ZYLA

<><><>

The note is still on the table when I wake up the next morning. My eyes sting, and I don’t know if it’s from lack of sleep or the words echoing in my head like a curse.

Six words. One sentence. Burned into my skull:

You’re not safe with him either.

I stare at it like it might morph, shift, or reveal something else.

A lie?

The silence in the apartment feels heavier this morning. Like it knows something I don’t.

My eyes stay on the note as the sky shifts from indigo to a muted grey.

Footsteps echo down the hallway.

I sit up, knees drawn to my chest, blanket tangled around my ankles. My eyes flick to the hallway.

Tarin stands there.

Tall and shirtless. A towel slung low over his shoulder. Hair wet. Drops of water slide down the curve of his neck and disappear beneath the waistband of his grey sweatpants.

Damn.

I snap my eyes away like he’s hot lava.

He doesn’t acknowledge my flinch. Doesn’t even slow down.

Instead, he nods toward the kitchen. "Shower. There's cereal in the cupboard. Eat. We’re going to class together."

My head snaps to him. "Class? As in... college? Are you insane?”

“No," he says, drying his hair like we’re discussing the weather. "It’s a cover. You disappear, and they come searching harder. You blend in… maybe you live.”

The way he says maybe, twists something in my gut.

I cross my arms. "You expect me to pretend like nothing happened? Like my life didn’t just explode overnight?”

“Pretend. Survive. You say potayto, I say potahto.”

I grit my teeth. “And you?”

He pauses by the kitchen counter and grabs a protein bar. “To the world I’m a transfer student. But to you, I’m your cover, your shadow. Get used to it.”

“I’m not playing dress-up in your little mafia disguise,” I snap.

He raises a brow. “No. You’re surviving it.”

“Humph!” I stomp my feet. But the man is already gone.

~~~

He sends me to a bedroom after breakfast. When I push open the door, I stop cold.

A fresh outfit is laid across the bed. A butter yellow floral dress. Exactly my style, my size.

Down to a replica of the soft cream sweater I told no one I loved, the one I stopped wearing after Zayden died. Even the lotion I used in my first year of college.

My chest tightens. How?

How does he know?

I pick up the sweater. It smells new. But also… familiar. My favorite white rose-scented perfume.

I pull the outfit on like armor, but inside, I’m unraveling.

He’s been watching me.

For years, after I thought he'd left.

~~~

We take a midnight blue Camry. The kind of car you forget five seconds after seeing it.

The ride to campus is silent. But it is not peaceful.

Every red light, every turn, I feel his presence like gravity.

He’s wearing jeans and a casual shirt, and his hair is still slightly damp. He doesn’t look like a criminal today. All of that Mafia Prince vibe is tucked away from the surface.

He looks like someone who belongs. A regular student. And that's what makes me want to flee.

On campus, people stare.

Of course they do. Tarin looks like the prince of every fantasy. Tall, sharp-jawed, cold-eyed.

And then there’s me. The girl beside him who knows the shadows under that beauty.

His hand brushes mine as we walk. A jolt runs through my chest.

Shut up, heart.

“Don’t wander,” he mutters.

“Don’t boss me,” I bite back.

We pause outside my lecture hall.

“You’re coming in?” I frown.

He lifts a brow. “Would I be good cover if I let you out of my sight?”

I step in, annoyed.

The lecture hall smells like coffee and crushed ambition.

I spot a classmate from last year—Nina—and wave.

She beams and comes toward me.

Tarin steps in, subtly.

His hand finds the small of my back. Protective. Possessive.

It sends heat racing up my spine.

“Hey,” Nina says, eyes flicking between us. “Who’s the handsome new fella?”

I force a smile. “Just… an old friend, transferred recently.”

Tarin doesn’t say anything. He scans the room like it’s a war zone.

“Okay,” Nina says as she walks off. “See ya later.”

We sit. I exhale. Maybe he's been too paran—

A piece of paper slides onto my desk.

I glance down at it: You shouldn’t have come out of hiding, Little Bookworm.

Another note. My blood chills.

I whip around. Who? Who passed it? Everyone looks normal. Talking. Laughing. Scribbling.

But someone here knows. And they’re watching.

~~~

The bathroom smells like lemon cleaner.

I know what you think: I shouldn’t have snuck away from that bossy Tarin and come here alone.

He’ll maybe, probably, definitely be mad.

Eff him. I don’t care. I need space to breathe.

I reach for the sink.

But then the door clicks shut behind me.

I spin, only to see a hooded, masked, dark figure in the stall with me.

Panic claws at my throat.

“Zyla…” His head is tilted to one side as my name rolls off his lips in a low drawl that sends shivers crawling underneath my skin.

Panicking, I open my mouth to scream when the door bursts open.

Tarin.

He grabs the figure, and everything erupts into chaos, adrenaline, and punches—all landed by him.

The intruder's hoodie slips, and the mask falls off. It’s a guy. Young, pale, and terrified.

Sensing defeat, he shoves something into Tarin’s chest—which the latter catches—before scrambling free and bolting.

Tarin is breathing hard, but he doesn't chase. He opens his fists.

A phone with no SIM.

Just one message on a white background on screen: We will get her, no matter what you do.

