Chapter 2 Teatro At Midnight

• Bella's POV
• The old Roman theater looked like a place that had stopped caring whether it belonged to the past or the present. Cracked stone arches, graffiti-smeared pillars, and vines growing between every breath of its foundation. It had been abandoned for years, part historical ruin, part teenage hideout, part tourist myth. Nobody really came here after dark. That was the unspoken rule. Even the ghosts, they said, didn’t stick around long.
• And yet… there I was. Alone. At midnight. Clutching a black envelope I should’ve burned the moment I received it.
• I told myself not to come. I told myself it was stupid, dangerous, reckless, insane. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the photo, the message, his eyes. They haunted me not just in that traumatic flashback way, but in a quieter, more twisted way I didn’t understand. He could’ve killed me in that piazza. He didn’t. Why?
• What did he want?
• The cobbled street under my boots was uneven. Naples didn’t pretend to be gentle. The moon hung low, bloated and distant, casting a silver glow over the silent ruins as I slipped past a rusted gate and into the heart of whatever this was.
• The theater’s open-air interior yawned in front of me, half-eaten by shadow. I stopped under a crumbling archway, my pulse loud in my ears. My hands were cold, damp with sweat. My heart hammered like it was trying to break out of my chest. I took a breath, told myself again I could still leave.
• But then I heard footsteps. Slow. Measured. Deliberate.
• And a voice. Low. Velvet and steel.
• “You came.”
• I turned, and there he was.
• The man from the piazza.
• He stepped out from behind a pillar like he’d been waiting there for hours. He looked exactly the same. A black shirt, rolled sleeves, broad chest, gray eyes that didn’t blink. Only now, he wasn’t holding a gun.
• Just his hands in his pockets. Like this was some kind of casual meeting.
• “What do you want from me?” I asked, more breath than words.
• He tilted his head slightly, as if studying me through the dim light. “You took something that doesn’t belong to you.”
• “If you mean a photo, I deleted it.”
• His lip twitched. The smallest ghost of a smirk. “No, you didn’t.”
• I swallowed hard. “Okay. I tried. But you already knew that.”
• He took a step closer. I didn’t move, though every instinct in my body screamed at me to back away. His presence was… sharp. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t touching me; he filled the space around him like smoke in a room.
• “You don’t get to walk away from this,” he said. “You saw something meant to stay hidden. And you put yourself in the middle of a world that doesn’t offer second chances.”
• “I didn’t put myself anywhere,” I snapped, my voice finally finding its shape. “I was doing my job. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask for you.”
• He stepped even closer. “But you didn’t run, Bella. Not really. You’re here.”
• That shut me up.
• Because he was right.
• I could’ve run. Could’ve flown to another city, changed my name, dumped the camera in the sea. But I didn’t. I showed up. At midnight. At the place he chose.
• That made me something else now, didn’t it?
• “You still haven’t told me your name,” I said, though my voice didn’t sound like mine anymore. It was quieter. Raw.
• He paused, like he was weighing the cost of telling me.
• “Matteo,” he said at last.
• Matteo.
• Even the way he said it felt dangerous.
• “Matteo what?” I asked.
• He smiled, dark and brief. “You won’t find it on any official record. Just know that when people in Naples whisper, they’re whispering about me.”
• I did know that name. Somewhere, in the corners of the internet I’d skimmed while researching Naples for photo assignments. Rumors of a Matteo Romano. Cold. Ruthless. Head of something they called Il Leone Rosso—The Red Lion. A newer generation of mafia, born from old blood and raised in digital shadows.
• But that couldn’t be him. That Matteo Romano was a ghost story.
• “Why didn’t you kill me?” I asked before I could stop myself.
• He raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you want to know?”
• I nodded, slowly.
• He walked past me then, calmly, like he owned the place, and sat down on the cracked edge of the theater’s stage. I didn’t know whether to stay or run.
• “You interest me,” he said at last.
• “Interest?” I repeated. “I saw you murder someone in broad daylight. That’s not interest. That’s trauma.”
• He looked at me, unfazed. “And yet here you are.”
• Silence wrapped around us like the night itself was holding its breath.
• He reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone. “Give me your SD card.”
• “What?” I blinked. “No.”
• “I’m not asking, Bella.”
• His tone didn’t rise, he didn’t threaten but there was something final in it, like he didn’t expect to be told no. Like he’d let me speak, but not choose.
• I hesitated. Then reached into my jacket and pulled it from the hidden zipper pocket.
• I handed it to him. Our fingers brushed for half a second.
