#phantom!toto

The first rule of the Vienna Opera is simple.

Do not keep Torger Wolff waiting.

The second rule is worse.

Do not give him a reason to come down from the box.

You manage to break both before noon.

The rehearsal room is cold, polished, and too beautiful for all the panic living inside it. Gold-framed mirrors line one wall. The stage lights are already hot against your skin. Somewhere above you, a technician coughs like he is asking permission to exist.

And in the middle of the auditorium, in the director’s box that is not supposed to be occupied during rehearsals, Torger Wolff watches you.

He does not sit like other men. He takes space without moving.

Black suit. White shirt. No tie. Black leather gloves covering his hands, one of them resting on the railing, long fingers still against the polished wood. An elegant black cane leans against his chair, silver handle catching the stage light like a small warning.

He does not need it. That is the worst part. The cane is not support. It is theatre. Image. Control dressed in polished black wood and silver.

Everyone in Vienna knows it. Everyone still reacts when he picks it up.

The left side of his face is sharp, severe, almost cruelly handsome. The right side is partly hidden beneath a black eye patch and the shadows of old scars that pull faintly over his cheekbone, disappearing under his jaw.

Nobody talks about the accident. Nobody talks about the eye. Nobody talks about the scars.

Nobody talks about why the most powerful opera director in Europe looks like he belongs in the story currently being rehearsed on his stage.

So naturally, Vienna casts The Phantom of the Opera.

Because subtlety is dead.

You stand center stage in your white rehearsal dress, trying very hard not to look at him.

You fail.

His visible eye is already on you.

Your partner, Matteo, playing the Phantom, steps closer behind you. His hand slides around your waist as the music swells through the speakers.

It is only rehearsal. A blocking scene. Professional. Choreographed.

Matteo’s palm settles against your stomach.

A chair scrapes in the director’s box. Then comes the soft tap of Torger’s cane against the floor. Once. Sharp enough to make the pianist miss one note.

Everyone hears it. Everyone pretends not to.

You keep singing.

Your voice rises through the hall, trembling at first, then stronger. The role fits you too well. Christine’s fear, her hunger, her devotion to something dark and beautiful and dangerous. You know those feelings. You just wish you did not know exactly where to look when you sing them.

Matteo leans in close, breath near your ear.

“Closer,” the actual director calls from below the stage. “Matteo, you need to possess the space around her.”

A silence falls so fast it almost has weight.

From the box, Torger says, “No.”

One word. It's not loud, not shouted. Still, the entire room freezes.

The director turns slowly. “Herr Wolff?”

Torger does not look at him. His gaze stays on Matteo’s hand at your waist.

“That is not possession,” he says. “That is laziness.”

Matteo’s hand twitches. You stop breathing.

Torger stands.

It is unfair, really, how tall he is. How controlled. How the whole theatre seems to adjust itself around him. He takes the cane in one gloved hand and walks down from the box with slow, measured steps, carrying it more than using it. The polished tip strikes the floor only when he wants it to.

A quiet, merciless rhythm.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

He does not need support. He wants the sound. He wants the room to hear him coming. He enjoys watching people remember who owns the air they are breathing.

He continues down the aisle slowly, with the calm confidence of a man who has never had to chase anything in his life.

Men like Torger Wolff do not hurry. The world simply regrets being slow.

He reaches the front row and looks up at the stage.

“Again.”

The director clears his throat. “From the beginning of the scene, Herr Wolff?”

Torger’s eye cuts to him.

The director immediately discovers religion. “From the beginning, yes.”

The music starts again.

Matteo touches you again. This time his hand is more careful.

Torger notices. “Again.”

You bite the inside of your cheek.

The music stops.

Matteo exhales. “Herr Wolff, maybe if you explain what you want—”

“I want you,” Torger says, “to stop touching her like you are afraid I will break your wrist.”

Nobody laughs. You almost do. That is unfortunate, because Torger sees the corner of your mouth move.

His gaze shifts to you. Your amusement dies on impact.

“Do you find rehearsal funny?” he asks.

“No,” you say quickly.

His mouth barely moves. “Pity.”

Matteo glances at you. “We can reset.”

“Yes,” Torger says. “You can.”

Again.

