Chapter 5 - SPELLBOUND
The room felt as though the temperature had dropped ten degrees in an instant. The distant hum of the Manhattan traffic far below seemed to retreat, leaving only the sound of Moretti’s measured breathing and the quiet rustle of the silk sheets.
Lily’s hands moved slowly down from the pages of the storybook. She reached out and tightened her grip on the battered gray stuffed rabbit, pulling it tight against her chest, her fingers burying deep into its worn plush fur. Her small knuckles turned pale under the amber light.
She kept her eyes locked on the dark corridor.
"The person who comes here when you’re sleeping..." Lily said, her voice dropping into a quiet, flat whisper that carried no childhood playfulness whatsoever.
The words slammed into Moretti’s chest like a physical impact.
In an instant, every instinct in his body screamed. Moretti snapped his torso completely upright, abandoning all pretense of rest. His broad shoulders squared, his feet shifting beneath the covers, ready to launch his heavy frame off the bed in a fraction of a second.
"I don't sleep," Moretti stated sharply, his tone dark, lethal, and defensive. It was a rule he lived by—a absolute decree he maintained to keep himself alive in a world full of enemies.
Lily finally moved her head. She turned her face slowly to look up at him. Her dark eyes were steady, devoid of fear, but filled with a strange, solemn knowledge that no five-year-old should possess.
"Sometimes you almost do," Lily whispered softly.
Every single trace of exhaustion, weariness, and relaxation vanished from Moretti’s face, burned away by a cold, calculating terror. His heart hammered violently against his ribs.
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For three years, he had believed his insomnia was a psychological curse born of paranoia, stress, and the violent burdens of his empire. He had convinced himself that his inability to sleep was his own body refusing to let down its guard.
He stared at the little girl. She wasn't playing a game. She wasn't telling a bedtime story. She was stating a fact—a observation made from the shadows of this very apartment while he sat suspended between consciousness and exhaustion.
