The Thursday Night Regular

The first time I saw him, I thought he was beautiful.

That was the problem, of course. Beautiful men do not belong in the back alleys of Melbourne's hidden bars. Beautiful men do not sit at your counter every Thursday night, ordering a glass of Barolo and saying nothing, watching you with eyes that hold something darker than interest.

I learned that lesson the hard way.

The bar was called The Last Glass—a speakeasy tucked beneath a laneway in the CBD, accessible only through an unmarked door behind a dumpling shop. No sign. No address on Google Maps. You found it because someone told you about it, and if someone told you about it, you were probably the kind of person who could be trusted.

I had worked there for three years. I knew every bottle on the wall, every vintage in the cellar, every regular who sat at my counter. I knew which men tipped well and which ones to watch. I knew which women were on first dates and which ones were having affairs.

And I knew him.

Thursday nights, nine o'clock. He arrived alone, always in a dark suit that cost more than my monthly rent, and he sat at the far end of the bar—the corner seat, the one with the best view of the room and the door. He ordered one glass of Barolo from the Giacomo Conterno winery, the 2016 vintage, which was seven hundred dollars a glass. He drank it slowly, over two hours, and he never once looked at his phone.

He watched.

He watched the room. He watched the exits. He watched the other patrons with the detached interest of a man who had seen everything and was no longer surprised by any of it.

And he watched me.

Not in the way men usually watched me. His gaze was not hungry or leering. It was careful, assessing, as if he were cataloguing me the way I catalogued wine. He noticed the way I moved, the way I talked to customers, the way I checked my watch at the end of my shift.

He noticed everything.

I learned his name the way I learned everything about my regulars—through careful, casual conversation, pieced together over months.

His name was Luca Moretti.

Beyond that, he gave me nothing.

"Where are you from?" I asked one Thursday, pouring his Barolo with practiced precision.

"Everywhere."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you'll get."

I smiled despite myself. "You're not very good at small talk, are you?"

"I'm not very good at pretending this is small talk."

The way he said it made my breath catch. His eyes held mine, dark and serious, and I felt something shift between us—a current I had not anticipated.

"What is it, then?" I asked, my voice steadier than I felt.

"I don't know yet. I'm still figuring that out."

He did not come the next Thursday.

I told myself I did not care. He was a customer. Regulars came and went. It meant nothing.

But I checked the door every few minutes, and I felt a small, hollow disappointment every time it did not open for him.

He returned the following Thursday, as if no time had passed. He ordered the same wine. He sat in the same seat. He watched me with the same unreadable expression.

"You missed last week," I said.

"I had business."

"The kind that keeps you from wine?"

"The kind that keeps me from everything."

I wanted to ask more. I wanted to know who he was, what he did, why he spent his Thursday nights alone in a dark bar when he could have been anywhere in the city. But something in his voice warned me away.

So I let it go.

I told myself it was none of my business.

I told myself I was not curious.

I lied.

The murder happened on a Thursday in June.

It was winter in Melbourne, the kind of cold that seeped through the cracks in the city's old buildings, and business was slow. I had sent my barback home early. The last customers left at eleven-thirty.

I was wiping down the counter when I heard it.

A door slamming. A muffled shout. The sound of something heavy hitting the pavement.

The back alley.

Our back alley.

The fire escape exit led to a narrow laneway behind the building, filled with dumpsters and cigarette butts and the faint smell of stale beer. It was where the staff went for smoke breaks. It was where deliveries came and went. It was not where people died.

But someone was dying there now.

I knew it before I opened the door. I knew it from the quality of the silence that followed the thud—a silence that was too complete, too final. I knew it from the instinct that had kept me safe in three years of late-night shifts in a city that never quite slept.

I should not have opened the door.

But I did.

The laneway was lit by a single, flickering bulb above the fire exit. It cast just enough light to see the man on the ground—a big man in a leather jacket, his head twisted at an angle that meant his neck was broken. His eyes were open, staring at nothing.

And standing over him, wiping blood from his hands with a white handkerchief, was Luca Moretti.

He looked up when the door opened. His expression did not change when he saw me. There was no shock, no guilt, no panic. He simply looked at me with those dark, unreadable eyes, and waited.

"Luca," I said. My voice was barely a whisper.

"Come here."

"I need to—" I turned, reaching for the phone in my pocket.

"Don't."

The word stopped me cold. Not because it was loud—it was soft, almost gentle. But the weight behind it was absolute.

