Because a boy I loved asked me to stay quiet.
Because I was fifteen and in love and I thought one day would make a difference.
The aftermath crashes over me: waking to screaming. Luca's hands bloody, Dante taken prisoner. "Papa's dead. They're all dead."
Seventeen Rosettis. Dead.
Because I kept my promise.
Because I chose Mikhail over my own blood.
The guilt was so massive it broke my mind. Walls slamming down. Memories buried so deep that even when I recovered pieces, the garden, the Russian lessons, his gentle teaching, my mind kept this part locked away. The promise. The betrayal. The choice that destroyed everything.
Eleven years of nightmares. "Promise me, Sofia. Promise me." Over and over. Not memory but guilt, crying out in Russian-accented English. The ghost of my betrayal haunting my sleep.
I'm still on the floor, the two halves of the heart cutting into my palm where I grip them. Blood wells between my fingers, dripping onto Mikhail's floor, marking his room with my truth.
All this time. Even after remembering him, remembering our friendship, I thought there was something more I'd forgotten. Something about why he died. I thought I'd failed to keep my promise to Mikhail and that's why he died.
The truth is so much worse.
I kept my promise.
I kept my promise and my father died.
I kept my promise and seventeen men who trusted us died.
I kept my promise and became the worst kind of traitor.
Every death. Every funeral. Every year of Marco carrying the weight of leadership too young. Dante's voice stolen by torture that happened because he was trying to protect us from an attack I could have warned them about. Luca's mind cracking under the violence, becoming something sharp and dangerous. Nico coming back from war to find his family decimated, forced to become our weapon.
Because I made a promise to a boy in a garden.
I didn't betray Mikhail.
I betrayed everyone else.
For him.
The nausea rises so fast I barely make it to the bathroom. Emptying my stomach until there's nothing left but bile and self-hatred. My reflection in the mirror is a stranger: hollow eyes, lips still swollen from Alexei's kisses this morning, looking like a woman who deserves love when really I'm a monster who let her father die.
I am the reason my father is dead.
The door opens somewhere. Alexei's footsteps in the hall, looking for me. "Sofia? Kotyonok, where are you?"
I can't. Can't face him. Can't tell him.
What would I even say?
"I chose your brother over my family."
"I let my father die because Mikhail asked me to."
"I'm the real villain in this story."
"Every death, every loss, every broken piece of our families, all of Ana's dead relatives, it all traces back to me."
My body moves without thought, pure instinct taking over. Shoes shoved on, not bothering with socks. Jacket grabbed froma hook by the back door. Out before he finds me, before I have to see recognition dawn in those pale eyes.
