The Fire burned so intensely that Elena was tempted to turn around, go back into the elevator, and confront Vittorio right there, right then, in that metal box.
But the Structure was fireproof.
It was a shell that didn't melt, capable of suffocating flames even at the cost of extinguishing every form of life.
She walked toward the exit.
She reached the crossroads: office to the right, home to the left.
In that moment of indecision, she saw the reflection.
In the window of a shop across the street, Vittorio's figure stood out sharp. He was following her.
She wouldn't give him the advantage of discovering where she lived. And above all, she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of thinking she was running to hide under her duvet, shutters down, to digest his toxic presence.
She took the road to the office.
There were turnstiles there. Physical barriers that shut out intruders.
She entered the building, reached her office on the third floor, and looked out the window.
Vittorio was still there, on the opposite sidewalk. He knew exactly where to look.
He gave her a wave with his hand, slow, theatrical.
Elena responded by raising her chin, a dry gesture, devoid of emotion.
Then he turned and disappeared into the crowd, swallowed by the city.
Elena called an Uber, exactly like the night before. She had it enter the building's underground parking, eluding any gaze, and had herself taken home, leaving her office light on. A lighthouse in the night. An empty bait for anyone looking for her presence behind that glass.
At home, the torment began.
She got out in front of the door and climbed the stairs with a weight on her chest that wasn't tiredness.
Should she answer? Should she go? Should she stay barricaded in the house? Change cities?
Overthinking was killing her.
"Breathe," she ordered herself.
She got into the shower. The hot water washed away the city dust, but not the thoughts.
When she got out, she found herself getting ready for dinner with the autopilot on. The mechanical movements of someone going to the gallows. Or to the altar.
She didn't reply to the message.
She put on a pair of black jeans, 50s cut, tight and stretchy, leaving her ankles exposed.
From the walk-in closet, she took a black cashmere sweater. In the front, it was nun-like, high-necked up to the chin. In the back, it opened in a dizzying neckline that left her back entirely bare, down to the curve of her kidneys.
Dichotomous. Like her.
She looked at herself in the mirror. She looked like a dark version of Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction.
Her gaze fell on her shoes. She saw the empty hole left by the pumps abandoned on the asphalt the night before.
A sign.
She wouldn't run barefoot ever again.
She put on her running sneakers. Black, technical, brutal.
They clashed horribly with the elegance of the cashmere. They were a declaration of war.
She put on her long coat and went out into the cold night.
Vittorio had shared his location with her, despite her silence. They lived incredibly close, a statistical coincidence that smacked of destiny. Or mockery.
She decided to walk.
Every step built a piece of Structure. Every subsequent step, the Fire eroded one.
She arrived in front of the door strangely unprepared.
She rang the bell.
No answer. Just the dry buzz of the door clicking open.
Stupid arrogant man. How am I supposed to know which floor to go to?
She didn't give him the satisfaction of ringing again. She walked up the stairs, convinced her instinct would guide her.
And so it was.
On the third floor, she saw a door ajar.
A silent invitation.
Elena walked down the corridor, without turning on the stair light that would have revealed her arrival. The wolf moved like a panther.
She arrived at the threshold. She placed her hand on the handle, but didn't push.
It was at that moment that Vittorio seemed to smell her presence on the other side of the wood.
The door opened fully.
Vittorio appeared on the threshold with that disarming smile, that of the Lawyer who faces the world every day and always wins. But tonight, behind that smile, there was something crooked. Something precariously balanced.
"Welcome," Vittorio said, stepping aside.
Elena entered under the warm light of the hallway.
He shot her a quick glance, analyzing her outfit. Elena caught a subtle disappointment in his eyes: he expected a woman dressed to seduce, not to fight.
"May I?" he asked, indicating the coat.
She remained motionless, leaving him the honor and surprise of discovering the truth.
When the fabric slid away, revealing her bare back, she heard Vittorio's imperceptible sigh.
Gloating. He was happy to have discovered the other side of the coin.
Then his gaze went down. He saw the running sneakers.
Vittorio laughed, a low, rasping laugh.
"An interesting choice," he said.
"Practical," Elena replied. "In case I need to get away quickly."
His smile stiffened for a split second. He didn't answer. He turned.
"In the kitchen."
Elena followed him, and in that short journey, a violent and silent dance began over who could fill the room more with their presence.
