Page 4

ARIA

I stare at the microwave, watching a plate of cheap chicken nuggets spin in slow, depressing circles.

The apartment is too quiet.

No Chiara singing off-key in the shower. No one hogging the remote.

It’s been eight days this time.

And something feels different.

Usually, she comes back—for clean clothes, a nap, maybe just to steal the last of the cereal. At the very least, she calls.

But aside from a random text this morning asking me to take her shift, she hasn’t checked in.

Not once.

No matter how hard I try to ignore the knot of worry in my stomach, it just keeps tightening.

The microwave beeps. I take out the plate and move to the tiny kitchen table.

Six hours at the drugstore last night, nine more on my feet at the café today—and this is what I’ve got to show for it: a sad little dinner.

I arrange the nuggets beside a handful of baby carrots.

The cheapest illusion of nutrition.

My shoulders ache. The soles of my feet throb.

I should shower, but even that feels like too much right now.

“Where the hell are you, Chiara?” I mutter, picking up my phone again. Still nothing. No new texts. No calls.

I bite into a nugget.

Still cold in the middle. I don’t bother microwaving it again.

Chiara’s disappearing acts have gotten more frequent lately.

She vanishes, then comes back with bloodshot eyes and a bullshit excuse.

But she always comes back.

For something. A change of clothes. Money from our emergency stash. A nap in her own bed.

Not this time.

This time feels heavier, like when we were kids and she’d hide from foster parents who got too mean. Except we’re not kids anymore.

And the things Chiara runs from now—those are hers.

I know about some of her debts.

Not all.

But enough to keep me up at night.

She borrows from one shark to pay off another, barely keeping ahead of the interest.

I’ve bailed her out twice, emptied my savings both times.

I promised myself—never again.

But promises get slippery when it’s your twin.

Especially when the people she owes can come looking for you instead.

I push a carrot around my plate.

Where does all the money go?

Not clothes. Nothing new ever shows up.

Not drugs—I’d know.

Not a car—she’s too broke for that.

I should talk to her.

Maybe if I understood where it was going, I could help. Keep her from spiraling.

I’ll talk to her.

When she comes back.

I’m halfway through my pathetic dinner when a knock rattles the door.

My heart skips a beat from the force of it.

Hard. Aggressive.

My fork freezes halfway to my mouth.

Who the hell knocks like that at this hour?

Before I can stand, the knocking turns into pounding.

Then—

CRACK.

The door bursts open, the hinges splintering straight from the frame.

“What the?—?”

I scream, but the rest of the words die in my throat as I stumble back, pressing myself into a corner.

Like putting a few feet between us will make any of this less terrifying.

Three men crowd into our tiny apartment.

I don’t recognize any of them.

“Time’s up, Chiara,” the bigger one says.

My heart stutters.

They think I’m her.

We’re identical, but Chiara wears more makeup and dresses flashier. Today, with my hair down and wearing one of her old T-shirts and jeans, the mistake is easy to make.

I should correct them. I should tell them I’m Aria, not Chiara. But the words stick in my throat because whatever they want from my sister, it can’t be good. And if they can’t find her…

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, my voice smaller than I want it to be.

The thin one laughs, a harsh sound that makes my skin crawl. “Playing dumb won’t help. D’Angelo wants his money. All of it. Today.”

The big one steps closer, towering over me. “Ten grand,” he says. “Plus interest.”

The number hits me like a slap.

Ten thousand dollars? Chiara owes that much?

My mind reels, struggling to process it.

“I don’t have ten thousand dollars,” I say—true whether I’m Aria or Chiara.

The hulk of a man pulls out a knife, letting the blade catch the light.

“Then we got a problem, don’t we?”

“Look, I have some cash. About three hundred. You can take it. Tell D’Angelo I’ll get the rest.”

“Three hundred?” the big guy laughs. “That doesn’t even cover last week’s interest.”

While we talk, the other starts methodically tearing the apartment apart—dumping drawers, flipping cushions, emptying cabinets.

“Stop it!” I yell, lunging toward him—until the big one grabs my arm and presses a knife to my cheek, murmuring, “This doesn’t have to get ugly. Just give us what we’re owed.”

“I told you, I don’t have it!”

The thin one grabs my purse from the counter and dumps it out. Wallet, keys, lip balm, receipts—all cascade onto the floor. He rifles through my wallet, takes the forty dollars inside.

“Please,” I sob through my tears. “I can get the money. I just need time.”

“Time’s up,” the big guy repeats, his hand reaching for my throat.

And then—a sound.

The door slams open.

