Cupid Is A Monster

The lacquered invitation in Aurelio’s palm felt too warm, as if the paper had been held against someone’s pulse. Inside the badge clipped to his jacket - Aurelio Moretti, Dario Bellini - inked in the same careful hand, the city’s crest stamped like a promise. Rome smelled of wet stone and expensive perfume, and the crowd outside Aurelia’s birthday gala surged around him in bright waves of silk and steel: laughter layered over the low, constant engine-noise of engines idling somewhere out of sight.

He’d been told this was his entrance. On his eighteenth birthday, he was summoned to kill the boy he’d shared a childhood with - shared classrooms, borrowed pencils, the same scraped knees and the same winter rations when their families decided it was better that they both learn hunger early. The order was simple enough to live inside his ribs: meet Dario Bellini, put a bullet where it belonged, and take his seat at the head of his family’s syndicate.

But the gala doors were already breathing open. A staffer in white gloves handed out small glasses of something cold and clear. Aurelio took one because refusing would look like fear, and fear was a currency he couldn’t afford. The liquid tasted like citrus and betrayal when he swallowed.

“Moretti,” a voice murmured behind him. “Your father’s already inside. He asked after you.”

Aurelio didn’t turn. He didn’t need to. He knew the cadence of the man assigned to his perimeter - the way it never rose, never faltered, as if the words were trained to slide past emotions. Aurelio lifted his chin instead, letting the light catch the badge at his lapel.

“I’m here,” he said.

The man’s shoes made no sound on the polished floor. “You’ll be watched. Don’t make it obvious.”

Aurelio’s fingers tightened around the stem of his glass until the cheap metal bit his skin. Watched. Always watched. Still, he felt it then - an extra layer of attention, the kind that didn’t come from security but from people with money and grudges. His family’s rivals were here. Dario’s people were here. The gala wasn’t a celebration; it was a stage built around two boys with the same school scars.

Inside, the air turned warmer and thick with roasted meat and the sweet sting of wine. The hall opened like a throat - marble columns, frescoed ceilings, chandeliers dripping gold light. Waiters threaded through the bodies with trays that glimmered. Strings from a live band floated between conversations, too smooth to trust. Aurelio felt his own heartbeat under his skin, not from nerves exactly, but from the way his body remembered Dario even when his mind tried to erase it.

The first time he saw Dario, it wasn’t across a distance. It was in the same angle of light, in the same corridor of people, like the universe had decided to remove the illusion of separation.

Dario Bellini stood near a tall arrangement of white lilies, black hair brushed back with careless precision, his shirt cuffs immaculate, his expression carefully blank. He was dressed for a public face - young, polished, a man pretending he’d never learned how to move without sound. His eyes flicked over Aurelio with the quick appraisal of someone who’d been trained to count exits and distances.

For half a second, Aurelio’s mind tried to make it simpler. Dario as target. Dario as order. Dario as the enemy his father’s enemies had chosen.

Then Dario’s gaze snagged on Aurelio’s right hand where the skin still showed the pressure of the glass stem. Dario’s mouth twitched - almost a smile, almost a memory.

“You cut yourself,” Dario said, voice low enough that it could have been for Aurelio alone.

The band’s music swelled, muffling the rest of the world. Aurelio should have ignored him. He should have walked past, should have found a quieter angle, should have done what he’d been instructed to do.

Instead Aurelio looked down. A faint red line marked his knuckles, thin as a thread. He hadn’t noticed the bite of metal.

“I didn’t,” Aurelio lied.

Dario shifted his weight, and his shoulder brushed the lily arrangement. Petals trembled, white against his dark suit. He didn’t reach for Aurelio’s hand. He didn’t close distance. He simply watched, like he was measuring how much of Aurelio was still human.

“You always did that,” Dario murmured. “Pretend you don’t feel it.”

Aurelio’s throat tightened. That was childhood language. That was the way Dario used to speak when they were boys and their threats had been smaller - teachers who punished them unfairly, neighbors who watched too closely, the cold that found their bones. Aurelio hadn’t heard that tone in years.

“Don’t talk like you know me,” Aurelio said, but his voice came out flatter than intended.

Dario’s eyes sharpened - not offended, just alert. “We grew up beside each other.”

“We grew up,” Aurelio corrected, because the word beside felt like a trap. “You left. You always left first.”

Dario’s expression shifted, the blank mask cracking like thin ice. “I didn’t leave.”

...