Joey collapsed onto the bed in his West Village apartment. The gray sheets were cold against his skin, and the thin pillow offered little real comfort. But at least, this was his place.
The silence descended quickly, like a thick fog creeping in through the window cracks.
This apartment was no quieter than Domenico's mansion in Todt Hill when the man was absent. Here, too, there was no sound of a coffee machine from the kitchen, no leather shoes pacing across marble floors, no clinking of a metal spoon in a crystal glass. Joey closed his eyes. Intending to sleep early. He had showered. The loose black t-shirt and cotton pants were the most neutral protection against the lingering memory of the man's scent that had clung to his skin since that night—and it was already gone. Yet, now he missed it.
The t-shirt he wore was slightly stretched at the neck, the fabric thin—a kind of vintage band tee washed too often, with the faded image of Nirvana on his chest. His cotton pants were dark gray, a straight cut and wrinkled, looking comfortable but too thin for a night this cold. Wool socks reaching up to his calves covered his feet, the only protection against the biting wooden floor in late January.
And although the old heater in the corner of the room hissed softly, the cold still crept in like memories reluctant to leave.
As Joey's eyelids fell shut, that face appeared—vivid, almost alive. The face of Domenico Cassano.
His dark, intense gaze. The hard line of his jaw whenever he held back emotion. That half-smile that never knew how to convey love without a threat. And that voice—hoarse, low, filling the entire space in his head.
"I won't hurt you tonight, unless you ask for it."
Joey clenched his teeth, rolling his body slightly to the right.
Even in the quiet, the shadow wouldn't leave. The memory of hands that had once pinned his wrists to the bed in the Todt Hill mansion. That warm, broad chest that had once been a hiding place after fleeing from the world, and simultaneously, the world he wanted to flee from.
Joey turned over, pulling the blanket up to his chin, like a child trying to hide from a monster under the bed. But the monster didn't live under the bed. It lived inside his head. Perhaps in a heart that still didn't know how to stop loving with wounds.
"You look at me like I'm a time bomb."
"Because you are."
Joey let out a slow sigh, opening his eyes. Staring at the empty ceiling. Even the night felt like a trap. And he hated that the deepest part of him still hoped that phone would ring. A call from that man. Or the sound of leather shoes would appear again in his apartment hallway. Cold and familiar.
"Sleep, Joey. The world is crazy enough. But I'll make sure you wake up tomorrow."
Joey closed his eyes again. But this time, not to sleep.
To endure.
To not call out the name he almost uttered.
Joey was almost asleep when the sound of the old intercom buzzed softly on the wall near the entrance.
Its sound was heavy, monotonous, and disruptive enough to wake anyone trying to escape their own thoughts.
Joey's eyes snapped open instantly. Alert.
He sat up slowly on the edge of the bed, his feet touching the cold floor. His gaze immediately fixed on the small drawer of the bedside table—where he kept the Colt revolver that had become part of his paranoid routine.
No sound from outside except that buzzing. No one knocking, no one speaking through the intercom. But his intuition was sharp.
Joey approached the intercom unit, still hesitant to press the talk button. However, the sound of a phone notification on the coffee table broke the silence.
A message came in, followed by a call. From Charlie.
With a pounding heart, Joey picked up the phone and pressed answer.
"Joey, open the door," came the voice on the other end. Calm. Full of warmth.
The voice of a father who knew his son had just seen a ghost from the past.
For a moment, his shoulders slumped. Not from weakness, but because the relief was too heavy to hold back.
Joey put down the phone, walking quickly to the door. Without a second thought, he pressed the lock button, then turned the knob and opened the door.
Charlie stood there. His hair was messy from the night wind, his long coat damp from the winter air, and his eyes—eyes that had seen too much loss—stared at Joey with a mixture of anxiety and gratitude he couldn't hide.
Jack—the ten-year-old boy—ran and hugged Joey with the full force only possessed by children who truly love someone.
