The Angel and The Knife

The invitation came in the morning mail.

A gala. Of course.

For the hospital.

San Liorenzo's annual charity night.

Black tie.

Glass smiles.

Bloodless cruelty behind every champagne toast.

I wasn't going to attend.

But then the hospital director sent a handwritten note asking me to speak on behalf of the volunteers.

They wanted a face for the program.

And I'd become it…quietly, accidentally, honestly.

So I said yes.

Even if I knew he'd be there.

Even if I knew the second I walked into that ballroom, it would become a battlefield.

The dress I wore wasn't expensive.

No designer label.

Just soft, deep sapphire that clung to my waist and fell like ink around my feet.

I did my own makeup.

My own hair.

No stylists. No handlers. No Moretti staff.

Just me.

For once, I wanted to walk into a room as Anastasia.

Not his.

Mine.

He was already there when I arrived.

Alessandro.

In a black suit, bow tie loosened at the throat, a drink in his hand and eyes that hadn't stopped watching me since I stepped onto the marble floor.

He didn't come to greet me.

Of course not.

Instead, he watched from the edge of the crowd.

Unmoving.

Unblinking.

I spoke with donors. Volunteers. Doctors who had once rolled their eyes at me now smiled when I approached.

I wasn't loud.

But I belonged.

And maybe that's what made him snap.

I was near the stage, thanking the director for the opportunity, when I felt him behind me.

Close.

Too close.

His voice dropped beside my ear…calm, clipped, dangerous.

"So this is what you've been building behind my back?"

I didn't turn. "It's not behind your back if you were never looking."

He stepped in front of me then. Blocked my path. Stared down.

The music stopped.

Just like that.

All eyes turned.

I swallowed.

"Move."

His voice sharpened. "Is this how you win people, Anastasia? With bandages and borrowed smiles? Pretending to be the broken saint?"

My jaw locked.

"Don't do this," I whispered.

But he already was.

The ballroom was frozen.

Dozens of people in gowns and tuxedos stood still, pretending not to hear while hanging on every word.

A few phones hovered quietly in hands.

Always ready for a scandal.

Always ready for blood.

I stepped back from Alessandro, eyes locked on his.

"You're making a scene," I said under my breath.

"No," he hissed, "you did that when you turned my name into a charity badge."

I blinked.

"You think I'm doing this for attention?"

"You're weaponizing pity."

My lips parted, stunned.

"Your suffering," he went on, louder now, voice sharp like ice cracking, "was real. I'll never deny that. But now? Now you've turned it into a performance."

"I'm helping people."

"You're performing pain for applause."

Someone behind me gasped.

I swallowed the heat in my chest.

"You came to the hospital unannounced. You saw me with a child. And your first thought wasn't concern. It was jealousy."

He stepped closer.

"You smiled like I wasn't the one who watched you collapse. Like you didn't spend months begging for death and now you're handing out hope like candy."

My hands clenched into fists.

"I'm allowed to heal," I said. "Even if it doesn't look like what you expected."

He laughed…dark, soft, cruel.

"You think this is healing?"

"You think it's manipulation."

"Isn't it?"

"No," I said through clenched teeth. "It's survival."

He said nothing.

Not for a second.

But that silence wasn't mercy.

It was judgment.

"You don't belong on that stage, Anastasia," he said. "You don't belong in front of cameras. Not after what you've done. You are not the face of kindness. You are the girl who almost died in my house and blamed me for it."

And that was it.

The final slice.

The wound exposed.

Right there.

In front of everyone.

I didn't cry.

Not then.

I just stepped forward. Past him.

Past the director.

Past the crowd.

Up the stairs.

I took the microphone.

The room held its breath.

And I said…

"Thank you all for coming. I was supposed to give a speech about hope tonight. But instead, I think I'll give one about power. Because sometimes, the worst kind of power isn't abuse. It's erasure."

Then I turned my eyes to him.

"To the men who think silence is safety…your silence says everything."

And I walked off the stage.

While the whole room cracked under the weight of what he didn't say.

I walked straight through the crowd.

No one stopped me.

No one dared.

Because sometimes the most dangerous woman in the room isn't the loudest…

She's the one who walks away without flinching.

Alessandro didn't follow.

Not this time.

Not even when someone tried to call his name.

Not even when the director whispered behind me, "I'm so sorry."

I kept walking.

Through the exit.

Down the marble steps.

Into the night air that bit like a slap and tasted like my first breath in hours.

I didn't cry.

I couldn't afford to.

The tears were done serving him.

I took the back exit of the venue and walked three blocks to the corner café near the emergency wing. The nurse I knew was just leaving her shift.

"Anastasia?" she blinked. "Why are you…are you okay?"

"I just need a place to sit."

She nodded, unlocked the door, and let me in through the back.

Inside, I sat in the staff lounge, wrapped in a clean lab coat someone left on a chair, and held a mug of too-sweet coffee between my shaking hands.

I stared down at the liquid and whispered, "He thinks I'm using my pain."

Lucia sat beside me.

"He's scared of it," she said gently.

"I should've expected it."

"You did," she said. "You just hoped you were wrong."

I leaned back. "I can't keep doing this."

"Then stop doing it for him," she said. "Keep doing it for you."

I didn't answer.

But for the first time that night, something inside me went still.

Because she was right.

I returned to the villa after 1 a.m.

The lights were off.

The guards nodded, silent, eyes avoiding mine.

When I reached my room, the door was slightly ajar.

He was inside.

Sitting on the edge of the bed.

Still dressed in his gala suit.

Still wearing the weight of what he'd done.

"I didn't mean it," he said.

I didn't respond.

"I saw them clapping for you. I saw you smiling. And something ugly broke loose in me."

"You humiliated me," I said quietly.

"I know."

"You broke me again."

"I know."

I stared at him for a long time.

Then said, "Then don't you dare ask me to help you put the pieces back together."

I shut the door in his face.

Again.

But this time, I locked it for me.

Not for him.