~~~

The car ride back is dead silent.

When we reach the apartment, he bursts first, slamming the door.

“I said don't wander!”

I equally raise my voice. “You said you’d keep me safe.”

He grabs my wrist, not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough to get his anger and displeasure across.

“You think I’m magic, Fiore?” He growls. “You think I can fight shadows you keep chasing? I can’t protect you if you keep wandering off.”

"Oh, forgive me, almighty Tarin Ferretti.” I spit. “Son of the House of Ferretti. One of the most powerful mafia families of Casa Ferro. Yet somehow... he fails to protect again.”

The moment those words leave my lips, I regret every single one of them. They land like I have just jabbed at an inward wound. Because I have.

His jaw tics. The pain flashes in his eyes, and I see it.

My stomach knots, and I wince internally.

It… it was a moment of anger; I hadn't meant to reopen any old wounds.

His hands leave my wrist and slam beside me, pinning me against the wall.

Not roughly. Just close. Too close.

The tension is suffocating.

Our breaths mingle. His hand brushes my waist.

His chest is almost against mine. We’re breathing the same air.

“I shouldn’t have brought you back into my life,” he whispers.

Then he steps away before I can reply.

Before I can say, Then why did you?

~~~

At night, he gives me a bed in the room from this morning.

I can’t sleep, for the apartment feels… off. And the nightmare my life has turned into keeps replaying in my head.

So I do exactly what got me into trouble with Mr. Bossy Mafia Prince. I wander.

But this time, to him.

He’s on the couch. Eyes closed. An iPad on his chest.

I squint.

It's on a book app.

The screen shows a title: Lover in Chains—By Willow T.

I still. No way.

I pick up the iPad from his chest, causing him to stir awake.

“You read this?”

He blinks. “It was there.”

I hold it to my chest, unable to control my excitement. “This author? She's a genius. The way she writes pain... It’s like, like, she’s bleeding on paper, like she lived it. Chapter seventeen? Gutting.”

He watches me in silence as I ramble on.

“If she turns out to be a guy, and I ever meet him, I’d waste no time in marrying him.”

He grunts. “Dramatic.”

I roll my eyes. “You wouldn’t get it. You’re emotionally constipated.”

He smirks. “Or maybe it’s just fiction.”

“It’s truth in disguise,” I fire back. “Some of us read with our hearts, actually feel.”

With that, I storm off with the pad, hugging it like a lifeline. “I’ll take this.”

~~~

Tarino

She is asleep now. Or pretending to be.

With Zyla, you can never really tell. She can mask like armor. But tonight... I know the tremble in her hands isn’t from cold.

I should have made sure she never came into this world. Watched more closely.

But I didn't do enough.

And now the shadows aren’t just mine anymore. They are hers too.

I sit on the couch, laptop balanced on my knees. The screen is lit up in a soft white, casting ghosts across the floor.

Cursor blinking. Waiting.

My fingers hover over the keys, then drop.

I type: He’d held the body for an hour before letting go. Blood soaked his sleeves. Silence screamed in his head. He kept thinking, maybe if he’d come five minutes earlier. Maybe then…

I stop. Swallow the burn in my throat.

The chapter title blinks at me from the top of the screen: Lover In Chain–Chapter 47: The Boy I Couldn’t Save

Zyla’s words echo like a curse.

This author? She's a genius… If she turns out to be a guy… I’d waste no time in marrying him.

I laugh. Quiet and bitter.

If only she knew.

My hand drifts to the silver pen beside me, fingers closed around the weight of it like it could anchor me. A gift from a publisher who didn’t know the real me. Just the fake name etched into the side.

Willow T.

I lean back and close my eyes.

Every word I write… every scene… every kiss, every scar in Lover In Chains; it isn’t fiction. Not really.

It is my past. My guilt.

My brother, Luca.

Her brother, Zayden.

And she’s fallen in love with it.

With the words. With Willow.

Not me.

“Fiore...” The name I first called her when she chose that perfume in the mall those years ago slips out.

Soft and wrecked this time, though.

“You weren’t supposed to fall in love with that version of me.”

I look at the laptop again. Still glowing.

“You weren’t supposed to fall for a pen name… an identity that doesn’t exist.”

I close the screen. The reflection of my face vanishes with it.

But the title still flickers behind my eyes.

Lover In Chains–Chapter 47: The Boy I Couldn’t Save.

And I was… am the boy.

Still trying to write my way out of hell.

A new notification dings.

I open the laptop and check it.

Zyla_Rosewood just followed Willow T.

My chest tightens.

No.

No.

I drag my hand down my face, heart slamming into my ribs like it wants to escape.

She’s getting closer.

Too close.

And I don’t know how long I can keep both versions of me apart.