The kitchen was a temple of steel and dark marble, illuminated by soft lights.
Elena leaned against the counter. The smell in the air was unmistakable.
"Lamb tonight?" she said, with an innocent tone. "Interesting. Just like the last meal of the Lambs' victims."
Pause. She smiled.
"Or is it just a coincidence?"
Vittorio's jaw stiffened imperceptibly.
"It's a classic," he replied, turning toward the oven. "Appreciated for centuries."
"Sure," Elena said. "Especially by killers with aesthetic sense."
He stopped. He turned slowly.
"Are you insinuating something?"
"I'm just noticing," she replied, holding his gaze. "That for someone who defines himself an aesthete... the choice is predictable. Almost banal."
Vittorio stared at her. He looked for anger in her eyes. He found boredom.
This hurt him more than any accusation.
"Predictable," he repeated, with a low voice.
"Yes," Elena said. "I expected something more... original. From you."
She straightened up, turning her back on him as if the conversation didn't deserve attention anymore.
She approached the oven and looked inside through the glass.
Lamb. No surprise.
Her eyes slid to the counter. To the knife block.
Two were missing.
One was on the cutting board, dirty with aromatic herbs.
Of the second, no trace.
She felt his presence behind her. His warm breath on her neck.
The shiver burned the Structure definitively, no click. Her brain shut down. There was no more time for inner dialogues.
Now it was just Fire.
"You entered the den without watching your back, Elena," Vittorio whispered, his voice very close to her ear. "Typical of reckless prey. Clueless."
She didn't move an inch.
Instead, with exasperating slowness, she tilted her head back, letting her nape brush against his shoulder.
She was offering him her jugular.
Inside her, blood roared, every nerve tense in the effort not to tremble. But her voice, when it came out, was clear. Cold crystal.
"Sharp observation," she murmured. "But it suffers from an excess of confidence."
She turned her face slightly, looking at him out of the corner of her eye.
"I'm not hiding, Vittorio. I'm measuring you."
She smiled.
"It's easy to take what you desire. True refinement lies in contemplating the prey... without touching it. Until she is the one deciding to be devoured."
Silence. Then:
"Do you possess this kind of patience? Or are you a slave to your impulses like those vulgar humans you despise?"
She felt Vittorio waver. She had hit his intellectual vanity and his predatory instinct in a single blow.
For a second, she felt the ground slip from under his feet.
But Vittorio recovered quickly.
"Discipline, Elena," he whispered, his warm breath caressing the exposed skin of her neck, "is not the absence of desire, but its perfect mastery. And patience... ah, that is the most exquisite of instruments. A slow wearing down that intensifies every surrender."
His hand slid from her bare back down to her waist, gripping it with a gentle but iron possessiveness. Elena felt, against her hip, the cold, hard pressure of something that wasn't a hand. The handle of the second knife.
"And those vulgar men," he continued, his voice velvety, while his mouth brushed her lobe, "feed on what is easy. I, instead, prefer to isolate the essence, letting the prey reveal itself, layer after layer."
She didn't tremble at the touch of his lips, although that contact sent seismic shocks along her spine. She closed her eyes for a split second, pure concentration, and then placed her own hand over his, firm on her waist, right over the spot where the steel pressed.
Her fingers were cold, in contrast with his feverish heat.
She didn't try to remove his hand. She didn't try to slip the knife away.
On the contrary, she pressed lightly, trapping it there.
"Wearing down..." she repeated, her voice a soft but lethal whisper, turning slowly in the circle of his arms until their faces were a few millimeters apart.
She could smell the ferrous and spicy scent of his desire.
"A risky technique, Vittorio. It requires constant, but indirect pressure. A calculation error... and the structure yields. Or worse, it closes hermetically."
She raised her gaze, immersing it in his with glacial lucidity.
"You talk about isolating the essence as if it were a privilege you are entitled to by right," she continued, barely brushing the corner of his mouth with her breath. "But you are forgetting that some essences are toxic for those who don't have the suitable antibodies. Are you so sure, Lawyer, that your refined intuition would know how to distinguish between the nectar... and the poison that will stop your heart?"
She used that term, Lawyer, like a weapon, forcing him to put his social clothes back on, to remember that she saw the mask and the man beneath it.
She smiled, an imperceptible and haughty gesture.
"Your mastery is admirable. But tell me... how long can you stay watching the target before hunger makes you reckless?"