neighbour they said
, witness
was Rain swept in from the sea like it was trying to erase the entire coastline. The windows rattled in their frames. Lina didn't sleep. She sat in the chair by the hearth, watching shadows rise and fall against the stone wall like ghosts crawling toward her.
Her manuscript sat open on the floor.
Pages she didn't remember writing, words that both felt like hers and didn't.
When she heard footsteps creak outside the door, she didn't flinch. Milo stepped inside, soaked to the bone, eyes darker than usual.
"I went into the village," he said, tossing a damp folder onto the table.
Lina looked at it. Her name was stamped in red ink on the top sheet.
"You went through my file," she said, not surprised, not even angry.
"I needed to see it," Milo replied. "The report. Photos. Statements. Everything the police said was too clean."
She bent to pick up the folder but didn't open it. "And?"
"His name was Paolo."
Lina's breath caught. "You knew?"
He nodded. "I knew the name. I didn't know the man. Not until now."
She opened the file and saw it again—the photo. Paolo was golden-skinned and smiling like he owned the world. She hated how handsome he still looked in death.
"Who killed him?" she asked.
Milo sat. Quietly. Carefully. "You didn't."
"You're sure?"
"I found something else," he said. "Police missed it. Or ignored it. A witness statement from a neighbour. They said they saw someone else leaving the property that night. Not you."
Lina's fingers trembled on the page. "Who?"
"Her name's Clara."
Lina froze. "Clara."
"She worked at the villa. Cooked, cleaned. And she loved him."
Lina blinked. The memory clicked into place like a snapped bone.
Paolo. Clara. Laughing in the kitchen.
She remembered the fight now. The storm. The scream. The sound of something breaking—glass or bone, she hadn't known.
"She told me she left early," Lina said. "She lied."
"She lied to everyone."
Lina stood, shaky. The room felt too small. Too warm. She opened a window to the wind and sea.
"I loved a version of him," she said. "The part that loved me back. But he was cruel. Charming, but cruel. Like he couldn't help it."
Milo walked to her, close but not touching. "You survived him. That counts for something."
"I don't want to be a survivor," she said. "I want to be whole."
"Then write it," he said. "Write it all. Not the fiction. The truth."
She looked at him, and something softened between them—something unnamable but real.
And for the first time in months, Lina picked up a pen without shaking.
She wrote: He lied to me. I loved him anyway. But that night, someone else was watching. Someone else had enough.
Outside, the storm passed. Inside, something else began.