His light brown hair was slightly curly at the ends, tousled from the knitted hat that now hung from one of his hands. Jack's cheeks were flushed from the cold New York winter air, and his breath still formed a thin mist as he spoke.
The boy wore a navy blue winter parka with synthetic fur lining on the hood, which he wasn't wearing. Its zipper was slightly open, revealing a gray knitted sweater with a faint image of a green dinosaur—typical of a stubborn ten-year-old reluctant to leave his childhood behind. Dark jeans covered his knees, bearing marks of old scrapes, and a pair of worn brown leather boots looked a bit dirty from sidewalk snow slush.
On his back hung a small backpack with cartoon characters, too childish for a child as smart as Jack, but he refused to replace it because "Joey gave it to me on my birthday."
His eyes—warm brown like Charlie's—glistened with emotion, nervous, but relieved.
"Joey, I saw the news! I thought you..., you...," Jack stammered between hugs, unable to finish his sentence.
Joey bent down slightly, embracing the boy with arms trembling faintly from something he couldn't name; guilt, warmth, or a sense of safety that only felt real when hugged by small hands that never judged.
"You disappeared for a few days, where were you?" the boy asked. Joey didn't answer immediately, he glanced at Charlie briefly. "Some business," Joey answered, trying to sound casual and opening the door wider for the father and son to enter.
Jack stepped in first, still holding onto the hem of Joey's shirt as if afraid the young man would disappear again if he let go for a second.
Charlie followed behind, his eyes scanning the apartment interior that had hardly changed since his last visit—the dim table lamp, the sofa still bearing the imprint of Joey's body from sitting there too often alone, and a pile of untouched film scripts.
"Some business, huh?" Charlie repeated Joey's words softly, but his eyes held a worry that hadn't faded. "Business as usual, or—"
Joey cut in quickly, "Did you leave Laura alone at home?" Laura was Charlie's wife. The question was soft, but firm enough to make Charlie stop asking.
"Laura is staying at her mother's house," he replied. Meanwhile, Jack took off his jacket and tossed it carelessly onto the sofa, then walked toward Joey's small kitchen as if this apartment were his home too. "Do you have chocolate milk?" he asked without a hint of guilt.
Joey smiled slightly. "Check the top cabinet. Might still be some."
Charlie took off his coat and hung it over a chair. Then, with a careful gesture, he looked at Joey, who was still standing in the doorway, half-leaning as if holding something from collapsing.
"I won't ask who came first. But I want to know one thing," Charlie said, his voice barely audible. "Are you okay, Joey?"
For a few seconds, the question went unanswered. Joey looked down, staring at the floor. Then shrugged slightly.
"I'm not dead," he said half-jokingly.
"Good, because when I'm here, someone might hesitate to pick you up or come straight here."
Joey knew exactly who he meant. Domenico's men. Or the man himself.
Charlie added, "Laura also already knows I'm here."
Joey nodded. "So, Dad." His lips formed a smile. "Are you here to pick me up or planning to stay the night?"
"Take a guess." Charlie undid the top two buttons of his shirt, trying to warm up from the cold.
"You didn't bring any script scenes." Joey probed.
"Tonight, Jack and I just want to keep you company." Charlie spoke as if catching his teenage son unable to sleep because of nightmares.
Joey chuckled softly. "I'm already twenty."
"But in my eyes, you're still that sixteen-year-old kid." Charlie looked at him deeply. "I'm here so the shadows of your past won't keep lurking." Without further explanation, Charlie knew Joey already understood. "And they can get even crazier when they lose what they consider theirs."
Joey looked up. Their gazes met. A pair of old eyes weary from witnessing too much death, and a pair of young eyes that had learned to survive too quickly.
"He won't hurt me," Joey whispered softly, almost inaudibly.
Charlie furrowed his brows.
"Not now, perhaps. But you and I know, love isn't a shield when you're dealing with a man who knows no limits."
Joey didn't answer. He just slowly turned his head toward the kitchen, where Jack was struggling to open a jar of cocoa powder that was too hard for him.