Again.

Again.

By the fifth repetition, the scene is no longer about Christine and the Phantom. It is about Matteo’s hand, Torger’s stare, and the terrifying little storm building behind your ribs.

Matteo pulls you closer in one take, perhaps trying to prove something.

Wrong decision.

Torger steps onto the stage. The whole room forgets how to breathe.

He does not raise his voice. Somehow that makes it worse.

“Enough.”

Matteo lets go of you at once.

Coward, you think.

Sensible man, your survival instinct corrects.

Torger stops in front of you, the cane held loosely at his side, his gloved fingers curved around the silver handle. Close enough that you catch his scent — clean cologne, coffee, leather, something colder underneath.

His scars are more visible from here. Pale lines through tanned skin. One disappears beneath the edge of the eye patch.

You should not find him beautiful. You do.

And the gloves make it worse somehow. Too elegant. Too controlled. Too much like every dangerous part of him has been dressed properly for public viewing.

“You are singing to the ceiling,” he says.

“I am singing to the back of the hall.”

“You are hiding.”

“I am acting.”

“No.” He leans slightly closer. “You are surviving.”

Your throat tightens.

The room is full of people, yet somehow the sentence reaches only you.

Torger turns to the pianist. “Again. Her entrance only.”

The cane taps once against the stage floor. The pianist obeys so fast his fingers almost trip.

You sing.

This time, you do not look at the ceiling.

You look at Torger.

Bad idea. Catastrophic idea.

His expression changes so subtly most people would miss it. But you are watching him. You see the way his jaw tightens. The way his hand flexes once at his side. The way his visible eye darkens like you have just stepped too close to the edge of something he has kept locked for years.

Your voice cracks on the final note.

The director whispers, “Beautiful.”

Torger says nothing. That is worse.

Rehearsal ends twenty minutes later with everyone pretending they are not desperate to leave. Costumes rustle. Sheet music closes. Matteo avoids Torger with the survival skills of a man who enjoys having bones.

You move toward the wings.

“Stay.”

You stop.

The room empties around you. The last technician takes one look at Torger’s face and decides the lighting can fix itself tomorrow.

Then it is only you, him, and the massive empty theatre breathing around you.

The stage feels too big.

Torger stands near the edge, looking out at the rows of red velvet seats. His cane rests against his leg, one gloved hand folded over the silver handle.

He looks like he belongs to the theatre more than the theatre belongs to him. Or perhaps that is the same thing.

“You let him touch you,” he says.

Your pulse jumps. “It is the scene.”

“It is my theatre.”

You turn to him. “It is not your scene.”

His gaze moves to you slowly. “No?”

“No,” you say, more bravely than you feel. “And I am not your actress.”

Something dangerous flickers in his eye. “No,” he says softly. “You are not.”

That should reassure you. It does not.

He walks toward you. The cane does not touch the stage floor with every step.

Only when he chooses.

Tap.

A pause. Another step.

Tap.

He controls even the sound of his own approach, and that should be ridiculous. It is not. It makes your pulse climb into your throat.

You do not move back, which is either courage or stupidity. With you, recently, it is difficult to tell.

“You think I do not see it?” he asks.

“What?”

“How they look at you.” His voice lowers. “The conductors. The sponsors. The boys in the chorus pretending they came early for warm-ups.”

You swallow.

“The critics will come next,” he continues. “They will write your name like they discovered you. They will sit in my theatre and pretend they understand what you are.”

Your hands curl at your sides. “And what am I?”

His face stills. For a moment, the scars, the eye patch, the cane, the black suit, the reputation — all of it becomes background.

Only his voice remains.

“Mine to protect.”

The words hit your chest too hard.

You should be angry. You are.

You should be afraid. You are that too.

But beneath both is something worse. Something warm and reckless and humiliatingly alive.

“You cannot say things like that,” you whisper.

“I can.”

“No.” You take one step closer because apparently your body has resigned from the survival committee. “You cannot stand in the dark, watch me for weeks, scare every man who stands near me, and then call it protection.”

His mouth tightens. “You noticed.”

You laugh once, breathless. “Torger, you sit in a private box like a haunted aristocrat with excellent tailoring. People notice.”

A pause.