"If you call the police," he said, tucking the handkerchief back into his jacket, "I will disappear before they arrive. They will find a dead man in an alley and a sommelier with no evidence. His associates will know who led them here. They will find you. They will not ask questions."

I stared at him. My hand was still in my pocket, my fingers closed around the phone.

"The man on the ground," he continued, "was a trafficker. Women, mostly. Some children. He sold them across borders and he was very good at it. I have been trying to reach him for six months. He made the mistake of choosing my city to do business."

"He's dead."

"Yes."

"You killed him."

"Yes."

I should have screamed. I should have run. I should have done something other than stand there, frozen, staring at a man who had just snapped another man's neck as casually as I opened a bottle of wine.

But I did not scream.

I did not run.

"You're a criminal," I said.

"I am many things. That is one of them."

"And you've been sitting at my bar for eight months."

"Watching you. Yes."

"Did you know this was going to happen tonight?"

"I knew it was possible. I did not know it would be here."

"Would you have warned me if you had?"

He was quiet for a moment. The city hummed above us—trams, traffic, the distant wail of a siren. Down here, in the alley, we existed in a different world.

"No," he said finally. "I would not have."

He took me to his penthouse.

I say "took" because I did not have a choice. Not in the way that mattered.

He told me I could not go home. He told me the dead man's associates would come looking, would find me, would assume I had seen something or heard something or known something. He told me I was not safe.

And then he offered me an alternative.

"My building is secure. No one gets in without my permission. You can stay until I have cleaned up the mess."

"Until you've cleaned up the mess." I laughed, and it sounded hysterical even to my own ears. "You killed a man. There is no cleaning up."

"There is always cleaning up. You just have to know the right people."

His car was black, windowless, driven by a man who did not look at me. I sat in the back seat, pressed against the door as far from Luca as the leather would allow, and watched the city pass in streaks of neon and headlights.

He lived in a tower on the south bank of the Yarra, a glass monolith that rose above the casino and the arts precinct. The penthouse occupied the entire top floor. The door opened into a living room that was larger than my entire apartment, with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out across the city.

The view was obscene.

So was everything else—the furniture that probably cost more than my car, the art on the walls that I recognised from auction catalogues, the kitchen that belonged in a design magazine.

"Make yourself comfortable," Luca said, shrugging off his jacket. "You'll be here for a while."

"Am I a prisoner?"

He stopped. Turned. Looked at me with something that might have been hurt, if I had believed him capable of that emotion.

"You are a guest. The door is not locked. But if you leave, I cannot guarantee your safety."

"So I'm a prisoner."

"You're a woman who saw something she should not have seen. I am trying to keep you alive."

"Because you feel guilty?"

"Because I have been watching you for eight months. Because the thought of someone hurting you makes me want to burn this city to the ground."

I forgot to breathe.

He said it so calmly, so matter-of-factly, as if he were discussing the weather. But his hands were shaking. I saw it—the slight tremor in his fingers as he laid his jacket across the back of a chair.

"You barely know me," I said.

"I know you better than anyone you have ever met."

"You don't even know my last name."

"Ellison. Claire Ellison. You grew up in Geelong. You moved to Melbourne when you were twenty-two. You have an older brother who lives in Sydney. You have not spoken to your father in four years. You drink black coffee in the morning and green tea in the afternoon. You hum when you taste wine. You hate the smell of cigarettes but you like the way they look in movies."

I stared at him.

"A man who runs an empire," he continued, stepping closer, "learns to collect information. I collect information about everyone who matters. And you, Claire Ellison, have mattered to me since the night you told me the Giacomo Conterno was overpriced and poured me a glass of something better."

I had done that. The first Thursday. He had ordered the Conterno and I had told him, honestly, that it was fine wine but not worth three times the retail price. I had poured him a Nebbiolo from a small producer in Piedmont, a bottle that cost a third as much and tasted twice as good.

He had not ordered the Conterno since.

"You remember that," I said.

"I remember everything about you."

I stayed.

Not because I had to. The door was not locked, just as he had said. I checked. Twice. I even stepped into the hallway once, my bare feet cold on the marble floor, and looked at the elevator.

Going down would have been easy.

Going home would have meant returning to my small apartment in Fitzroy, to my cat and my records and my normal life. It would have meant pretending I had not seen a man die. It would have meant looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life, wondering when the dead man's associates would find me.

