The car door closes with a heavy thud that feels final, like the world outside has been sealed off for good. The hum of the engine vibrates through the leather seats, smooth and constant, the kind of sound that should be calming but isn't. Catarina sits still, hands resting on her lap, staring out the tinted window as the café disappears behind them.
The city flashes by in fragments, neon signs, street vendors, the blur of faces. Everything she's ever known rushes past in streaks of color, fading with every turn the car makes. She realizes she didn't even ask where they're going. She just followed him.
Her pulse hasn't settled since she stepped into the car. There's a strange electricity in the air, not fear, exactly, but something heavier, sharper. A sense that she's crossed into a world that doesn't forgive curiosity.
She glances at him. Lorenzo sits beside her, posture calm, one hand resting on the edge of his fedora, the other draped loosely on his knee. His presence fills the confined space, quiet but commanding. He looks out the window as if every reflection hides a threat. His jaw is tense, eyes scanning even when there's nothing to see. He's here, alive, but not the same man who danced with her under low lights and whispered her name like a secret.
"Where are we going, Lorenzo?"
He looks at her, he's thinking on what to reveal.
"I have a meeting, we still have some time so, if you want to know anything, ask now, I won't withheld anything from you."
He straightens his posture facing her, showing himself available for her doubts
"Anything?"
Her fingers trace the stitching on the leather seat, more to keep her hands busy than for comfort.
"Alright then… who are you really, Lorenzo?"
She meets his gaze directly, voice steady but low, like she's afraid the truth might shatter if spoken too loud.
"Because that night, the man I met, he wasn't the one who walks with armed shadows or vanishes after gunfire. And now you sit here, calm as if none of it touches you."
She leans in slightly, her eyes searching his face for any crack in the façade.
"So tell me. Who's sitting beside me now?"
Lorenzo doesn't look away, he has years on this, they show on his face, on his skin, he's tired, he's seeking for a change, he just doesn't know if She, is the change he's looking for.
"Lorenzo Marcello di Sousa, I'm from Sicily, castellamare del golfo to be Exact, and I belong to what people call, the mafia, The Sicilian one."
She doesn't flinch, not immediately. The word hangs in the air between them like smoke, heavy and impossible to ignore. Her lips part slightly, but no sound comes out. The city beyond the glass blurs as if refusing to witness what's just been said.
"So it's true then.
The meeting that went bad… the shootout on the news, that was you."
She looks up at him again, eyes searching his face, desperate for some trace of the man who once laughed, who once let himself be human with her.
"All this time, you were never just a businessman, were you?"
Her voice softens, almost breaking at the edges
"Why come back, Lorenzo? After everything… why me?"
He looks away when she mentions the meeting, something so dangerous that he escaped, but many fallen behind.
"Yes, that was my meeting, my family has some business with the Sinaloa, and in that exchange, something when wrong, still, to this day I don't what sparkled that, all I know is that, between bullets and ricochets, I got away, me and three more, I got into flight that same night, only came back yesterday, has for you? Well, let's say that you left a mark in me, and I know that it's jealous of me to contact you again, honestly, you were better without knowing me, at all."
Leans back on the seat looking throught the window carefully thinking about what he said and afraid of what she might answer.
She listens in silence, her pulse drumming softly in her ears as his words unfold, each one heavier than the last. Her gaze drifts to the city flashing by outside, the neon reflections painting fleeting streaks of light across her face. For a while, she doesn't speak. There's too much to process, too many truths that suddenly make sense.
When she finally turns to him, her expression isn't fear, it's something deeper, quieter. A mix of sadness, anger, and something dangerously close to tenderness.
"You should've stayed gone, Lorenzo."
Her voice is soft, but it cuts through the hum of the car like a blade.
She exhales slowly, gathering herself before continuing.
"You think you're protecting me by saying that… but you're wrong. You came back because you couldn't let go, not of me, not of whatever part of yourself you thought I saw that night. And now here we are, sitting in a car full of ghosts and loaded guns, pretending we can just talk like two ordinary people."
She looks out the window again, her reflection faintly overlapping his.
