Zara pov
Elio's arm was a bar of iron across my shoulders, steering me away from the dark patio and the deeper shadows where he had vanished. But instead of heading for the car, for escape, Elio turned us directly toward the thunderous heartbeat of the party.
"Elio, wait—" I started, my voice thin with panic.
"Stay close," he commanded, his voice a low rumble against my temple. "Don't look at anyone. Just at me."
He pushed open the heavy front door, and the chaos swallowed us. Sound became a physical thing—a pounding bass that vibrated in my teeth, shrieks of laughter like broken glass, voices layered over voices until they were just noise. The heat was oppressive, thick with the smell of sweat, spilled beer, and cloying perfume. Bodies pressed on all sides, a dizzying swirl of glitter and flushed faces.
Elio didn't hesitate. He cut a path through the crowd, his body a solid wall moving with a relentless, unspoken authority. People melted out of his way. Some called his name; he ignored them. Others saw me, their eyes flicking with curiosity, surprise, or a sharp, assessing interest that made my skin prickle. I kept my eyes locked on the back of his leather jacket, a dark anchor in the sea of chaos.
We moved past Roman, who was holding court on a low sofa, a crystal glass in hand. His cold, amused eyes tracked us for a second before he turned back to his circle. Juniper was near the stairs, laughing too loudly. She saw us, her smile faltering, her gaze clinging to Elio's protective grip on me before she quickly looked away.
The wide, sleek staircase felt like a climb out of a fever dream. With each step, the noise receded, becoming a dull, rhythmic throb beneath our feet. The upstairs hallway was a world apart—wide, dim, and silent, lined with identical dark wood doors.
He led me to the very end, to the last door. He pushed it open and guided me inside, following and closing it with a soft, definitive click.
Silence.
Not just quiet, but a deep, ringing silence that felt like a balm on raw nerves. The thick walls and solid door sealed us in a pocket of peace, high above the storm. I stood there for a second, just breathing it in, feeling the frantic hammer of my heart begin to slow.
His room wasn't what I expected. In this house of cold, modern grandeur, his space was warm, almost stark in its simplicity. Deep charcoal walls. Dark wood floors. A large bed with a simple black duvet, perfectly made. A heavy, scarred wooden desk held a laptop, a neat stack of engineering textbooks, and a small, thriving succulent in a rough clay pot. A bookshelf stood against one wall, its shelves orderly—texts on structural mechanics, a few well-worn novels, some boxing trophies, and on the top shelf, a simple wooden frame.
The air smelled like him—soap, leather, and that faint, clean spice that was uniquely Elio.
He went to a mini-fridge tucked under his desk, the movement pulling my gaze to his hands. His knuckles were raw and split, the skin broken and angry. He saw me looking and curled his fingers slightly, as if to hide the damage. He pulled out two bottles of water and handed me one.
"Sit," he said, his voice still rough, but the edge from downstairs was gone, replaced by a weary gentleness.
I sank onto the edge of his bed, the mattress firm beneath me. He stayed standing, leaning back against his desk, creating space. He took a long drink of his water, his Adam's apple bobbing. The silence wasn't empty. It was full of the things we weren't saying—the terror in the garden, the violence in the shed, the raw-knuckled evidence of it on his hands.
My eyes kept drifting, desperate for a neutral anchor, and landed on the wooden frame on the bookshelf. Driven by a need for something normal, something solid, I stood and walked over to it.
It was a photo of a boy, maybe thirteen. He had Elio's stormy dark eyes and a mop of untamed black hair, but he was smiling—a real, unguarded, lopsided grin that completely transformed his face. And tucked under his arm, beaming up at him with her whole heart in her expression, was a girl. She had his same eyes, but where his held a familiar solemnity, hers sparkled with a joy so pure and bright it seemed to emanate from the faded paper.
"Elio," I breathed out, the sound too loud in the quiet. I pointed. "Who is this?"
He came to stand beside me, his shoulder almost brushing mine. He looked at the photo, and his entire body seemed to still. "My sister," he said, the words flat, heavy.