Then his lips almost curve. Almost. It is gone quickly, but you see it. The smallest crack in the legend.

“You should be careful,” he says.

“With Matteo?”

“With me.”

The honesty silences you.

He looks away first, toward the empty seats. His profile is severe, ruined, beautiful in a way that feels private.

“I have done many civilized things in my life,” he says. “Built careers. Saved this theatre from bankruptcy twice. Smiled at politicians. Applauded mediocrity because donors were watching.”

His gaze returns to you. “But with you... I am not civilized.”

Your breath catches.

There it is. The thing that has been moving under every rehearsal. Under every correction. Under every moment his eye found you from across a room and held you still.

“You barely know me,” you say.

“I know how you breathe before a high note. I know you press your thumb into your palm when you are nervous. I know you drink your coffee too sweet and pretend you do not. I know you hate red roses because they feel like a threat dressed as romance.”

Your stomach flips. You remember throwing away the roses last week. You had not told anyone why.

Torger steps closer.

“I know you are afraid of wanting things that do not look safe.”

Your voice thins. “Stop.”

He stops immediately.

That is the worst part. He is frightening, yes. Too intense. Too possessive. Too much like the music itself when it turns dark and enormous. But he listens.

The silence stretches between you.

“I should leave,” you say.

“Yes.”

Neither of you moves.

Silence settles between you, heavy and intimate, filling the empty theatre until even the shadows seem to wait for his next breath.

You should step back. You should turn around. You should make one clever decision before this man becomes the kind of mistake you start craving.

You do none of those things.

Torger’s visible eye stays on you.

Then he steps closer.

This time, not like the director of the Vienna Opera. Not like the man who owns the building, the contracts, the velvet seats, the marble stairs, the careers of everyone too terrified to disappoint him.

This time, Torger Wolff moves toward you like a man who has spent too long standing in the shadows and has finally decided he is done pretending he belongs there.

Your body reacts before your mind can make a single sensible argument.

Your breath catches. Your spine straightens.

Your skin warms under the thin fabric of your rehearsal dress, every nerve suddenly awake, every inch of you aware of him — his height, his scent, the quiet danger in his stillness.

You should step back. You do not. Of course you do not. Survival has clearly resigned.

Torger notices.

His visible eye drops, slowly, taking in the way your chest rises too quickly. The way your fingers curl at your sides. The way your lips part even though you have no idea what you are about to say.

Nothing, apparently. You say nothing.

His mouth tightens with something that looks almost like restraint.

“You feel it too,” he says.

It is not a question. That makes it worse.

Your pulse jumps in your throat.

“I do not know what I feel.”

His gaze lifts back to yours.

“Liar.”

The word is soft. Devastating. Too intimate for such an empty stage.

You should be offended. You are, a little. Mostly because he is right.

Torger raises his hand. Slowly. Black leather between his skin and the air.

Not touching yet. Waiting.

Then he stops. His eye holds yours as he removes one glove with slow, deliberate care, finger by finger, as if even that is a decision he refuses to rush.

The leather comes free. He slips it into his pocket.

Only then does he lift his bare hand toward your face.

The gesture is almost polite, which is absurd, because there is nothing polite about the way he looks at you. Nothing polite about the hunger in him, controlled so tightly it feels more dangerous than if he simply let it loose.

His fingers hover near your cheek.

“You can still leave,” he says.

Your voice is barely there. “And if I do not?”

His eye darkens. “Then I stop pretending I am only protecting you.”

The words move through you like a low note from the orchestra pit. Deep. Dangerous. Impossible to ignore.

You swallow, and his gaze tracks the movement. You hate how much you like that.

“You are frightening,” you whisper.

“I know.”

“You are intense.”

“I know.”

“You are impossible.”

That almost earns you a smile.

“Frequently.”

Your laugh is small, nervous, breathless.

It vanishes when his bare fingertips finally touch your jaw. Barely. Just the lightest brush.

After all that black leather, the warmth of his skin is almost indecent.

Still, your whole body answers. Heat slips under your skin. Your stomach tightens. Your knees soften in a way that makes you immediately angry with yourself, because honestly, one touch? One careful, controlled touch and your body decides to become poetry? Embarrassing.

