The night air smelled of roasted coffee—a nocturnal perfume threading through the city's cracks like an old promise.
Inside the Last Note, the bar wore its usual blend of sweet smoke, aged liquor, and secrets traded in low voices.
Low lights washed everything in amber that seemed to hang in the air. Alessia moved among the tables with the grace of a slow melody—uncorking bottles, pouring, catching halves of confessions with that tempered smile that never said too much.
The sharp clink of a glass at the bar announced a customer who didn't belong.
A middle-aged man in a cheap suit, wearing the false confidence of someone who confuses power with volume, looked her up and down without shame.
"And you, doll—what are you doing working here with a face like that? Bet you could make a living in… more entertaining ways."
Alessia didn't answer.
Her face stayed serene—just a clean line between her lips—as if she hadn't heard him. But when she set down his drink and their fingers brushed, her pupils trembled for a heartbeat, a contraction so small only the most attentive would catch it.
Inside, her stomach tightened; an emotional nausea crawled through her chest.
Images struck so vividly she almost lost track of her breath.
Still, her hand didn't shake. Her smile didn't waver. She was a master at performing humanity while her insides screamed for justice.
In that brush of skin, a vision knifed into her mind: a woman weeping with a blackened eye, cornered in a kitchen; insults, shouts, cruel laughter.
This man—with that same voice—treated his wife like property.
She withdrew her hand calmly and gave him a thin smile.
"Enjoy your night," she murmured.
He grinned, oblivious. A target already painted between his shoulders.
He was prey now.
Hours shifted. Alessia changed with them.
She grew warmer with him, offered "on the house" drinks, let him believe her attention was special.
He, drunk on ego and alcohol, laughed too loudly, touched her arm without asking, undressed her with impunity from behind his glass.
"Could you drive me home?" she asked at the end of her shift, fastening her coat slowly. "No car tonight… and I don't feel like calling a cab."
He smiled like a wolf who thinks the trap is his.
"Of course, gorgeous. My pleasure."
The ride was short—too short for anything but one urgency.
Sitting beside him, she told him to take a turn. As the car slipped into emptier streets, Alessia closed her eyes and drew a long breath.
She knew what was coming. The part of her that clung to a human code tried to resist—useless.
The world didn't punish men like him—not the way they deserved.
This isn't vengeance, she thought. It's balance.
Beside her, he kept talking, each sentence another nail in his coffin.
"There's a cut through the woods—quicker… more private."
He didn't hesitate.
He accelerated, bragging about his youth, how little his wife understood him, how happy a woman like her would make him if she gave him a chance.
He stopped in a clearing veiled by trees.
Moonlight filtered through branches; the silence was almost religious.
He began unbuttoning his shirt, sweating, giddy.
"Come on, doll. Don't be shy…"
Alessia climbed over him without a word.
Her hands moved slowly over his chest; she lowered to his neck, inhaling with restrained delight. Her pupils dilated. Fangs edged beneath crimson lips.
"You know what really draws me to you?" she whispered into his eager ear.
He gasped, a nervous laugh hitching into desire.
"What?"
"Your blood—though you stink of garbage, you idiot."
Her mouth sank into his neck in a breath.
He tried to scream; nothing came.
His body jolted once, then went slack.
Minutes later, Alessia stepped out of the car.
She opened the trunk and found a plastic canister of gasoline.
"How predictable," she murmured.
She doused the interior with calm precision, then plucked one of the dead man's cigarettes, lit it, took a long drag, and dropped the ember to the seat.
Flames rose as if they'd been waiting, tongues of hunger celebrating an ancient sacrifice.
Alessia watched in silence, with the composure of someone who has done this too many times—yet with a new shadow humming beneath her skin, a spark of redemption she didn't know whether to smother or protect.
She stood still as the fire erased every trace. Heat didn't touch her. Fed now, her skin caught the moon with a faint, living sheen.
She felt strong. Alive.
…
The next afternoon, the sun sank slowly behind the buildings.
In the lobby of Warren & Associates, Liam stepped out of the elevator, scrolling his phone, when a soft voice tugged him back to the world.
"Excuse me—does Liam Thomas work here?" asked Alessia, seated in a light beige dress, hair drawn into a high ponytail, lips brushed with a pale rose.
He stopped, surprised.
"Alessia… what are you doing here?"
"I wanted to see you. Coffee?"
Bewildered but delighted, he nodded.
They stepped out into the street and walked side by side—the complicity of two who haven't said everything yet but already know too much. Evening had slipped into night. She glanced at him from time to time, her gait light, her smile measured.
She seemed like someone else.
He didn't know that hours earlier, that same smile had been the prelude to a death.
"Sometimes you seem too perfect for this world," Liam joked as they crossed the street.
Alessia looked at him, her answer an enigmatic curve.
"Maybe because I don't quite belong to it…"
He laughed softly, but a fleeting crease formed between his brows.
He glanced sideways, as if—just for a second—a part of him wondered whether she meant it.
Then he looked down, letting the thought drift; still, the line of her words would echo in him, waiting for meaning.
And as they vanished beneath the warm streetlamps, their shadows on the pavement drew close—briefly one shape—
as if fate already knew the ending. Or had chosen to predict it.