A man steps inside like he owns the room—calm, lethal, eyes locked on them.

“Touch her again, and you’re dead.”

Charcoal suit, eyes like loaded weapons, and a face so devastating it belongs on the cover of a crime novel.

It’s him.

The man from the café. The one who saved my ass earlier today. And now—again.

I should be afraid.

Should wonder how he found me. Why he’s here.

But the way he looks at my attackers—like he’s already burying them in his mind—tells me everything I need to know.

He’s not here to join them.

He’s here to end them.

And right now? I don’t give a damn about the questions screaming in my head.

He came for me—and that’s enough.

Whatever brought him here, I just need him to finish it and get these bastards out of my apartment.

The air shifts the second he steps fully into the room.

Something electric. Dangerous. Final.

No one moves. Not for a breath.

Then chaos explodes.

The big guy turns, reaching inside his jacket for a weapon.

But the stranger moves faster. Inhumanly fast.

There’s a dull thud, and before I can blink, the man’s on the ground, gasping for air.

A brutal punch. He wheezes, curling in on himself.

The stranger steps over the one still clutching his ribs, unbothered, like it was nothing.

“That was me being polite.”

His voice is quiet. Deadly. And it sends a shiver right down my spine.

The second one lunges, knife raised.

The stranger ducks, steps in, and laughs—actually laughs—as he sweeps the guy’s legs out with a vicious kick.

The man crashes down, hard. The knife skitters across the floor.

In a blink, the stranger pins him with a knee to the back, twists his arm up behind him until there’s a scream and a crack—dislocated. Maybe worse.

Then the third grabs me, pressing cold steel to my throat.

“Don’t move,” he hisses into my ear, but his voice shakes.

The stranger doesn’t even blink. “You picked the wrong woman.”

His voice is deep, steady—like he’s ordering coffee, not standing over two men writhing on the floor.

“Back off, or I’ll cut her!” my assailant shouts.

The stranger tilts his head slightly. “Move, and you die.”

“This isn’t your problem,” the man stammers.

The dark-eyed man smiles, cold and unforgiving.

“This has everything to do with me.”

The stranger points a gun right behind me, right at him, and shoots.

“Oh my God,” I gasp—half from the shock of how close the bullet came, half from the relief that they’re finally down. When I look back, I see him on the ground, writhing, blood soaking through his thigh. The shot was deliberate. A warning, not an execution.

I stumble backward, my legs hitting the edge of the table. My dinner crashes to the floor, shattering. I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Three men just burst into my apartment—and now all three are down. Groaning. Injured.

The stranger kneels beside the one who tried to run and grabs him by the hair, yanking his head back.

“Tell D’Angelo that Chiara is under my protection now,” he says, voice low and razor-sharp. “Tell him what happens when he sends his dogs after what’s mine. Now all three of you—get the hell out before I change my mind.”

No one hesitates.

The bleeding man scrambles up, nearly falling over himself to reach the door. The other two follow fast, limping and stumbling, desperate to escape. Within seconds, they’re gone—leaving only blood, silence, and the wreckage behind.

I pressed a shaking hand to my chest, my heartbeat erratic.

The stranger turns to me, and I press myself against the wall. He could hurt me too—just as easily as he hurt them. But something in his eyes changes when he looks at me—softens, almost imperceptibly.

“Are you hurt?” he asks.

I shake my head, unable to form words.

“You should have come to me,” he says quietly. “When you needed money. Not D’Angelo.”

He thinks I’m Chiara. Should I correct him? Would that make things better—or worse? My mind’s racing too fast to know the answer.

“I—” I start, but nothing follows. I should tell him I don’t know who he is, that I couldn’t have gone to him because I have no fucking clue what’s going on.

He steps closer, so close that I can smell his cologne. It smells expensive, like out of one of those bottles that cost hundreds of dollars. Despite the carnage he caused, there’s no blood on his suit, somehow. No trace of the chaos he just left behind.

“You’re safe now,” he says.

I look around me—scattered furniture, blood on the floor—and then at him. At the gun he’s tucking back into his jacket.

Safe is not the word I would use.

But when he reaches out a hand, when his dark eyes meet mine, I don’t pull away.

I should be terrified. I should be calling the police or running for the door. Instead, I’m noticing the width of his shoulders under that expensive suit, the curve of his mouth, the intensity in his eyes. For the first time in my exhausting, responsibility-filled life, I want to be someone else.

I want to be her. I want to be Chiara—reckless, wanted, untouchable. The girl who gets protected. The one he’d destroy the world for. Just for tonight.