Torger sees all of it. Of course he does.

His thumb moves along the line of your jaw, slow enough to ruin you properly.

“You tremble,” he murmurs.

“It is cold.”

“No.”

His hand slides lower, two fingers resting lightly beneath your chin, tilting your face up.

“You tremble because you know I would tear this whole theatre apart before I let anyone take from you what belongs to you.”

You stare at him. “What belongs to me?”

His gaze drops to your mouth.

“Your voice. Your career. Your choices.” His thumb brushes the corner of your lips, so softly you almost chase the touch. “And eventually, if you allow it… me.”

Your breath breaks.

That is the first thing that truly shakes you. Not the possession, or the jealousy. Not even the darkness around him.

That.

The fact that beneath all that control, all that danger, all that impossible obsession, Torger Wolff is not only claiming. He is offering himself like something ruined and precious and terrifyingly loyal.

You whisper his name.

His jaw flexes. “Do not say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you are not afraid of what it does to me.”

Your lips part.

He steps in closer, and now there is barely any space left between you. The front of his suit brushes your dress. His hand leaves your chin and settles at your waist, it's not hard or cruel, but unmistakably possessive.

Claiming the place Matteo’s hand had been. Replacing it. Erasing it.

Your body knows the difference immediately.

Matteo’s touch had been choreography.

Torger’s is a warning. A promise. A spark falling onto dry paper.

His fingers spread against your waist, and the heat of his palm sinks through the fabric. Your stomach tightens again, deeper this time, a slow pull low inside you that makes you press your lips together.

He notices that too.

His voice drops. “There it is.”

You glare at him, which would be more effective if you were not breathing like he has personally stolen all the oxygen from Vienna.

“There what is?”

“The truth.”

“You are very arrogant for a haunted man in excellent tailoring.”

His mouth curves. Small. Dark. Beautiful enough to be unfair.

“And you are very brave for a woman whose pulse is currently betraying her.”

You hate him. Possibly. Maybe. A little.

His hand moves from your waist to the small of your back. He pulls you closer, with enough certainty that your body follows before your pride can object.

Your hands land against his chest. Solid and warm. His heart beats under your palm, slower than yours, but not calm. No. Not calm at all.

That realization does something dangerous to you. Torger Wolff is not untouched by this. He is just better at hiding the damage.

His forehead lowers until his breath touches your temple.

“When he touches you tomorrow,” he says, voice rough now, “I want you to remember this.”

Your fingers curl slightly against his shirt.

“This?”

“My hand.” His palm presses more firmly to your back. “My voice.” His mouth moves closer to your ear. “How still you become when I am near you.”

Your eyes flutter despite your best efforts.

“Torger…”

“I want you to sing to me.”

The confession scrapes out of him, low and honest. It’s not elegant, not rehearsed. It's almost angry, as if he hates needing anything this badly.

“Not to the room,” he continues. “Not to the critics. Not to the men waiting to applaud because they think applause is a form of ownership.” His lips brush the shell of your ear, so faintly you almost imagine it. “To me. Only to me.”

Your whole body shivers.

His hand tightens once at your back. “There,” he whispers. “That is the part I cannot stop thinking about.”

Your throat feels too tight. “What part?”

“The moment you stop running.”

You should tell him this is too much. You should remind him he is your director, your superior, the man who can destroy your career with one word and ruin your self-control with one touch.

Instead, your fingers slide higher on his chest.

Torger goes still. Completely still.

The power shifts, just for one second.

His eye burns into yours. “You should not do that,” he says.

You look at your own hand resting near his collar. Then back at him.

“Why?”

“Because I am trying to behave.”

The answer is so blunt, so darkly restrained, that heat rushes through you. A terrible, delicious silence opens between you.

Then you lift your hand higher and touch the edge of his eye patch.

Torger catches your wrist with his gloved hand. Fast and firm. Not painful but immediate. The leather is cool around your pulse, and somehow that makes the warning worse.

The theatre seems to drop ten degrees.

His face hardens. “Do not.”

You freeze.

For one second, fear cuts clean through the desire.

Then his grip loosens. He exhales, and it sounds like something torn out of him.

“Not because of you,” he says quietly. “Never because of you.”

