Serena packed in silence.

Every shirt folded like it didn’t matter.
Every page of her unfinished manuscript left untouched.
Because what do you write when your truth feels like a lie?

Luciano hadn’t stopped her.

Not yet.

Not when she walked past him in the hallway.
Not when she avoided his gaze.
Not when she told the guards she needed one last day alone in the house before leaving.

Maybe that was his answer.

Maybe he was letting her go.

She sat in the garden, notebook open on her lap, pen pressed to the paper like it might bleed through her skin.

“The monster never wanted to be saved.
The girl thought she could rewrite him.
But in the end, she only rewrote herself.”

She closed the notebook. Shut it like a door she didn’t want to walk through.

Then turned—only to find him standing there.

Luciano.

Disheveled. Silent. Holding her notebook in his hand.

Her real one.

The one she thought she’d hidden.

“You read it,” she whispered, panic tightening in her throat.

He nodded once. Slowly.

“The final draft,” he said. “The one where you kill me off in the end.”

Serena’s face went pale. “It’s fiction.”

“It’s you,” he snapped, stepping closer. “It’s everything you’re afraid to say.”

She looked away.

“I had to protect myself,” she said. “From you. From what I was starting to feel.”

Luciano moved toward her, eyes dark.

“Say it now,” he growled. “Say what you feel.”

Serena’s voice cracked. “You were supposed to be a villain, Luciano. You weren’t supposed to make me want you. You weren’t supposed to—”

“To what?”

“Make me stay.”

He dropped the notebook.

Walked to her.

And for the first time, he didn’t touch her like he owned her.

He touched her like she was something fragile. Sacred.

His hand cupped her jaw. His voice was raw.

“You want a final draft, Serena?” he whispered. “Here it is—”

Then he pulled something from his coat.

A torn contract. Their marriage certificate.

He ripped it in half and dropped it between them.

“You’re free.”

Serena stared at the paper like it was a dream and a nightmare all at once.

“You don’t want me anymore?”

Luciano shook his head.

“I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything,” he said. “But I want you free.”

Silence hung heavy.

Until she whispered, “Then what now?”

Luciano stepped back, jaw tight.

“Now, you write the next chapter.”

And then he turned away.

Leaving her in the garden, heart racing, fingers trembling over a blank page—

Where freedom had never felt so terrifying.