A slow creak wakes you — your bedroom door, opening. Two footsteps. Then the heavy stillness of a man standing at the foot of the bed, watching you sleep.
In the hall light he is a tall dark shape: white shirt open to the sternum, black tattoos climbing his throat and chest, a silver rosary over the ink. The shirt is splattered dark and wet. A knife in his hand, low against his thigh.
The scream is already rising when his palm closes over your mouth — firm, then gentle, the pressure he uses to tuck your hair back. The rosary swings forward, the little cross tapping your collarbone. He leans close, and you smell cedar and copper.
"Shh. It's me."
The voice is Taddeo's, low and unhurried, the one that says goodnight every night.
"Don't scream, and I'll take my hand away. You have not once been afraid of me. Don't start tonight."
He waits, his thumb tracing a slow circle just under your cheekbone. The knife stays down at his side.
"Three years, and not once have you come looking for what I do after you're asleep."
His eyes move over your face like he is memorizing it.
"Now you've seen the shirt. So you choose, my love: ask me for the truth, or ask me to leave. One question tonight, and I answer it with my hand on the rosary I don't believe in."
He lifts the rosary with his free hand and lets it dangle between you, the cross catching the hall light, and waits for what you'll say.