"She’s probably just lying low," I manage finally. "Everything’s been… tense."
He huffs, pops two painkillers into his mouth, and downs them with a gulp of whiskey. "Tense? That’s what you call it when your fucking father gets turned into vapor and Enrico decides he wants to play God?"
I flinch.
So, Giovanni really is gone. I still don’t know how. But judging by the way Roberto said it—vapor—that probably means… no body. Or worse. And he’s blaming Enrico. That’s dangerous. Enrico doesn’t strike me as someone who plays games without knowing how they’ll end.
I drift back toward the window while Roberto sinks deeper into the couch, seething. Outside, the sky is bruising to a deeper shade of twilight. The street is quiet, but my nerves aren’t.
Cammie, where are you?
Roberto is still muttering under his breath like a madman, cursing Enrico, the world, Cammie, and probably the weight of his own existence. I don’t look at him. I’ve learned not to when he’s like this. He’ll mistake it for defiance. Or pity. Or both. Instead, I press my palm to the cold window and try to focus on the quiet outside. One of the guards leans against a black SUV at the end of the driveway, tapping on his phone like this is just another Tuesday. Like we’re not standing on the edge of something unraveling.
Two days. It has been two days since I sawhim, and myhead is a crooked house of rooms that want different things at once.
When I close my eyes, I go back to that alley—the way he moved, the sound of his boots, the smell of gunpowder and rain. He was a clean line through chaos. He was the only thing that made sense. That night carved a relief into me that I still run my fingers over when the world forgets how to be gentle.
But now that I know he’s alive, the relief and the knife sit side by side. For a while, I told myself he was dead because that was tidy. Death explains absence. Death doesn’t hurt as much as being ignored. If he were dead, he would be beyond blame. If he were dead, I could put my grief on a shelf and look at it as something noble. The truth is messier. The truth is that he is walking somewhere out there, and I am here in a life that is nothing like what I want.
I don’t know what to call what I feel for him. Love? Worship? Habit made of gratitude? A hunger that thinks heroism is a person and not a moment? In the quietest parts of the night, I let myself be small and blame him for being heroic once and not always. It is childish. It is selfish. It is the only language my heart seems to remember.
There’s a part of me that is grateful beyond words that he stepped into my nightmare and tore it open. I owe him everything, and maybe that’s why I’m so angry. Because what kind of debt is that, where the creditor is allowed to ignore the debtor for years? Because I builthim a pedestal out of blood and fear, and now the pedestal feels like a cell.
And then the practical, dull cruelty of truth: what could he realistically do? Walk into my life and sweep away husbands, laws, and arrangements? Perhaps I am romanticizing a man who learned to be useful and never learned to be tender.
I also wonder if I am still capable of loving at all. The bruises are more than skin-deep; they have educated me in fear. I feel my body flinch when anyone reaches for me, and my mouth prepares apologies long before the hand does anything wrong. Loving someone should not be a risk assessment, and yet it always is now.
Anger flares, quick and hot, at him, at myself, at fate. It’s unfair that I should resent the man who saved me, but the resentment tastes like survival. I am angry because I have learned to wait. I am angry because I built him into a myth, and myths are brittle. I am angry because he loves me imperfectly, or perhaps not at all, and I don’t know which is worse.
So I sit with the ache between hope and despair and pretend I’m brave. I tell myself I will not beg. I tell myself I will not dismantle my life for someone who may only ever be able to rescue pieces. But in the same breath, another truth crawls up my throat: if he walked through that door right now, if he took my hand and held it like he meant to never let go, a part of me would drop to its knees without thinking.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I jolt as my heart slams into my ribs, for one reckless, stupid moment, I think Raffael is calling me. I glance over my shoulder. Roberto hasn’t noticed. Not yet. Carefully, I slip it out with my palm, which is slick with sweat, and read the name, lighting up my screen. Marcello. My brother. He returned a few months ago. Angelo had a fatal boat accident just months before that, and Daddy Dearest decided to call in the spare heir. Roberto and I picked Marcello up from the airport, but I haven't seen him since. With Marcello back here, I'm hoping to catch him alone, to tell him what's happening to me. Marcello is the only man I know who will get me out of here.
He hasn’t changed. He's still strong and sharp. He's still the only person in this family who makes me feel safe. We’ve always hated the same men: Angelo, with his smug cruelty and glass ego. And Carlos… our so-called father. The monsters in tailored suits. The men who sold me to Roberto in the name of alliance.
If Marcello had been here when I was forced to marry Roberto, I know he would have stopped it. Now he’s back, and all I can think is, maybe this time, he can. I swallow hard.
Marcello:
Just tell me you're okay.
We've had a few phone conversations and texts. We made a few dates to get together, but Roberto always foiled them. He's taking demonic pleasure in keeping us from seeing each other. Now, it seems Marcello is starting to sense that something is off.
My fingers hover over the screen. I want to tell him everything. That I’m not okay; that I haven’t been okay in years. That I’m scared. That I’m disappearing by degrees in this house, and no one sees it but me.
But instead, I type:
Me:
I’m fine.
A lie so thin it might as well be glass. But it’s the only one I can tell safely. I don’t even get a chance to hit send.
"You texting him again?" Roberto's voice whips through the room like a leash. I turn slowly. To slowly.
My husband is already on his feet, his wounded hand clenched into a pitiful, useless fist. The gauze is stained pink now. Whiskey-slicked eyes lock on mine like he’s trying to read my mind and write the ending of the story at the same time.
"I asked you a question, Sophia."