A sister. A whole piece of his life, his heart, I never knew existed. A strange, warm feeling bloomed in my chest, cutting through the residual chill of fear. "You have a sister?" The question came out on a wave of gentle awe. I leaned closer, drawn to the girl's luminous smile. "Elio, she's… she's beautiful. How old is she here? What's her name? Does she look like your mum?" The questions tumbled out, one after another, a lifeline of normalcy I clung to.
He didn't answer. The silence this time was different—thick, leaden. He just stared at the picture, his expression hardening into something unreadable, a fortress going up behind his eyes.
The warmth in my chest curdled into cold embarrassment. I'd stumbled into a private place, a locked room. "I'm sorry," I whispered, taking a step back, hugging my arms around myself. "I didn't mean to pry. I just…"
"Ana." Her name, when it finally came, was rough, like it had been pulled over broken glass. "Her name was Ana."
Was.
The past tense didn't just land; it detonated in the center of the room, sucking all the air out. My eyes flew from the photo of the radiant, living girl to Elio's face. The mask was there, the one he always wore, but I'd learned to look beneath it. And there, in the depths of his dark eyes, was a hollow, aching grief. A despair so profound and familiar it was like looking into a mirror.
My breath caught. Without a single conscious thought, I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him.
It wasn't romantic. It was instinctual, essential. It was one shattered person recognizing the same fracture in another.
For a heartbeat, he was rigid, a statue of tension. Then, a shudder wracked through him, a great, silent quake, and his arms came around me, crushing me to his chest. His face pressed into my hair, and I felt the hot, silent tears seep through. He cried without a sound, his whole body trembling with the force of holding it in for so long.
And then I was crying too. Hard, ugly sobs that had nothing to do with Soren and everything to do with the little girl in the photo, and with a boy named Dafe. I cried for all the light that had been snuffed out too soon, for the people left in the dark holding the empty space where that light had been. I felt pathetic—this was his pain, his loss, and I was the one falling apart.
But he didn't let go. He held me tighter, one large hand cradling the back of my head, his voice a broken, soothing rumble against my ear. "Shhh. Cariño, it's alright. I've got you."
When the tears finally subsided, leaving us both hollowed out and tender, I pulled back, wiping my face with my palms, mortified. "God, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to…"
"Don't," he said softly. His own eyes were red-rimmed, but clearer. He took my hand, his thumb gently stroking my skin. "It's okay. It's… I'm glad it's you." He took a slow, steadying breath, his gaze returning to the photo. "She was ten. Leukaemia. It was very fast, at the end."
He talked then, in a low, halting voice that gradually grew stronger. He told me about her ridiculous laugh, her obsession with a cartoon horse, how she'd hide behind him during thunderstorms. And then, his voice dropping to something unbearably tender, he said, "When I first saw you… the way you scrunch your nose when you're thinking. The way your eyes go wide when you're trying to be brave. It reminded me of her spirit. Not that you're a child," he added quickly, squeezing my hand. "Just… the good in her. I see echoes of it in you."
His words unlocked a final, sealed chamber in my own heart. The dam shattered.
"I had a brother," I whispered, the confession dragged from a place of perpetual shadow. "Dafe." Just saying his name aloud, here in this safe room, was a gift and an agony. "He was two years older." I stared at our joined hands, seeing not our skin but memory. "There was an accident. He was… he was standing up for me. And he didn't make it." A fresh, hot tear traced a path down my cheek. "I miss him every day. And I blame myself. All the damn time."
I couldn't tell him the rest. I couldn't utter Soren's name in this sacred space, couldn't let that darkness touch the memory of Dafe's bright, fierce love. Some truths were too poisonous to speak.
Elio didn't press. He didn't ask for a single detail more. He simply listened, his presence a solid, accepting shelter. He pulled me back into his arms, and this embrace was different. It was a pact. A silent oath between two survivors who spoke the same silent language of loss.
In his quiet room, high above a world of predators and power games, we weren't a King and a ghost. We were just Elio and Zara, two broken souls who had found, in each other's shattered pieces, a moment of perfect, understanding peace. The cold knot of fear that Soren had tied in my gut began, slowly, to loosen. It wasn't gone. But for the first time all night, I wasn't facing the dark alone.