"If I was better without knowing you, why did you come back at all?"
Lorenzo still looking through the window but clearly not seeing what's outside, he just cant look at her.
"Well Catarina, that night I wasn't a soldier, a mobster, a criminal nor a fugitive, that night I was an ordinary man, drinking in a café and talking to a stunning young woman, that night I was normal.
I never felt that before, I didn't know that I was allowed to have that feeling."
Looks at her and places his hand gently on her lap.
"I couldn't forget it, that night, I tried, it's been four months and every night I still live it, the dance, the kisses, the passion, so, excuse me for only thinking about myself and, probably your right, I should've stayed away."
Has he realises this final thought, he nods to the driver to pull over
"This your chance, nothing changed so you can just leave."
He says without ever looking at her
Her breath catches when his hand touches her leg, gentle, almost hesitant, but the weight of his words hits harder than his touch. She watches him, the way his eyes avoid hers, how his jaw tightens as if holding back something that might break him. The silence that follows is thick, suffocating.
When the car slows to the side of the road, her heart twists. The city outside glows dimly in the night, streetlights, passing cars, fragments of a life she could still return to if she stepped out now. A life that made sense, safe, small, quiet. But her chest burns with something far more dangerous than fear, longing.
She looks at his profile, the sharp lines softened by exhaustion, by regret. The same man who once made her feel alive in a way the world never could, now offering her an escape he doesn't want her to take.
"Then go, Lorenzo. Do what you have to do."
Her voice trembles, but the resolve beneath it is unshakable.
"Don't ask me to pretend I'm not already part of this. You brought me back into your world the moment you walked into that café."
She brushes her thumb lightly over his knuckles, eyes soft but fierce.
"So finish your meeting… and come back to me."
She lets go slowly, her hands lingering for one last second before retreating, the air between them charged with everything unsaid, fear, defiance, and the faint, impossible hope that he'll return.
He holds both of her hands and for the first time since her retuned, she sees the look he gave her that night, not the tired, dangerous, dark man that's stand in front of her, but just man, eager to discover her and dance with her, again.
"No Catarina, I want you to stay, despite the danger of what that may bring us.
I have a meeting today, we're almost there, you need to stay here, you're safe here, then, we can talk more."
Her pulse skips, her breath catching as his hands close around hers, firm, warm, familiar. That look in his eyes, the one she thought had vanished behind smoke and blood, returns for an instant, and it feels like time folds back to that night in the café, the laughter, the closeness, the reckless certainty that they were untouchable.
She holds his gaze, her fingers tightening around his as if she could anchor him there, keep him from slipping away again.
The car drives with both of them in the back seat followed by the two SUVs, after some time they reach what looks like a junkyard, the vehicles enter and stop in a clearing, both SUVs open the doors and suddenly the black sedan is surrounded by man in dark suits, his men, his soldiers.
He looks at her one last time and gives a tap in her hand, then he opens the door and gets out, composing his suit, his tie and his fedora.
It was like, he just changed into a different person.
The door shuts behind him with a heavy, deliberate thud, the kind of sound that ends a chapter and begins another. Through the window, Catarina watches as the man beside her moments ago, the one who had confessed softness and memory, dissolves into something else entirely. Lorenzo straightens his shoulders, and it's as the air around him hardens.
The men in dark suits step forward, waiting, tense. No words are needed. Lorenzo adjusts his tie, slides the fedora a little lower, and in that single gesture, he becomes what they all expect him to be, the boss, the negotiator, the ghost that came back from the dead.
From inside the car, she can't hear what is being said, but she can feel it, the rhythm of authority, the restrained violence, the world she's suddenly standing at the edge of. The way the others look at him tells her everything, this is a man people follow out of fear and loyalty alike.
And yet, even as he speaks to them, Catarina sees it, a flicker, just a heartbeat's worth, when his eyes turn toward the car. Not long enough for anyone else to notice, but enough for her to feel it. A silent promise. Or maybe a warning.
Then he looks away, and Lorenzo di Sousa, the man who once danced with her disappears behind the mask of El Fantasma.