The next day, the mirrors were gone.
CHAPTER 29
MARCO
The rain hadn’t stopped since I got here. Thick sheets of it rolled over the windshield, blurring the lines of the city, drowning the headlights in endless reflections. I barely registered it.
My mind was somewhere else.
On Valentina.
She was getting to me.
Not with words—not even with the usual smart-ass commentary she threw around like confetti. No. It was slower. Like erosion. She wasn’t yelling. She wasn’t demanding. She was justthere—everywhere. Taking up space in the apartment, in my thoughts, in the corners of myself I’d long since decided I didn’t need to examine.
She did things. Subtle, small,maddeningthings.
Like putting up mirrors.
Two of them. One in the foyer, and one in the living room. I didn’t even know where she’d found them—some discount store, probably—but I came home one night and there they were, like they’d always belonged.
She didn’t know that was the first time I’d seen my reflection in years. Six years ago was the last time I’d let myself look long enough to focus. Toseeit.
Back then, it wasn’t the face that had scared me. It was what had come with it.
The memories were still there, more vivid than they should be. I could smell the closet door. That old, splintered wood and whatever chemical Gerald had used to clean the floors. It always lingered, burning the inside of your nose for too long. The mirrors had been hung up unevenly, some crooked, some cracked, all of them aimed to reflect back every inch of you. No matter how small you tried to make yourself, you’d see it. Over and over again. Knees pulled to your chest, hands wrapped around your arms as if you were holding yourself together.
I used to sit in there and count.
First seconds. Then breaths. Then the spaces between them.
And when that got boring, when the walls got too loud and my eyes couldn’t stay closed anymore, I started to imagine other lives. Lives where I didn’t wince when doors shut. Where people’s voices didn’t start loud and end louder. I used to imagine a kitchen. Nothing fancy. Just one with noise: someone cooking, music on in the background, plates clinking. A place where people knew you were home because they wanted you there. Because they missed you.
At ten, I imagined brothers. A mom who called me in for dinner. Someone who remembered my birthday.
By fifteen, I’d stopped imagining family. Family felt like another kind of trap. Like obligation dressed up as love.
What I wanted was simpler. Or maybe more complicated, depending on how you looked at it. I wanted someone to pick me. Not out of duty. Not because they had to. Not because someone had signed papers or told them I belonged to them now.
I wanted someone tochooseme.
Eventually, the car door yanked open, and Jacob dropped into the passenger seat,soaked through, dripping all over the car’s interior.
I exhaled. “You ever heard of an umbrella?”
He ignored me, shaking water from his sleeve like a damn mutt. “You ever heard of a parking garage that doesn’t leak?”
I didn’t entertain him, just gestured my fingers toward the folder in his hands. “That it?”
Jacob hummed, tossing the file onto my lap, the paper already damp from his jacket. I flipped it open, scanning the contents while he spoke.
“Sebastian Callahan’s pushing in harder.Digging into Max’s shipments.Hitting them at the dock before they even hit distribution.”
My teeth clenched. I already knew that much. But what I didn’t know—whatI needed to know—washow much longer Max was willing to wait before he ordered me to put Callahan’s body in a crate.
The Outfit was patient when it benefited them. Max Romano? Not so much.
Jacob wiped his face with the sleeve of his jacket, still dripping, still acting like he hadn’t just flooded my car. He nodded toward the folder as if it held the final nail for Callahan’s coffin.
