"What are you planning to do?" Noemie asked, her voice trembling, eyes narrowed with caution. The room was dim, bathed in the orange-pink hues of an approaching sunset that poured in through the wide window panes. Her tone tried to be firm, but the underlying fear cracked through every word.
Matteo didn't answer right away. He sat on the edge of the chair, silent, staring at the wine swirling in his glass. When he finally spoke, his words were quiet.....too quiet for the tension crawling across the room.
"I want to help you," he said. "You need a heavy amount of money in very little time."
Noemie's brows furrowed. "Why the hell? Why would I need that?"
Matteo didn't respond. Instead, he rose. Each step was slow, deliberate. He walked to the corner of the room where a small table held her belongings, picked up her phone, and walked back slowly, holding it up. The screen lit up with missed calls—dozens of them.....from a single contact: Mama.
Thirty-seven calls.
Noemie's breath caught. Her body tensed. Her instincts screamed. She took a step forward—but the chain fixed around her neck yanked her back with a cruel tug. Her arms were handcuffed behind her, the metal cold and biting into skin already raw.
"Give me my phone! Matteo, please!"
Her voice cracked. She twisted, but the cuffs held. The chain dug deeper into her collarbone.
"Noemie," he said, his tone flat but eyes unreadable. "Your mother stopped calling after the last one. She hasn't tried again."
Noemie collapsed to her knees. No scream came...just a quiet collapse. Like a building finally giving in to rot.
"Matteo, please... give me my phone. I need to talk to her. Please."
Tears streamed, hot and fast, the kind that hurt more than they cleansed.
"You want mercy," he murmured, tilting his glass slightly, "but the punishment hasn't even begun."
Across the city, under the bleeding sky, Tomasz and Annelise sat in a roadside restaurant. The clink of cutlery, the hum of life...so normal, so distant. They smiled at each other. Not out of joy, but habit. Love in peacetime, unaware of the war someone else was drowning in.
Back in Matteo's house, Eliane sat alone. Her room smelled like stale perfume and regret. She stared at her reflection, but she didn't see herself. She saw mistakes. She saw the boy she once crushed under her silence.
Outside, Ladina stood frozen by the door. Her hand hovered over the wood. But she never knocked.
In the darkened room, Matteo took out his phone. His fingers glided over the screen like he wasn't about to shatter someone completely. Then he pulled up a news article.
The headline was simple. Brutal.
"Businessman Severely Injured in Afternoon Collision .....Critical Condition."
Noemie couldn't see the words. But she saw the photo.
The car.
She knew that car.
The windshield was cracked, shattered like spiderwebs. But there, through the broken glass, taped near the dashboard.....still visible.....
A drawing.
A childish sketch of a girl holding hands with her papa. Clumsy lines. Bright colors.
Her signature in the corner.
Noemie's breath caught in her throat.
The memory surged....
FLASHBACK:
It was raining the day her father brought the car home. She had just finished painting that picture in her high school art room....a childish gift, barely worth notice.
He knelt beside her, soaked in the rain, holding the keys and laughing.
"You made this for me? It's going in the car. Right there by the mirror. So I remember who I drive home to."
She had rolled her eyes, embarrassed.
"Papa, it's just crayons....."
"Crayons are honesty, Noemie. That's love, unfiltered."
He hugged her then. She remembered how warm he was. How solid.
Back to the present.....
The picture was still there, cracked but untouched, caught in the glass like a frozen memory.
In the photo, beside the wreck, her mother knelt.
Maman was screaming. Hair undone, eyes red. Her face twisted in grief as she clutched the broken bumper, begging paramedics to say something, anything.
Noemie's soul caved in.
"No... no no no, please no....."
"They need to pay before beginning the main treatment," Matteo said calmly. "And the rest, afterwards."
The words didn't hit like a knife...they hit like a wall. Crushing.
Noemie let out a scream. It was not a sound a person should ever make. It came from somewhere raw and animal. She pulled against the chain until her skin broke. Her cuffed hands twisted, wrists blooming red.
"Let me go! Let me go, Matteo, I need to help him! Let me GO!"
The room pulsed with her voice. Her body writhed, every muscle trembling. She collapsed forward, knees scraping wood. Her voice dropped into something weaker than a whisper.
"Please..... he's my papa..... he's all I have... please..... Matteo, please..."
Matteo didn't move. He didn't even blink. He watched her like someone studying a fire burn itself out.
Her cheek pressed against the floor, sweat mixing with tears. Her sobs came sharp, breaking through clenched teeth. Her whole body shook.....not with hope, but with the terror of losing it.
The sunset had vanished now. The sky outside was iron and shadow. In the room, the wine bottle caught the last orange sliver of day, glowing red like blood on glass.
Matteo stood, walked to the bottle, and poured another glass. The sound was soft, almost gentle.
He looked down at her, eyes unreadable, voice as smooth as the wine he drank.
"I'll make the calls," he said finally. "But not because of your cries. Because I want to see how far you're willing to go."
Noemie closed her eyes.
And for the first time, she felt the weight of chains that had nothing to do with metal.