• Cold.
• He looked down at it, then tucked it into his own coat. “You’re going to work for me now.”
• I stared at him. “Excuse me?”
• “You have an eye,” he said plainly. “You know how to be invisible, even when you’re standing in plain sight. You captured something most photographers wouldn’t dare frame. I need someone like that.”
• I shook my head. “You don’t get to decide that.”
• “You’re in this now, whether you like it or not.”
• “I’m not your little errand girl, and I sure as hell don’t take orders from a killer.”
• He stood again, slower this time. His full height loomed easily six-two, maybe more. The streetlight behind him made his features sharper, more dangerous. His jaw clenched.
• “I’m not asking you to like me,” he said. “I’m offering you a choice.”
• He walked closer again, and I backed up this time.
• “You can go back to your little apartment,” he said, “and pretend this never happened. But I promise you, you’ll never sleep again. Because now you know too much. And there are others who won’t give you the same patience I’ve shown.”
• He stepped past me again and paused at the gate.
• “Or,” he added, turning slightly, “you can come with me. See the truth. Learn to survive in it. Maybe even control it.”
• And with that, he disappeared into the shadows beyond the gate.
• He didn’t wait for an answer.
• Because he knew I’d follow.
• I hated that he was right.
• But as I stood there, breathless, shaking, heart thudding in my chest like some warning bell, I already knew what I would do.
• I couldn’t unsee what I saw. I couldn’t erase him from my mind. And the truth was, I didn’t want to.
• Because Matteo Romano was dangerous, yes.
• But he was also something else.
• He was real.
• And in a city full of fake smiles, fake promises, fake saints
• That kind of danger was the only thing that ever felt honest.
• **Matteo’s POV**
• //The Night She Clicked the Shutter//
• I saw her the second she raised her camera.
• Among the chaos and noise of the piazza, among people running, screaming, scattering like pigeons after a gunshot, she stood still. Her fingers didn’t tremble. Her breath didn’t falter. She wasn’t just watching—she was framing it.
• Me.
• Even with a man bleeding on the ground, the sirens in the distance, and panic thick in the air, she looked at me through that lens like I was part of her art. And then click.
• She took the shot.
• For a moment, I did nothing. I could’ve ended it right there. One order. One bullet. No more witness. No more problem.
• But I didn’t.
• Because something stopped me.
• Her.
• She wasn’t like the others. She didn’t scream or faint or cover her mouth in horror. Her eyes locked onto mine through the camera, wide but focused. That look… it wasn’t just fear. There was something else. Curiosity. Sharp. Untamed. Stupid, maybe. But real.
• And she was beautiful.
• Not in the polished, artificial way I was used to. Not the kind of beauty that tried too hard to impress. Hers was… quiet. Natural. Almost accidental. Dark wavy hair pulled into a messy bun like she hadn’t meant to leave the house that day. Light olive skin, flushed from running, from shock. Wide brown eyes, glassy but not empty. She had lips that looked like they told too many truths and regretted every one.
• She looked like someone who didn’t belong in my world.
• And yet… she was already in it.
• I followed her.
• Not because I had to. I never have to follow anyone.
• But because I wanted to.
• It had been a long time since someone made me curious. Since a stranger made me pause. But something about her pulled at a thread in me I thought I’d burned a long time ago.
• I watched her pace her apartment hours after it happened. I watched her stare at the photo, zoom in on my face, drag her fingers across the image like she could make sense of it. She didn’t sleep. She didn’t cry. She just thought. Like her brain wouldn’t stop trying to solve a puzzle she had no pieces for.
• So I sent the envelope. No name. No threats. Just a place. A time. And my family’s symbol—Il Leone Rosso.
• If she was smart, she’d run. If she was afraid, she’d stay home. If she had any sense at all, she’d burn the note and forget she ever saw me.
• But she came.
• Of course she came.
• And when I saw her walk through the gate of that ruined Roman theater alone, clutching that envelope like it could protect her, I knew. She’d made her choice. Not out loud. Not to herself. But her feet had spoken. And they’d carried her to me.
• She was different.
• Most people, when faced with fear, back away. She leaned in.
• And when she looked at me again in the moonlight, it wasn’t just fear that lived in her gaze. There was defiance there too. A question. A hunger she probably didn’t even understand.
• I didn’t smile. I didn’t move.
• I just watched her come closer.
• She had no idea what she was stepping into.
• But she came anyway.
• And that’s the kind of soul I can use.
• Or break.
• Or maybe… save.
• If she doesn’t burn first.