Your heart twists. You lower your hand, but you do not move away.

His gloved fingers remain around your wrist, thumb resting over your pulse. Even through the leather, he feels how fast it beats. You both know he feels it.

Then his other hand — bare, warm, terrifyingly gentle — takes your wrist from him.

His expression changes again. It’s softer.

He lifts your wrist to his mouth. Your breath stops.

His lips press against the inside of your wrist, right over the frantic beat of your pulse. It's not a kiss for show or to seduce an audience. It's a private, possessive, ruinous thing. Like a vow made in the dark.

Your knees almost give.

His other arm slides around your waist at once, keeping you steady as he pulls you closer, your body pressed firmly against his.

“Careful,” he murmurs against your skin.

“You did that on purpose.”

“Yes...” he says, quiet and shameless.

Your laugh comes out broken.

His mouth lingers at your wrist for one more second before he lowers your hand. But he does not let go.

“You should go home,” he says again.

This time, his voice is rougher.

This time, it sounds like punishment. For himself.

You look at him, at the scars, the eye patch, the mouth that almost kissed your pulse into madness.

“And if I stay?”

His eye drops to your lips.

The pause is unbearable.

“If you stay,” he says, “I will kiss you.”

Your stomach flips hard.

“And?”

His fingers tighten around yours.

“And then I will want another.” His voice sinks lower. “And another. And then I will stop caring that this is my stage, my theatre, and that anyone could walk in.”

Your lips part.

He leans closer, his mouth now only a breath from yours.

“I am not gentle when I want something this much.”

The warning should push you away. It does not. It pulls something out of you instead. A confession you are not ready to hear in your own voice.

Your answer comes quietly, soft enough that only he can hear it in the empty theatre. “I do not think I want gentle.”

For a moment, Torger looks almost pained. Then his hand slides up your back, into your hair, careful but possessive, holding you exactly where he wants you.

Not forcing. Waiting.

One last chance. One last exit. You do not take it.

You rise onto your toes.

His restraint snaps quietly. His mouth does not touch yours yet. He stops a breath away, cruel enough to make you feel the heat of him without giving you the kiss.

“Tomorrow,” he says, each word against your lips, “you will look at me from that stage.”

Your eyes are half-closed. “Yes.”

“And you will remember whose hand made you shake.”

Your breath catches. “Yes.”

His mouth brushes yours. Barely. It is not enough, but it is everything.

Then he pulls back.

You make a sound of protest before you can stop yourself.

His expression turns dark with satisfaction.

“There,” he murmurs. “My Christine does have a voice.”

You should slap him. You seriously consider it.

Instead, you stare at him like he has ruined the entire concept of oxygen.

He releases you slowly, like it costs him something.

The loss hits you at once. His warmth disappears from your skin. The solid weight of his body is no longer against yours, no longer keeping the air out, no longer making the empty theatre feel smaller. Safer. More dangerous.

Your body notices before your pride does.

It wants to go back.

Back to his hand in your hair. Back to his chest under your palms. Back to the impossible heat of him standing too close and still somehow not close enough.

Then he pulls the glove back on. One finger at a time. The gesture should feel ordinary. It does not. It feels like watching the door close on something dangerous.

“Go,” he says.

You do not move at first. You only look at him, uncertain, still caught between the heat of his body and the cold command in his voice. Part of you waits for him to change his mind. Part of you wants him to.

Torger’s visible eye stays on yours.

Then his jaw tightens. “Go,” he repeats, quieter this time.

Harder.

That breaks whatever fragile thing has been holding you in place.

You clench your teeth, pride rushing back just enough to keep you from doing something humiliating, like stepping into him again and begging him to stop being noble.

You step back on unsteady legs.

He watches every movement. Not hiding it and not pretending.

By the time you reach the wings, your lips still burn from a kiss that barely happened, your wrist still remembers his mouth, and your whole body feels like it has been tuned to his voice.

You should run. You know that.

But tomorrow, when Matteo reaches for your waist, when the music rises, when everyone waits for Christine to sing — you already know where you will look.

Not at safety. Not at the ceiling.

At him.

In the box. In the shadows. Watching you like a man who has already decided the whole world may applaud you — but only he gets to haunt you.

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