Chapter 341: Sound

CHAPTER 342

KATYA POV

Midnight had long settled over the Salvatore estate. Silence wrapped itself around the villa, swallowing the sounds that had filled its halls during the day. The footsteps of maids had disappeared hours ago. The distant conversations of the guards outside had faded into little more than muffled voices carried by the wind.

Everything slept.

Everything except me. I turned onto my side for what had to be the hundredth time. The sheets beneath me were impossibly soft, the mattress far too comfortable for someone who couldn’t seem to quiet her own mind.

Sleep refused to come. Every time I closed my eyes I saw them.

Frank and Ariana. I opened them again almost immediately, staring up at the ceiling.

“…”

A heavy breath escaped me. Their faces appeared so vividly that my chest tightened.

Everything seemed tangled together now, one memory bleeding into another until I couldn’t tell where one ended and the next began.

How could I be lying here beneath warm blankets while they occupied every corner of my thoughts? The guilt refused to loosen its grip. It clung to me with every breath I took.

The guilt settled over me like another layer of clothing. Heavy. Impossible to ignore. Frank was dead. No amount of wishing could change that. No amount of regret could bring him back.

Yet somehow that only made everything worse.

His face surfaced so easily. The way he’d frowned the moment Ariana invited me into their apartment.

The sarcastic comments he’d throw my way. The ridiculous jokes he’d make even when Ariana rolled her eyes at him.

They were ordinary memories. Painfully ordinary.

And now They were all I had left of him. My fingers tightened around the blanket. Whether Romeo Salvatore had pulled the trigger himself no longer mattered.

Frank was dead because of me. If I had never crossed paths with them. If they had never opened their home to me…

Would he still be alive? The question had no answer. It never would. I squeezed my eyes shut again.

A mistake. Because this time I saw Ariana. Not laughing. Not smiling. Not even smoking. Only the last time I’d seen her.

Terrified. Dragged away because she’d chosen to help a stranger she barely knew. A fresh ache settled deep inside my chest.

Romeo had said he’d let her go. He’d looked directly at me and told me she’d been given money.

Freedom. A chance to disappear and start over somewhere safe. I wanted that to be true.

No. That wasn’t entirely honest. I wanted Ariana to be safe. Believing Romeo was another matter entirely. For all I knew, she could still be somewhere inside one of his countless properties.

Locked behind another door. Still paying for my mistakes. The uncertainty gnawed at me as another thought slipped quietly into my mind.

He kept his word today. My eyes flew open. Immediately, I hated the thought. I wasn’t doing this again.

I rolled onto my back, staring at the dark ceiling. Everything that had happened today pointed toward him.

Inspector Ricci’s sudden change. The investigation disappearing overnight. The impossible timing.

Then Chiara’s car somehow returning to the villa. Another coincidence?

I didn’t know anymore. My gaze drifted. Almost against my own will. Toward the concealed door connecting my bedroom to Romeo’s.

It stood exactly as it always had. Closed. Silent. Dark. I frowned at it.

Was he even in there? I hadn’t seen him since the parking lot earlier that afternoon. After stepping out of the SUV, he’d disappeared inside the villa with James and seemed to vanish from existence altogether.

Not that I had been paying attention. Who was I trying to fool? I had noticed. I’d noticed every hour that passed without seeing him.

Every time footsteps echoed somewhere beyond my room, I’d found myself wondering if they belonged to him before immediately becoming annoyed with myself for wondering at all.

He had looked busy today. Busier than usual. People had been coming and going from the villa almost constantly after his arrival. Guards.

Men in suits. James. Even from my bedroom I’d heard distant voices more than once, doors opening and closing somewhere downstairs.

Whatever Romeo had been doing… It clearly hadn’t involved me. Which should have been a relief.

So why did it bother me? I groaned quietly and threw an arm over my eyes. This was ridiculous.

Absolutely ridiculous. I wasn’t curious about Romeo. I wasn’t. I was simply Frustrated. Frustrated because nothing made sense anymore.

Every answer somehow circled back to one man who never explained anything. I dropped my arm again. The room remained exactly the same.

Sleep wasn’t coming. That much was obvious. With another quiet sigh, I pushed the blanket away and swung my legs over the side of the bed. The wooden floor felt cool beneath my bare feet. Maybe walking around for a minute would help.

I stood slowly, absentmindedly pulling the oversized shirt I slept in farther down my thighs before beginning to pace the room. One lap. Then another. I paused beside the window, staring out into the moonlit gardens.

Nothing. Even the fountains seemed quieter tonight. Eventually, without really thinking about where I was going, I turned back toward the center of the room.

One step. Then another. Until I stopped. Directly in front of the concealed door. I blinked.

“…”

What was I doing? I frowned at myself. I wasn’t about to knock. I definitely wasn’t about to open it. That would be insane.

Besides If Romeo was actually inside… The last person I wanted to see in the middle of the night was him.

I folded my arms. Then unfolded them again. For some reason, I couldn’t stop staring at the door. It looked so ordinary.

Just another door. Nothing about it suggested that, on the other side, lived a man capable of making police investigations disappear overnight. Or terrifying entire rooms simply by walking into them.

Or… Keeping impossible promises. I immediately pushed that thought away.

“No,” I muttered under my breath. One promise didn’t change who he was. I reached out almost absentmindedly.

Not to open it. Just… My fingertips hovered a few centimeters from the polished wall. I don’t even know why. Maybe I simply wanted to prove to myself that it was only a door.

Nothing more. Nothing less. Before my fingers could touch it—

A sound. I froze.