CHAPTER 22
The air in her room felt heavier than usual like it was pressing gently against her chest every time she tried to breathe in too deep.
Mia lay curled on her side, wrapped in layers of Luca's hoodie and her own blanket, the room dim but warm.
The fever had gone down a little but the weakness clung to her like fog.
Her arms ached just trying to hold a glass of water.
Her throat felt dry. Her eyes, sore from crying and sleeping and blinking too much.
She hadn't said much today.
It wasn't just the illness.
It was that look again. The one that kept echoing behind her eyes.
Marcello.
She still didn't understand what it was. The memory of it lingered at the edge of her thoughts like the ghost of a touch that had never happened. He hadn't said a word to her. He hadn't smiled. But something about his gaze felt... consuming.
Like he saw her, truly saw her, in a moment she wasn't prepared to be seen.
She closed her eyes, tucking her face deeper into the hoodie sleeve. It smelled like Luca. That made her feel safer.
But still, she couldn't stop thinking about it.She wasn't sure if it was a memory or a dream because she'd been in bed, face half-buried in the pillow, dizzy with heat, her skin sticky with sweat.
And those eyes.
Watching.
Not cruel. Not cold, either.
Just... present. Like he wasn't supposed to be there, but had chosen to be anyway.
It should've scared her.
Maybe it did.
But not in the way she expected.
It wasn't the kind of fear that made her shrink. It was the kind that made her feel. Like she was awake for the first time in days alert, even as her body betrayed her.
And then it was gone.
She tried asking Luca about it later, when her voice was stronger. He brushed it off, said someone had stopped by about work, nothing important.
But he wouldn't meet her eyes when he said it.
She could always tell when he was protecting her. He did it with silence, not lies and silence had its own language.
Mia coughed weakly, then winced.
Tears threatened again, from exhaustion or confusion or just the ache in her chest she couldn't name.
She wasn't scared, not really.
But she wasn't fine either.
And the worst part? She didn't know how to tell Luca. She didn't want to worry him more than she already had, he had enough weight on his shoulders.
She had tried to sleep during the day but she couldn't so in the haze of the restless afternoon, when the fever's grip was loosening just enough for her thoughts to wander, Mia discovered a stubborn pull toward the blank page of her sketchbook.
The memory of that stranger so fleeting yet so vivid nibbled at her consciousness like a whispered secret.
She sat by the window in the late afternoon light, the air cool on her skin after days of too much warmth.
Each breath was slow and deliberate, as if she were inhaling every detail of a dream.
The room was quiet save for the soft patter of rain against the glass and the occasional creak of the old wooden floor.
In this fragile stillness, her thoughts drifted back to that day.
There had been a rough dark voice in the living room, a sound that broke through her fevered stupor and then, beyond the gentle murmur of Luca's restrained panic, a pair of eyes had met her in the lit corridor.
They were dark and careful, a stark contrast to the gentleness surrounding the rest of the world.
In that moment, she felt both seen and unsettled, as though the eyes were trying to etch themselves into her memory.
Without fully understanding why, Mia lifted her pencil.
Her hand moved almost of its own accord, chasing the elusive image that hovered just beyond the reach of conscious thought.
The pencil's tip barely grazed the paper as she began with a single, delicate line an attempt to capture a depth she couldn't articulate.
As she drew, the page slowly filled with curves and contrasts: a suggestion of shadows, the soft bulge of an eyelid, a glimmer of something that might have been tenderness, or perhaps a warning. The lines were fragmented, hesitant-as if they were afraid to commit too fully, just like her memory.
For every stroke of graphite, Mia felt an echo of that fleeting encounter.
The final image was neither a portrait nor an exact replication of a face she couldn't name.
Instead, it was a study of presence: the intensity of eyes that held secrets, the stillness of a moment caught between fear and fascination.
In those dark depths, she sensed a story that wasn't hers, yet one that somehow belonged to her in that instant of vulnerability.
The drawing was raw. It was as if her emotions, diluted by illness and time, had found a temporary voice on the paper, a voice that murmured of mysteries and quiet power.
The more she drew, the more she felt the tension in her chest ease slightly.
With each delicate mark, the dread of that day ebbed away and transformed into something unnameable, a bittersweet memory without a clear verdict of good or evil.