Or it would have meant calling the police, giving a statement, becoming a witness in a case against a man who had been nothing but careful with me.

I did not go home.

I turned around and walked back into the penthouse, and I found Luca in the kitchen, pouring two glasses of wine.

"You came back," he said.

"I didn't leave."

"Same thing."

He handed me a glass. It was the same bottle I had poured him that first night, the small-producer Nebbiolo. He had been keeping it. Waiting for a moment like this.

"How did you know I would come back?"

"I didn't. I hoped."

I took the wine. I did not drink it. I held it in both hands and looked at him—really looked at him—for the first time since the alley.

He was beautiful in the low light of the penthouse. Dark hair, cut short. A face that belonged to old Hollywood or a Renaissance painting. He was tall, broad-shouldered, immaculately dressed even now, at midnight, in his own home.

And he was a monster.

I knew that. I knew it absolutely. He had killed a man with his bare hands and he had not even broken a sweat. He ran an empire built on violence. He had been watching me for months, gathering information, cataloguing my life.

He was dangerous in every way a man could be dangerous.

"Why me?" I asked.

"Why not you?"

"Don't deflect. I need to understand."

He set down his wine. He moved around the kitchen island, slowly, giving me time to step away. I did not.

"I have been in this life since I was eighteen years old," he said. "I have done things that would make you sick. I have ordered deaths. I have ended families. I have built an empire on blood and fear and I have never once regretted any of it."

"Until now?"

"Until you."

His hand came up, slowly, as if he was afraid I would flinch. His fingers touched my cheek, barely grazing my skin.

"I sat at your bar for four months before I spoke to you. I just watched. And the more I watched, the more I wanted. Not your body—that too, but it was not the first thing I noticed. I wanted your stillness. Your confidence. The way you treated every bottle of wine like it was sacred. The way you smiled at difficult customers and made them feel like they were the only person in the room."

"You were watching me."

"I was falling in love with you."

I closed my eyes. His hand was still on my face, warm and steady.

"That's a terrible reason to ruin someone's life," I said.

"I'm not trying to ruin your life. I'm trying to keep you in it."

I woke in his bed the next morning.

I did not remember falling asleep there. The last thing I remembered was sitting on his couch, drinking wine, talking about nothing and everything. He had told me about his childhood in Sicily. I had told him about my mother's death. We had sat in the dark, his hand loosely holding mine, and the world had shrunk to the space between us.

He was not beside me when I woke.

I found him on the balcony, talking on the phone in low, rapid Italian. He hung up when he saw me, and his face softened in a way I had not seen before.

"Good morning."

"How long was I asleep?"

"Eight hours. You needed it."

I wrapped my arms around myself. The city was waking up below us—the river glittering, the trams starting their routes, the early risers jogging along the bank.

"What happens now?"

"Now I make sure the mess is cleaned up. And then we decide what you want to do."

"We?"

"I am not going to force you to stay. But I am also not going to pretend I do not want you to."

The honesty of it disarmed me.

The days blurred together.

He went out during the day. I stayed in the penthouse, reading his books, drinking his wine, prowling the rooms like a caged animal. He did not lock the door. I did not leave.

I told myself I was being sensible. Safer here than out there. A few more days, and then I would go home.

But the days turned into a week. And the week stretched toward two.

He came home every night. We had dinner together on the balcony, looking out at the city he controlled. He told me stories—not about his work, but about himself. The things he loved. The things he regretted. The things he wanted.

The thing he wanted most was me.

"You could have anyone," I said one night. "Women throw themselves at men like you."

"Men like me?"

"Wealthy. Powerful. Beautiful."

"None of them are you."

I kissed him that night. I do not remember who initiated it. I remember the taste of him—red wine and something darker, something dangerous. I remember the way his hands shook when he touched me, as if I were something precious, something he was terrified of breaking.

I remember wanting him.

God help me, I wanted him.

He undressed me slowly on the silk sheets of his bed, his eyes never leaving mine. The city glittered through the floor-to-ceiling windows, a thousand points of light watching us from a distance.

"Tell me to stop," he said, his voice rough. "Tell me you don't want this."

I pulled him down to me instead.

His hands mapped my body with the same patience he brought to everything else—methodical, thorough, reverent. He kissed my neck, my collarbone, the space between my breasts. He learned every inch of me as if he were memorising a map he had been studying for years.

"Look at me," he said.

I opened my eyes.