The young man walked to the kitchen. There, under the pale yellow gleam of the light, Joey reached out, opened the jar easily, and poured its contents into Jack's favorite mug—slightly cracked at the rim but still kept because Jack said, "It tastes different when I drink from this."
As he poured the warm water, the sweet scent of chocolate milk spread. The faint sound of Jack humming a tune from a Saturday morning cartoon crept into his mind—and for a moment, just a moment, Joey felt at peace. But peace is an illusion. Like deep sleep. Like love that makes no demands.
Because as soon as Jack sat on the sofa and turned on the TV, and Charlie let out a long sigh while leaning back in his chair at the dining table—he finally set down something he had been clutching tightly.
A brown paper package, warm, with a tempting savory aroma that soon filled the apartment air.
"I didn't bring any script scenes," he said softly, "but something better."
Joey turned quickly. His eyes widened the moment he saw the logo of his favorite yakitori restaurant faintly printed on the slightly greasy paper.
"You're kidding," Joey whispered, as if afraid it was an illusion. But the aroma was too real.
Charlie grinned. "Still warm. I went there straight. Had them pack your usual. Thinly sliced beef. A bit of fat. Garlic sauce."
Joey leaned in, bending over the table. His eyes sparkled, his expression completely transformed—like a little boy who had just found a long-lost toy after years.
"You really know how to soothe trauma, don't you?" he mumbled half-laughing, before carefully pulling the package toward him and unwrapping it.
"Yakitori," he whispered again, almost like a mantra. Warm. Fragrant. And this time—real.
*
At 1:14 a.m., the dim pendant light above the dining table cast a golden glow onto the surface of the Motorola phone now lying still. The phone had been silent for two hours. For Charlie, that silence was precisely what made him wary.
He had spent almost half an hour browsing through messages, call logs, and the list of saved numbers. Everything seemed clean. Too clean.
Charlie knew Joey better than anyone—perhaps even better than Domenico, if the man were honest. And Joey was never this clean. There was always a trace. Even if Joey wanted to hide something, he would leave remnants—a piece of an alias, or a missed call from an anonymous number. But tonight, there was nothing. And that's what made Charlie frown.
He placed the phone down gently on the table, then stood and walked toward the large living room window overlooking the street.
Outside, New York still wasn't fully asleep. The streets were empty but not dead. The neon glow from the convenience store at the end of the block lit up half the sidewalk, and from this third floor, Charlie could see cars parked tightly along the curb.
And there, his eyes caught something.
A Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, in deep black. Its license plate wasn't special, but oddly—it felt familiar.
That car had stopped in front of this building when he arrived with Jack a few hours ago. At that time, a man dressed in dark clothes stood in front of the entrance, as if waiting for someone. But when he saw Charlie and Jack getting out of a taxi, the man hurried into the car and drove away.
Charlie had only registered that detail briefly at the time. But tonight, the memory hit him hard.
He knew his instincts were rarely wrong. And his instincts were now screaming.
Joey was being watched.
And that man didn't appear in Joey's phone—which meant Joey was hiding something. Or someone.
Charlie took a deep breath, his shoulders tensing. Behind him, Joey's apartment was quiet. The young man had fallen asleep—or at least pretended to sleep—since around eleven, when they finished briefly talking about the next film project.
Charlie looked out the window once more. He squinted, trying to spot the same car—perhaps it had returned to keep watch.
A different car caught his attention. An old Chevrolet Caprice sedan that had just parked in front of the building—it wasn't there when he arrived. And to Charlie, that car looked like it was waiting.
He glanced briefly toward the hallway leading to the bedroom, then back to the table, picking up Joey's phone.
"You can hide who you called," Charlie murmured, his gravelly voice almost like a groan. "But you forget, this world has more eyes than just one small screen."
Charlie pressed the power button, turned off the phone, and placed it on Joey's bedside table.
If there was one thing he had learned from decades of living in New York—especially close to the film industry—not all protection is done with weapons. Sometimes, protection means knowing first, and staying quiet.
[]