[Alfio's POV – Beachfront – Twilight]
The world was… quiet. For once, truly quiet.
I stood at the edge where the ocean kissed the sand, my shoes sinking just slightly into the damp grains. The air was thick with salt, and each breeze carried it into my lungs like a strange kind of medicine—burning at first, then soothing everything inside me.
The horizon was a smear of molten gold melting into deep blues, the waves folding and unfolding in a rhythm older than time itself. I let my eyes follow that line, far, far out, until the water and sky became one, and my mind… stopped. No deals. No debts. No shadows watching me from alley corners. Just the sound of water breathing.
I inhaled deeply, and the scent of the sea filled me, cool and sharp, as if scraping away everything that had been rotting in my chest. My shoulders—always locked, always tense—finally, finally loosened.
This…This was what relief meant.
