Kenzie Anne - Florentine Part 2 -11.11.21- Instant

Kenzie gestured to the canvas on the easel. It was a study of a woman’s back—spine like a rosary, shoulder blades like folded wings. The face was turned away, lost in shadow.

Matteo closed the book. The rain hammered the glass.

Matteo’s jaw tightened. “She’s you.”

She was smiling. And she was terrified.

“Before I show you,” he said, “you need to understand. This isn’t a love story, Kenzie. It’s a warning.”

Kenzie looked at the book in her hand. Then at the unfinished canvas. Then at the man who was either her partner in resurrection or her escort into oblivion.

“That’s me,” she whispered.

“You’re looking for something,” she said.

Outside, the bells of San Niccolò began to ring. St. Martin’s Day. The saint who cut his cloak in half for a beggar and later saw the beggar was Christ.

Kenzie thought of the figure on her canvas—the woman whose face she couldn’t show, whose name she couldn’t name. She thought of the kiss behind the marble column, the whisper, the way Matteo looked at her like she was already disappearing. Kenzie Anne - Florentine Part 2 -11.11.21-

“She chose love,” he said. “And she was erased. Not killed. Erased. Her paintings signed by her father. Her letters burned. Her name scratched off a tombstone in Santa Croce.”

He didn’t lie. He never lied. That was the worst part.

“Where were you?” she asked.

“Why me?”