When she finally lifted her pencil, her hand trembled, not from weakness, but from the unsteady thrill of having captured something deeply personal.
Mia's eyes shifted from the drawing to the window, where rain still whispered against the glass, and she wondered: was it the eyes she had seen, or simply a reflection of the turmoil inside her?
It didn't matter, not yet.
For now, the sketch was enough, a secret dialogue between the fragile edges of memory and the slow, deliberate act of creation.
Marcello Morretti.
Luca hadn't said the name aloud, not even to himself. But it sat there, a smoldering coal in his chest, feeding the low burn that wouldn't die. That man that bastard had shown up at his door like it was casual. Like he hadn't looked past him trying to spot her.
Luca had seen it. That flicker in Marcello's eyes. Like Mia was something he'd already taken, even if he hadn't touched her yet.
And that was the problem.
Mia didn't know men like Marcello, didn't know the danger that could dress itself in control and still devour you slowly.
Mia would think his silence meant safety, that he was soft, just because he didn't yell or leer but Luca knew better.
Men like that didn't need to raise their voice, they already owned the room the second they stepped in.
Just like he had.
A long, deep breath left him.
He couldn't keep watching her like this. Couldn't keep pretending he wasn't falling apart from the inside out. She'd notice eventually. Mia always noticed.
And when she would look at him with those big eyes worried, hurting, quiet, he didn't feel like the enforcer anymore.
He felt like her big brother.
And that was the only title he gave a damn about.
His phone buzzed on the counter again.
He didn't look.
He walked into the bedroom instead.
The lights were off, the curtains drawn halfway, letting in a muted thread of light that touched the floor like it didn't want to intrude.
Mia was curled on her side, her breathing shallow. Hair a little tangled against the pillow. She always looked younger when she was asleep like the world hadn't gotten to her yet.
He sat down gently on the edge of her bed.
Didn't speak. Just watched.
It hit him again that unbearable, familiar ache. Like he could feel her pain in his own chest but had no outlet for it. All he could do was sit here, useless, watching his sister fade behind soft eyes and drawn curtains.
He reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
"I'm not going anywhere," he whispered.
And he meant it.
This was the only thing that mattered.
The girl in the bed.
The light he was willing to burn the world to keep alive.
The days had blurred together.
Rain came and went. The sky stayed gray. And inside the apartment, silence hung heavy, broken only by the occasional rattle of a spoon in a cup, or the whisper of blankets shifting as Mia slept.
She was doing better now not well, not back to herself but better.
The fever had broken the night before last, slowly, like it was reluctant to let go. Her eyes were clearer. Her skin wasn't as flushed. She spoke more now, short sentences, the kind that made Luca pause and listen closely, just in case there was anything buried beneath her words.
The doctor had been coming in quietly every day,, polite and discreet. He never stayed long. Just checked her vitals, asked soft questions, adjusted her medications, and left again silently.
Exactly how Luca wanted it.
Mia never said much during those visits sometimes didn't speak at all but she let the doctor touch her wrist, take her temperature, listen to her breathing.
That alone told Luca how sick she'd been.
Normally, Mia hated strangers. But she let this one in.
Trusted him. Or maybe just didn't have the strength to resist.
Luca had watched every appointment like a shadow in the corner of the room. Silent. Unblinking. And though the doctor had assured him over and over that she was out of danger, Luca hadn't allowed himself to believe it until this morning.
That morning, she asked for tea. Without him offering first.
That was something.
He walked past her room now, carrying a tray with the same tea and dry toast she used to barely touch. She was curled under her blanket on the couch, a bit more upright today, her hair pulled into a loose bun. The color in her face was returning, slow and gentle, like a painting being filled in.
He set the tray down carefully.
"You're hovering again," she said, voice soft but unmistakably amused.
"You're breathing again," he countered without looking at her.
She didn't argue.
Just picked up the mug with both hands and held it close to her mouth like it was the only thing grounding her.
He sat beside her, arms folded, one eye on her and the other on the front door as if someone might still try to get in.
The doctor would come again tomorrow. One more check, he'd said. Just to be sure.
But Luca already knew.
She was still fragile. Still tired.
But she was coming back.
And he was finally starting to breathe, too.