"I want you to see me," he said. "I want you to know exactly who is doing this to you."

"I know who you are."

"Then you know what I am."

I reached up and touched his face. "I know what you do. I'm beginning to learn who you are."

He closed his eyes. Just for a moment. When he opened them, they were darker, hungrier.

His hand moved between my legs, and I gasped. His fingers found me ready, wet, aching for him.

"You want this," he said.

"I want you."

He positioned himself above me, and I felt the weight of him, the heat of him. He was hard, the length of him pressing against my thigh. But he waited.

"When I take you," he said, "I am not going to be gentle."

"I don't want gentle."

"I am going to fuck you until you forget your own name. Until the only word you remember is mine."

"Yes."

He entered me in one long, slow thrust. I cried out, my back arching, my fingers digging into his shoulders. He was thick and deep, and the stretch of him was almost too much.

"You feel that?" he said, his voice a growl against my ear. "That's mine. All of this. Every sound you make. Every time you come. You belong to me."

He moved, and I lost every coherent thought.

He was not gentle. He took me with a force that should have terrified me, a possession that should have made me fight. But I did not fight. I surrendered. I wrapped my legs around him and pulled him deeper and let him take everything he wanted.

The heat built, wave after wave, until I shattered beneath him. My release came in a rush of sensation and sound, and he followed, his body tensing above me, a groan torn from his throat.

He collapsed beside me, pulling me against his chest.

I lay there, breathing hard, feeling his heart pound against my back.

"Mine," he said again, softer this time.

I did not argue.

Two weeks. Three. A month.

I stopped counting.

I stopped telling myself I would leave tomorrow. I stopped pretending I wanted to. The penthouse had become a gilded cage, and I had stopped rattling the bars.

He brought me books. He brought me wine. He brought me clothes that cost more than I had ever spent on anything. He took me to restaurants in the back of black cars, his hand on my thigh, his eyes scanning every room for threats I could not see.

He was possessive in a way that should have suffocated me. Instead, it made me feel safe.

"You know this is Stockholm syndrome," I said one night, lying in his arms. "I'm identifying with my captor."

"You're not a captive. You've never been a captive."

"Then why don't I leave?"

He was quiet for a long moment. "Because you're afraid of what happens if you do."

"Of his associates finding me?"

"Of losing this."

He was right. I knew he was right. And I hated him a little for it.

The call came on a Thursday.

I was in the kitchen, making coffee, when his phone rang. He answered, listened, and went still.

"They found the body," he said, hanging up. "The police are opening an investigation."

My blood went cold. "They'll find witnesses. Someone must have—"

"They won't find witnesses. They won't find evidence. And they certainly won't find you."

"What if they—"

"Claire." He took my face in his hands. "I have been doing this for twenty years. I know how to make problems disappear. But I need to know: do you want to disappear with me?"

"What does that mean?"

"It means I can arrange for you to leave this country. A new identity. A new life. You can go anywhere, be anyone. I will make sure you are safe."

"And you?"

He smiled. It was the saddest thing I had ever seen. "I stay. This city is mine. I do not abandon what I built."

"And us?"

"There is no us if you leave. There is only me, alone, in a penthouse that will never feel as full as it did when you were in it."

I looked at him—at the monster I had fallen in love with, at the man who had killed for me, watched me, wanted me, kept me. I thought about the world outside. The normal world, with its normal rules and normal people and normal love.

I did not want it.

"I'm not leaving," I said.

He blinked. "Claire—"

"I'm not leaving you. I'm not leaving this. I know what you are. I know what I'm choosing. And I'm choosing it."

His hands tightened on my face. "You understand what you're saying?"

"I understand that you're dangerous. I understand that this is not a normal relationship." I stepped closer, pressing my body against his. "I also understand that I have never felt as alive as I do when I'm with you. That I have never felt as safe. That I have never been loved the way you love me."

"Obsession is not love."

"Maybe. But for you—for us—they're the same thing."

He kissed me then, hard and desperate, the kiss of a man who had just been given everything he wanted and was terrified of waking up.

I kissed him back.

Because I was terrified too.

But I had made my choice.

And I was not going to change my mind.

I still work at The Last Glass.

Sometimes, on Thursday nights, Luca sits at the end of the bar and orders a glass of Nebbiolo from a small producer in Piedmont.

He watches me.

And I watch him.

And we both know that I am not a captive in his penthouse.

I am a woman who chose her monster.

And I would choose him again.