Previously on Renzo: After Hours:
After Florence’s Reflections of the Living exhibition, the trio learned that Stephan had survived and turned their escape into art. Months later, rumors spread about a new commission: Vale Nocturne.
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Florence in winter looked carved from light and stone.
Renzo had begun photographing silence—the way morning fog touched the Arno, the slant of a shutter half-open. The city no longer felt like refuge; it felt like waiting.
Xander handled the gallery inquiries, always under aliases. Sebastian cooked, laughed, filled the apartment with small noise to keep ghosts from settling.
Renzo watched them both and thought: This is what freedom sounds like when it isn’t sure of itself.
Then a courier knocked.
The envelope bore no seal except the initials V.N. pressed into black wax.
Xander’s jaw tightened. “Anonymous again.”
Renzo broke it open.
Commission proposal: one photograph. Subject chosen by the artist.
Payment upon completion.
Title – Vale Nocturne.
Deliver to Palazzo Vecchio, Room 9, midnight, three weeks hence.
— The Collector.
Sebastian read over his shoulder. “The Collector?”
Renzo’s smile barely moved. “Or someone wearing his ghost.”
Xander folded the note. “Then we answer it on our terms.”
For days Renzo searched the city with his camera, hunting an image that felt like truth instead of survival. Nothing held—until one rain-soaked evening he passed a tailor’s shop where three dress forms stood under a single bulb, angled toward one another as if sharing a secret. He lifted the camera. The click echoed like punctuation.
Midnight at the Palazzo Vecchio.
The guard who let them in was silent, older, his badge glinting—male, unreadable. He led them to Room 9, nodded once, and vanished down the corridor.
Renzo unwrapped the framed print: the three figures seen through wet glass, their silhouettes gold from candlelight.
Sebastian exhaled. “It’s us.”
Xander’s hand brushed Renzo’s shoulder. “It’s what we’ve become.”
A familiar voice drifted from the dark corner. “Perfect.”
Stephan stepped forward, no velvet tonight—just black coat, gloves, and the same composure that had once bought men like property. His eyes caught the light and held it.
“I asked for art,” he said softly. “You gave me absolution.”
Renzo faced him. “What do you want now?”
“Nothing. To see if you’d choose yourselves this time.”
He drew something from his pocket—an envelope.
Renzo opened it. Inside, a strip of negative film. A man stood before a blank wall, his face lost in brightness.
Xander looked at it. “Who is he?”
Stephan smiled faintly. “Maybe who you’ll be when the light forgets the rest.”
He turned toward the doorway. “Keep the commission. Keep the name. The world will fill the silence with its own stories.”
Then he was gone, his footsteps fading through marble halls.
Back in the apartment, they hung the print opposite the window where morning would strike it first. Beside it, the negative—darkness and radiance paired like heartbeat and echo.
Sebastian poured three glasses of red wine. “So we’re finished?”
Renzo studied the photo. “Finished with being someone else, maybe.”
Xander leaned against him, quiet. “Then let this be our nocturne.”
Outside, the bells tolled once, the sound stretching across rooftops and dissolving into the night. The photograph caught the faintest reflection of the three men who’d made it—alive, intertwined, and still evolving inside the frame.
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Next On Renzo: After Hours:
Months later, Vale Nocturne is shipped to New York for exhibition. When the crate is opened, the photograph is gone—replaced by a mirror and a note: “The light always remembers.”
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