Clara's hands trembled as she gripped the edge of her chair, the polished wood cold beneath her fingers. The drawing room was quiet except for the faint ticking of the clock on the wall, each second echoing like a reminder of everything they had lost.
"Do you remember… when we confronted him?" Clara whispered, her voice tight and fragile. "After the first stories began spreading through the city… the disappearances… the mutilations… the terror that seemed to follow his name everywhere?"
Isabella shivered slightly, pressing her fingers against her lips as if trying to hold back the memory itself.
"Yes," she said quietly. "We demanded answers. We looked him in the eyes and asked him why. Why the innocent boy we knew had vanished. Why the streets trembled when people whispered his name. Why families were disappearing."
Her eyes darkened.
" do you remember what he said?"
Clara gave a hollow laugh that carried no humor at all.
"He said… 'It's a coincidence. None of it has anything to do with me.'"
Her voice cracked on the words.
"The audacity… to deny everything. As if the entire city had imagined it. As if the bodies, the fear, the rumors… were nothing more than shadows."
Anna leaned back slowly, her face pale but composed, though her eyes betrayed the tension beneath.
"Coincidence," she repeated quietly. "That was his answer. The boy who could make entire neighborhoods bend in silence… the boy whose name alone makes men twice his age look over their shoulders… calls it coincidence."
Elena folded her hands together in her lap, her voice calm but heavy.
"We wanted to believe him," she admitted. "We needed to believe there was still a boy inside him. But when he looked at us… that calm expression… that empty gaze… there was nothing there but calculation."
Clara closed her eyes briefly, swallowing hard.
"It makes me sick," she murmured. "To think that the boy who once left us little notes in the morning… the boy who brought fruit to the kitchen before anyone woke… the one who whispered 'I've got your back' when Isabella was upset… could become something the entire city now fears."
Isabella looked down at her hands.
"We confronted him because we wanted answers," she said softly. "Because we thought if we just forced him to explain… if we reminded him who he used to be… maybe he would come back to us."
Her voice trembled.
"But he only smiled. That same calm, expressionless smile… and said it was coincidence."
Anna's gaze hardened slightly.
"And that is what terrifies me the most," she said quietly. "Not just what he has become… but that he will never confirm it. Never admit it. He let's the world whisper its horrors while he stands silent."
Elena nodded faintly.
"And the city fills that silence with fear."
For a moment no one said a word.
Only the faint ticking of the clock and the distant sounds of the estate carried through the room.
Finally Clara spoke again, her voice softer now, almost lost in memory.
"It started after his father died."
Her eyes glistened.
"Before that… he was just a boy. Gentle. Thoughtful. He would wake early and organize the study before anyone else was awake. He asked questions about everything… about people, about the gardens, about how he could help."
Isabella nodded slowly.
"I remember," she whispered. "He used to ask if the neighbors needed anything. He worried about everyone. And then… one day… everything changed."
Her jaw tightened.
"After father died… the boy we knew disappeared. His eyes became cold. He stopped talking to us. And when he did speak… every word felt measured."
Anna sighed quietly.
"At first we only heard whispers," she said. "Strange things happening in the city. Families ruined overnight. People disappearing. Streets growing quieter whenever his name was mentioned."
Elena continued softly.
"And every story led back to him."
Clara shook her head slowly.
"I tried to reach him once," she said. "I begged him to explain. To tell me why he had become so distant… why he looked at us like strangers."
Her voice broke.
"But he refused. Said nothing."
Isabella leaned forward slightly.
"We confronted him again later. After the rumors became impossible to ignore. After the bodies started appearing."
Her fingers tightened together.
"And again… he said the same thing."
Anna's voice was barely above a whisper.
"Coincidence."
The word hung in the air like poison.
Elena stared at the floor.
"And now the entire city believes the legend."
Clara wiped at her eyes.
"He started so young," she murmured. "Fifteen… the first stories from that time. We didn't want to believe them. But every year the rumors grew darker."
Isabella nodded slowly.
"Sixteen… seventeen… each year worse than the last. And always the same response."
Her voice was hollow.
"Coincidence."
Anna exhaled quietly.
"I think what we mourn most… is not only the fear he created… but the boy we lost."
Elena's voice softened.
"The boy who loved us. The one who cared."
Clara looked toward the window, sunlight spilling faintly across the floor.
"I wish we could have stopped it," she whispered. "Before the city turned him into this."
Isabella closed her eyes briefly.
"But now… we cannot reason with him."
Anna's voice carried quiet finality.
"The Morettis must survive."
Elena nodded slowly.
"And all we can do now… is wait."
Silence settled over the room once more.
Outside the estate walls, Portovelo churned with rumors and fear, the name Vincenzo Moretti moving through the streets like a shadow.
Inside the drawing room, the women of the Moretti family sat together in that silence, mourning the boy they once knew… and trembling before the monster the city believed he had become.