I heard him running. Footsteps pounding the gravel, then the hall. My fingers dug into the windowsill. One push and I’d be finished with all of it—Luca’s voice, the photos, the midnight orders. Air pressed cold against my shins.
The door crashed inward. Splinters jumped. “Bella! Don’t!” I turned my head. Matteo stood there, breath sharp, eyes blown wide. Dirt on his shirt, a cut on his knuckle, terror on his face like a bruise.
“It’s easier this way,” I said. My voice sounded calm. Like I’d already stepped.
“No.” He lifted his hands, palms open, slow as if I were a frightened animal. “It’s not easier. Come inside. Please.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then tell me,” he said. Each word is careful, flat, trying not to shake. “Tell me. But first—inside.”
I looked down. Three floors. The terrace waiting like a flat, pale answer. I looked back at his hands—steady despite everything; steady the way he always is when knives are near.
“He has photos,” I said. The words scraped coming out. “From Tuscany. If I don’t go to his room tonight, he sends them to my father in the morning.”
Matteo stilled. Not even a blink. “The guest,” he said quietly. “The professor.”
“Yes.”
“What did he do to you?”
I couldn’t say it. My face said enough. His throat worked once; then he moved closer by one small step, not touching the air too fast.
“Bella,” he said. “Take my hand.”
He held it out from inside the room—no grabbing, no heroics. An invitation.
The wind pushed at my back. I could have tipped. Instead I reached, fingers shaking, and took him. He drew me in, inch by inch, as if I were stitched to the night and he had to unpick me gently. When my feet found the floor, everything inside me broke. I folded, the sound tore out of me. He caught me where I fell and held on, rocking the smallest amount, as if the movement could lull the panic back to sleep.
“You’re safe,” he said. Quiet, even. “I’ve got you. You’re safe now.”
I didn’t believe him, not really. But my body did. It listened, shook, and then it breathed.
We slid down the wall until our backs hit the bed frame. Matteo stayed mostly silent. I cried until my face felt numb. The house settled into its midnight noises—pipes sighing, cypress whispering, someone far off closing a gate.
When I could speak, my voice came out raw. “His name is Luca Ferraro. I met him in Rome. He tutored me for the exams. He—” I swallowed. The room tilted once and righted itself. “In Tuscany he was the director. He made me… he made me look like my mother. He took photos. Videos. He—” I stopped again. The words didn’t fit in my mouth.
Matteo’s jaw tightened. He didn’t interrupt. He just held one edge of the story so I could hold the other.
“He said midnight,” I whispered. “His room. Or the photos go to Papa with his coffee.”
Matteo’s hands curled into fists and opened again. “That’s why the window.”
“I can’t go to him,” I said. “But I can’t let Papa see. So I thought—” I glanced at the sill. He squeezed my shoulder once, not letting me finish the sentence.
“No,” he said. “We’re not doing that. We’re fighting back.”
I laughed then—a dry, cracked sound. “How? He has everything. Power. Language. People who respect him. The photos—”
“Are evidence of his crimes,” he said. “Not yours.”
I stared at him. “You think it’s that simple?”
“No.” His mouth twitched once—something like pain. “But I think it’s possible. And I think you’re strong enough to try.”
Strong. The word made me want to crawl under the bed and sleep for a week. “He’ll ruin Papa,” I said. “He’ll say I— that I wanted—” Shame rose, hot and stupid.
Something shifted outside in the hall. Footsteps. A man’s stride.
“Luca?” Papa’s voice, light and distracted, floated up the stairwell. “Ti cerco dappertutto. Another glass of Barolo before you go? A cigar?”
The footsteps faded as Papa turned toward the terrace. I exhaled air I didn’t know I was holding. Matteo didn’t let go of my hand.
We talked until the edges of night began to gray. Not talk, exactly. We laid down stones and called it a plan.
No midnight visit. No more walking into rooms he chose. Screenshots. Backups to two places. An email drafted to Luisa with a code word—if I texted it, she’d come. The clinic’s name, the address, the month, the dates. Names of nurses who’d smiled and looked away. The color of the curtains. The poster above his bed. Evidence, Matteo said, as if the word itself could be armor.
“Police?” I asked.
“Police,” he said.
He rubbed the cut on his knuckle against his jeans like an eraser. “You’ll sleep now,” he added, as if the verb could be persuaded by tone.
“Sleep,” I repeated, dubious.
He gave the smallest shrug. “Breathe, then.”
The sky turned the color of milk before it commits to blue. Birds argued in the fig tree. The house yawned.
“He’ll notice,” I said. “I didn’t go at midnight.”
“Let him,” Matteo said. Calm like a knife. “I’ll be here.”
We both went still at the knock. Three taps, polite. “Bella?” Papa’s voice. “Are you awake? Luca is asking for you before he leaves.”
My body flooded cold. Luca. Of course. He would want a final scene he could control: the concerned director checking on a promising student. A handshake for the road. A reminder pressed into my palm disguised as kindness.
Matteo touched my cheek with the back of his fingers, as if heat could be transferred that way. “You don’t have to open,” he said. “He can wait.”
“He’ll come in,” I whispered, staring at the ruined door. It hung crooked, broken where his boot had landed. “Papa will ask why it’s broken.”
“I broke it,” Matteo said simply. “I’ll tell him the truth he can hold.” A beat. “That I thought you were ill. That I heard a noise. That I was afraid you might fall.”
He stood and moved the chair under the handle anyway, buying seconds. “Answer your father,” he said. “Not him.”
I pushed myself up, wiped my face with the sheet, and tried to make my voice belong to a girl who had slept. “Sì, Papa. I’m awake.”
From the hall: “Tesoro, Luca must leave soon—he wanted to thank you for the tour of the attic. May he say goodbye?”
My throat closed. Matteo nodded once: your choice.