me to the scaffolding, the damaged wall, the angel with its cobalt wing barely clinging to existence. “The wall.”
“What about it?”
“There’s deep water damage, based on the staining pattern, salt crystallization in the lower sections, and that fresco—” He tilts his head, studying the angel I was just documenting.
“is late Renaissance, not Baroque as it stated in the initial documentation. It’s older than the building itself, most likely transplanted from somewhere else. ”
My mouth opens. Closes.
How the hell does he know that?
“You’re familiar with the cathedral.” It comes out more accusatory than I intend.
“I’m familiar with the foundation that funds its restoration.” He turns those dark eyes back to me. “And with the restoration grant that brought you here, Miss Murphy.”
A cold shiver runs down my spine.
“You know my name.”
“The Marchetti Foundation vets all its grant recipients.” He says it simply, like it’s the most natural thing in the world to know personal details about strangers.
“Your proposal was impressive, Miss Murphy. A comprehensive damage assessment with particular attention to the fresco cycle. Not many conservators have the expertise to handle both architectural and painterly deterioration.”
The Marchetti Foundation.
I know the name. It’s on every piece of correspondence I received about this grant, every wire transfer to my project account. I’d assumed it was run by some faceless board of wealthy Sicilians with more money than involvement.
Not... whoever this is.
“Thank you, and you are?”
That almost-smile again. “Elio.”
Just Elio. Like Madonna, or Cher, or the kind of person who doesn’t need a last name because everyone already knows who they are.
Great. A rich guy with an interest in preservation and an allergy to complete sentences.
“Well, Elio.” I emphasize the single name, letting him hear the sarcasm. “Is there something specific you wanted, or do you just enjoy startling women at their workplace?”
He laughs. It’s a low sound, surprised, like he didn’t expect to make it. The expression cracks something in his perfectly composed face, makes him look younger. Almost human.
“I apologize,” he says again, and this time it sounds genuine. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I was just curious about the work, this particular restoration is close to my heart.”
“The work.” I gesture at the scaffolding, the cameras, the disaster zone that is the east wall. “The work is trying not to let a four-hundred-year-old building collapse on my head while I document exactly how badly it’s falling apart.”
“A noble pursuit.”
“It’s a depressing pursuit. Everything here is dying. The plaster, the frescoes, the structural integrity of that column over there that I’m pretty sure hasn’t been inspected since Vatican II. I’m basically doing triage on a corpse.”
“And yet you stay.”
And yet I stay.
The words catch me off guard. He says them like they mean something, like staying with a dying thing is remarkable instead of just... what you do.
“It’s worth saving,” I say quietly. “Even the parts that are already lost. Documenting them matters. Bearing witness matters. Someone painted those angels four hundred years ago, and when they finally crumble to dust, there should be a record that they existed.”
Elio is silent for a long moment. Those dark eyes study my face with an intensity that should feel invasive but doesn’t. Or maybe it does, and I’ve just stopped caring.
“Broken beautiful things,” he murmurs. “You preserve them because no one else will.”
It’s not a question.
How does this stranger, with his handsome face, his expensive suit, his expensive cologne and his air of owning everything he touches, understand something I’ve never articulated to another person? Something I barely articulate to myself?
“Someone has to.” My voice is rougher than I want it to be.
He nods. Just once. Like I’ve confirmed something he already suspected.
“Have you eaten today? I’d love to hear more about how your progress is going—the grant committee would appreciate a comprehensive update on your initial findings, particularly the status of the East Wall.”
The question is so unexpected that I actually laugh. “What?”
“Food. Sustenance. The thing humans require to continue functioning.” He tilts his head, and there’s something almost playful in his expression now.
Almost warm. “We can discuss the damage assessment over lunch. It is a necessary administrative function, Miss Murphy. I’m making it an official part of your day. ”
“I had coffee.”
“Coffee is not food.”
“Tell that to my bloodstream.”
He smiles properly this time. It transforms his face from beautiful to devastating, the kind of smile that would make a smarter woman run and a weaker woman surrender. I’m neither, but the butterflies in my stomach take off anyway.
“There’s a café nearby,” he says. “Would you allow me to buy you lunch?”
“The café around the corner? Prima?”
“If that is your preference.”
I should say no. There’s so much work I still have to get through.
But he said he’s from the Marchetti Foundation, which means he works for the people who are funding this restoration, funding my stay here, my apartment, my salary…
. I can’t say no without a damn good reason.
Plus my stomach is empty, my back hurts, and Rosa’s fried ricotta things are calling to me from across the piazza.
And maybe there’s a part of me that’s tired of eating alone.
Tired of being the sad American with her single espresso and her notebook full of damage codes and her conversations with nobody.
“Fine,” I hear myself say. “But I’m ordering my own food. And you’re not allowed to comment on how much or how little I eat.”
“Agreed.”
“And this is...” I gesture vaguely between us. “It’s an administrative review.”
“An administrative review,” he says smoothly. “Over coffee. Between colleagues.”
Between colleagues.
“Let me get my bag.”
I turn back to the scaffolding to grab my supplies, his gaze warm and steady on my back the whole time. Watching. Waiting. Patient in a way that should unnerve me but doesn’t.
I relax a little as we walk out of the cathedral together, into the noon sunlight. The café is just across from us, and inside there’s Rosa, who will definitely have opinions about my lunch and my companion.
It’s just coffee, I tell myself as we walk accros the piazza, his shoulder close enough to mine that I heat radiates of him.
Just coffee.