Chapter Two: Shadows That Follow

Since that day Amara couldn’t stop thinking about the man in the storm.

Days passed, but his face lingered behind her eyes every time she blinked or closed her eyes. His presence had imprinted itself on her, not just because of the violence—though that had certainly shaken her—but because of the moment after. The moment where, instead of running, she had spoken. Instead of fearing him, she had pitied him but to be precise can't even say it was a pity but something else.

She didn’t know what possessed her to do it. It wasn’t bravery. If anything, it was instinct. Something about the look in his eyes—empty, but not dead. Sad, but controlled. That contradiction fascinated her more than she wanted to admit.

She returned to her routine: classes at the university, shifts at the gallery, and evenings spent painting in her cramped apartment above the used bookstore. But everything now felt offbeat, like a song missing its rhythm.

Outside her working area

She swore she saw shadows that weren’t hers. The same dark car parked two days in a row outside her work. A man in a black coat loitering near the alley where she first saw him. She told herself it was coincidence. Big city, after all. But her gut said otherwise.

Luca Moretti hadn’t forgotten her either.

He sat behind the tinted glass of his armored Bentley, a glass of Scotch in one hand, eyes trained on the bookstore entrance. He didn’t know why he kept coming back here. There were a hundred reasons to forget her. His world didn’t allow for softness. And yet here he was…. .

He remembered the way she said his name.The way she looked at him. Not with fear, not with hatred—just quiet curiosity. As if she saw the man he used to be, before blood turned him into legend.

He had tried to dismiss it. To return to the cold logic that governed every choice he made. But then his younger brother Nico—always too eager, too reckless—had found out about her.

“She’s pretty,” Nico had said. “That's why you’ve been distracted lately?”said teasingly

Luca didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The threat was clear. In this life, anything he cared about became a target.

So when the Castelli family—old rivals looking for a crack in the Moretti armor—sent one of their men to tail Amara, Luca knew he had to act before something happen something terrible which he doesn't want.

It was no longer a matter of curiosity.

It was survival.

That night, Amara came home to find her door ajar. Panic seized her chest. She stepped inside cautiously, only to find a single white rose on her kitchen table. No note. No explanation,nothing.

She should have been afraid. Maybe she was. But more than anything, she felt…. watched.

And in a city of millions, she suddenly felt entirely alone

...****************...

.

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***