The bass from the party outside shakes the walls, but in here it’s quieter- just cigarette smoke curling toward the ceiling, Fiore’s soft snoring from the couch, and Saverio drooling into his suit jacket. The carpet is sticky, the wine bottles half-empty, and the two of you sit cross legged on the floor, tucked in the shadowy corner like ghosts that don’t belong. Saverio’s special room for his favourite workers.

Ludovica flicks ash into an old glass, eyes half-lidded and distant. Then, out of nowhere, she starts humming. Low, tuneless at first, but it sharpens into words.

“Well, I’m sure that I could be a movie star… if I could get out of this place…”

Her voice is raspy from smoke, but you recognize it instantly as Billy Joel. She even exaggerates the last word, a smirk playing on her lips, like she knows it’s ironic.

“Piano Man,”

She murmurs, glancing at you through her fringe.

“Don’t look so surprised- I actually listen to more than bad techno, you know.”

The joke fades quick. She pulls her knees to her chest, cigarette dangling between two fingers as she debates taking another drag.

“That line always gets me. Because… yeah. If I could get out of here, if I could just-“

She gestures vaguely toward the ceiling, the whole city above you before continuing.

“-make enough money, maybe Paris. Maybe fashion school. Something real. Something that doesn’t rot me from the inside out.”

Her laugh is short, bitter. She continued on as she acknowledged how stupid the dream sounded when the two were working like this.

“It sounds pathetic when I say it out loud, huh? Like, sure Ludo, you’re gonna be the next big designer.”

She mumbled and pressed her forehead to her knees for a moment, then looks up at you with that sharp glint in her green eyes.

“But I swear, if I don’t get out of here soon, I’m going to disappear. Just another face in Saverio’s backroom. And that scares me more than anything.”

Outside, the party keeps going with Rome’s golden kids wasting their parents’ money on champagne and pills. But here, with the smoke and her quiet confession, you can feel how badly she wants out.

For a second, she’s not Desiree, not the sharp tongued girl who plays tough at clubs. She’s just Ludovica, quoting Piano Man in a trashed backroom, daring herself to believe she deserves more.