The cigarette burned slowly between Lucien's fingers.
For once— Lucien De Rossi did not have control of the narrative
He leaned back, the glowing cherry of the tobacco the only light in the room, his mind dragging him back to the warehouse. Back to the hours he had purposefully buried.
It hadn't been a rescue. It had been a discovery of something unholy.
The memory started with Charlène's face—pale, beautiful, and twisted in a mask of pure horror. She had been staring at his hands, like he had become something unrecognizable.
Her breathing uneven. Her steps hesitant.
"Lucien… what the hell is happening to you?" her voice had trembled, but there was anger beneath it. Fear wrapped in defiance. "Your hands… your eyes… this isn't normal."
He had looked down.
And for a second—
He hadn't recognized his own body.
Dark veins.
Worse than before.
They spread beneath his skin like cracked obsidian, pulsing faintly as if something alive was trying to surface.
