~Alessia~
Mateo's text burned in my pocket as I rode the elevator to the office. I saw the message last night but I couldn't bring myself to ask Lorenzo about it.
I told myself it might be gossip, the kind that twisted facts into fables.
Yet doubt rooted deep, sprouting tendrils with every throb of worry. Lorenzo was unbreakable, a colossus in suits, but the pallor I'd glimpsed, the subtle winces... were they signs?
The floor dinged open, and I stepped into the hum of keyboards and murmured calls, eyes scanning for him. There... his office door ajar, him bent over reports, jaw set like chiseled stone.
I sat by my station, feigning busyness with emails, but my gaze drifted, cataloging: the faint crease between his brows, the way his hand rubbed his sternum absently.
Coincidence, or symptom? Mateo meant well, but rumors were weeds, thriving in the minds. But I decided to stay calm for now, at least.
