2-The Tigress Returns

"Aurelia. Aurelia."

She blinked, pulling herself back into the room.

"What is wrong with you?" Her manager Becca studied her with narrowed eyes. "You have been zoning out since yesterday. Are you feeling stressed? Don't worry - today is the last day of filming. I know you are missing home. Just hold yourself together until then and I will book you the earliest flight to Italy."

Aurelia exhaled slowly. "I understand. It is just-" she paused, fingers pressing lightly against her temple. "I feel strange. Like something bad is coming and I cannot put my finger on what it is. I keep pushing it away but it comes back." She was quiet for a moment. "Amelia has not called me back since yesterday. That is not like her."

She turned before Becca could respond. "Becca, check for available flights to Italy. If there is one, book it."

"Yes Miss Aurelia."

A movement caught her eye - a middle aged woman in a cleaner's uniform hovering nearby, carefully picking her words like she was choosing between eggshells.

Aurelia turned to her, her expression shifting seamlessly into something open and warm. "Ma'am, go on."

"I- can I have your autograph? My daughter is a big fan of yours."

Aurelia's smile curved. "That is all? The way you were standing there I thought you wanted to confess a crime." The woman blinked, startled into a small laugh. Aurelia was already reaching for the photo. "What is her name?"

"Nora," the woman stammered. "Her name is Nora."

"Nora." She signed without looking up. "Pretty name. Tell her she has good taste." She stretched the photo back and tilted her head slightly. "And you - stop looking at people like you are already apologizing for existing. It is exhausting to watch."

The woman stared at her.

Aurelia smiled - warm, practised, landing exactly where she intended it to. "Take care of yourself ma'am."

She was already walking away.

She found the director near the set and stopped in front of him with a slight bow. "I am afraid I will not make the wrap party. I am sincerely sorry - I will make it up to you."

He shook her hand warmly. "Unusual of you, but it is fine. It was a pleasure working with you Aurelia. I hope we get to do it again."

"Anytime." She smiled. "Any day."

She said her goodbyes to the rest of the crew - unhurried, gracious, leaving each person feeling seen - and walked to her car without looking back.

The terminal was loud and bright and full of people moving in every direction at once.

Aurelia kept her cap low and her mask in place, her luggage rolling behind her as she moved through the crowd. Three months. Italy felt different after three months - familiar in the way only home can be, pulling at something underneath her skin.

She was almost at the exit when it hit her.

A gaze. Settled on her back like a hand placed deliberately between her shoulder blades. Not the usual kind - not the quick uncertain flicker of someone who thought they recognized her. This was still. Unhurried. The kind of attention that had already decided it wasn't going anywhere.

She knew it immediately.

The corner of her mouth pulled upward beneath her mask - slow, almost involuntary.Sylvester stood at the far edge of the terminal, one hand resting in his pocket, the other loose at his side. He did not move toward her. He did not need to. He simply watched her cross the terminal the way a man watches something that has always been his - with a patience that had no urgency in it because urgency implied doubt, and he had none.

Three months.

She had cut her hair slightly. She was thinner than he would have liked. She moved through the crowd the way she always did - like the space around her rearranged itself to accommodate her rather than the other way around.

His jaw shifted almost imperceptibly.

She had felt him. He could tell by the almost invisible change in her posture - the slight lift of her chin, the way her stride didn't break but somehow became more deliberate. She wasn't going to turn around. That was Aurelia. She would rather die than give him the satisfaction

He almost smiled.

She disappeared through the exit doors and he stood there a moment longer, the crowd moving around him like water around stone.

He knew what was waiting for her at home.

He knew and he had said nothing - not because he didn't care, but because Aurelia De Seria did not break easily. She would need to find out on her own first. And if she couldn't hold herself together-

He would be there.

He always was.

Her apartment was exactly as she had left it - quiet, ordered, every surface exactly where she had placed it three months ago. She dropped her luggage by the door and stood in the middle of the room for a moment, letting the silence settle around her.

She called Amelia.

It rang out.

She set her phone down and told herself it was nothing. Amelia was probably in a lecture. Probably busy. Probably had her phone on silent the way she always did when she was studying.

She called again before she went to bed.

Nothing.

The next morning she woke early and lay in the dark staring at the ceiling, the feeling from yesterday sitting heavier than it had the night before. She reached for her phone.

Amelia's line rang. And rang. And rang.

She sat up.

By afternoon she had called four more times. She found herself pacing the length of her apartment, stopping at the window, starting again. The feeling she had tried to push down on set, the one she had almost convinced herself was nothing, was no longer something she could reason with.

She called again at dusk. The line rang out and the automated voice filled her ear and she pulled the phone away from her face and stared at it.

Something was wrong.

She had known it for two days. She had simply been hoping she was mistaken.

She was not.

She arrived at the De Seria mansion just after nightfall, still in the same cap and mask she had travelled in, her luggage barely out of the car. The house sat large and familiar against the dark sky but something about it felt different - too still, the lights inside burning in a way that felt less like warmth and more like vigil.

She let herself in quietly.

The hallway was dim. From somewhere deeper in the house came the sound of voices - low, careful, the kind people use when the walls feel too thin.

Kim's voice reached her first.

"Why would Amelia want to do something like that?" A small sob swallowed the end of the sentence. "She is such a wonderful girl. She will be fine, right Lorenzo?

Aurelia stopped walking.

The luggage handle slipped slightly in her grip.

She stood there - cap still on, mask still in place, three months of distance and two days of dread and too many unanswered calls pressing down on her all at once - and felt something in her chest go very, very quiet.

Amelia tried to commit suicide.

She turned the words over. Then again. They would not settle. They would not become something she could hold or examine or file away. They just kept sliding off, wrong, impossible, not Amelia, not her twin, not the girl whose voice she had heard just two days of dread and too many unanswered calls pressing down on her all at once - and felt something in her chest go very, very quiet.

Amelia tried to commit suicide.

She turned the words over. Then again. They would not settle. They would not become something she could hold or examine or file away. They just kept sliding off, wrong, impossible, not Amelia, not her twin, not the girl whose voice she had heard just two days ago-

A sharp breath escaped her before she could stop it.

Lorenzo appeared in the doorway. His eyes found her immediately and something moved across his face - not surprise, not pity. Just a quiet, steady recognition. He knew his sister. He knew what this would cost her.

"Lia," he said softly.

Aurelia's hand found the wall beside her. Her fingers pressed flat against it - hard, deliberate, like she was trying to push back against something closing in. Her jaw tightened. Her eyes stayed dry. She was not going to do this. She was not the type to-

Her knees buckled.

She caught herself on the wall, palm scraping against it, her luggage crashing sideways as she grabbed for something that wasn't there. Lorenzo was already moving but the distance was too much - he reached her a half second too late, one arm hooking around her as she went down, both of them landing hard against the wall before he managed to slow her descent.

It was not graceful. It was not quiet.

It was Aurelia De Seria coming apart in a hallway with her cap still on and her mask still covering her face, and not a single thing she could do to stop it.

Lorenzo said nothing. He simply held on - one arm around her, his back against the wall, both of them on the floor. The way you hold someone who has spent their entire life making sure nobody ever had to.

Somewhere behind them Kimberly had gone very still.

The mask was still on her face.

But everything underneath it was completely undone.

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