Chapter 6 When Ghosts Refuse to Sleep

Adriano

Sleep doesn’t come. Not to men like me.

I lie in the dark, city lights leaking through the blinds, slicing my room into bars of pale gold and shadow. The sheets are tangled at my waist, the glass of whiskey untouched on the table, and still I stare at the ceiling as if answers are carved there.

Her face lives in every blink.

Not the woman from today’s boardroom, weary and guarded. Not even the desperate voice that confessed through The Service, trembling with secrets. No—what claws at me now is a memory from another life. A night when everything was simple, when I still believed love could exist for men born in blood.

She was lying beside me, half-curled on the sheets, watching me. Not speaking. Just watching.

I had just closed my laptop, irritated with contracts, numbers, deals. My empire was always gnawing at me, even in the dead of night. But then there was Bella—propped up on her elbow, chin resting in her palm, eyes tracing me with a look that stole every thought.

“What are you doing?” I asked, smirking, because silence was never her strong suit.

“Memorizing you,” she whispered.

I laughed, low, skeptical. “Memorizing me? What am I, a textbook?”

“Yes.” Her smile was soft, defiant. “And I want to make sure I never forget a single word.”

It disarmed me more than any bullet ever could. She wasn’t afraid of the shadows hanging over my name. She wasn’t impressed by the money, the power, the weight I carried. She wanted me. The man no one else even tried to see.

I reached for her then, hand sliding through her curls, tugging her down until her lips brushed mine. She laughed into the kiss, that sweet sound that still follows me into hell.

We didn’t speak much more that night. We didn’t need to. The silence wasn’t heavy. It was full—full of her warmth pressed against me, full of the weight of her breathing in rhythm with mine. For once, I wasn’t Adriano Moretti, heir of shadows. I was just a man who belonged to her.

The memory burns, and when I blink it away, the ceiling above me feels like a coffin lid. That night is gone. She’s gone—or she was supposed to be. And yet fate has dragged her back into my world, alive, breathing, a heartbeat away from the empire I built on grief.

I drag a hand down my face. If I close my eyes, I see her smile. If I open them, I see her ghost in the city lights. There’s no escape. Not tonight. Not ever.

Isabella

Sleep doesn’t come for me either.

Sofia’s soft breaths fill the apartment, steady and safe. She clutches her rabbit to her chest, a tangle of curls over her pillow. I should feel calm, grateful for her peace. Instead, I’m staring at the cracked ceiling, fighting the weight of old memories.

It’s been years, and yet tonight it feels like yesterday. Maybe because of him. That man in the meeting room—the one whose presence hollowed me out in a single glance. My mind insists it was just a trick of resemblance. My heart doesn’t listen.

And the memories come, uninvited.

We were both students then—me with my notebooks full of scribbles, him with a restless energy that never belonged in classrooms. He’d never admit it, but he sat through those dull lectures just to be near me.

I remember one night before exams. I was panicking, chewing on my pen, surrounded by a fortress of notes that made no sense anymore. Numbers and facts blurred until my head spun.

He leaned against the library wall, arms crossed, watching me unravel.

“You’re going to break the pen in half,” he said.

I glared at him. “You don’t get it. I’m failing. My brain’s broken. I can’t do this.”

“You can.” He walked over, plucked the pen out of my hand, and tossed it onto the table. Then, with that arrogant calm only he could pull off, he tilted my chin up until I met his eyes. “Because you’re smarter than anyone in this damn room. And because I said so.”

I tried to roll my eyes, but then he leaned down and kissed me, quick and firm, and the panic dissolved into something hotter, steadier.

“You’re insane,” I whispered when he pulled back.

“Maybe. But you’re mine. So no failing allowed.”

I laughed despite myself. And that night, I studied with his arm draped over my chair, his steady presence anchoring me in a way no amount of coffee ever could.

I bite my lip now, staring into the dark. The memory feels too sharp, too alive, like it happened yesterday instead of in a life I thought had been burned away.

And now I wonder—what if it wasn’t a life lost? What if the man from the meeting really was him? What if he’s been out there all this time, walking the same streets, building some empire in shadows while I scraped by, raising our daughter alone?

The thought terrifies me. Not because I don’t want it to be true. But because I do.

The city hums outside, restless as ever. I close my eyes, but the ghosts won’t let me go. His touch still lingers on my skin, even though it’s been six years since that night in the library, six years since the bed where I caught him smiling in the dark.

Maybe ghosts don’t sleep either. Maybe they lie awake, waiting for the day they’ll be called back into the light.

And maybe—just maybe—one of those ghosts isn’t dead after all.