chapter one : The Watcher in the rain

Rain tasted like secrets tonight.

It slid down the cracked stone gargoyles outside the ancient Rossi estate, just as it slid down her cheek—a cold caress that didn’t belong.

Eva Moretti didn’t believe in ghosts. But she believed in being watched.

Standing beneath the iron awning, her leather boots tapped a subtle rhythm against the marble floor, an old nervous habit. The sound echoed through the arched corridor behind her. The Rossi estate, her new workplace as a private archivist, was a palace stitched together with ancient sins.

But tonight, it was more than the silence that disturbed her.

Someone was out there.

Across the courtyard, beneath a rusting lamppost, stood a man in a black coat—long, tailored, expensive. His face was hidden beneath a dark umbrella, but she saw the glint of a silver ring when he adjusted it. One she’d seen before.

She blinked. Gone.

Again.

Always gone before she could call out. Just like last night. And the night before.

“He’s not real,” she muttered to herself, swallowing the lump in her throat.

But the door behind her creaked.

She turned sharply. A low voice greeted her—rich, controlled, accented like whisky over ice.

“Expecting someone, Miss Moretti?”

He stood tall in a black suit, no tie, and eyes that carried the weight of unspeakable things. Matteo Rossi. Mafia heir. Her employer. And the reason her stomach twisted with something that wasn’t fear.

“Just… thought I saw someone,” she replied, stepping aside. “It’s nothing.”

“Nothing rarely lingers three nights in a row.”

Her breath hitched. “You knew?”

He tilted his head, lips curving—not in a smile, but something more dangerous.

“I know everything that moves within ten miles of my house. Especially when it watches you.”

You. The word slid from his lips like a promise. Or a threat.

She stepped back. “Why would anyone watch me?”

He moved closer, each step echoing like a clock ticking down to something terrible.

“Because,” he said, eyes locking with hers, “sometimes the hunter doesn’t choose the prey. The prey pulls the trigger.”

And just like that, she realized—this wasn’t about ghosts or strangers in the dark.

It was about him.

The man with the silver ring wasn’t a stranger at all.

It was him.

He had been watching her… long before she stepped foot in this estate.

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( hint please read it on your own risk it might give u romantic trauma ❤️ 😭 🤧 and it have darkness with a bit of romance and obsession)

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