But the voices won’t stop.
You did this,they whisper.You gave her, and yourself, hope.And now she’s paying the price for your weakness.
Another drink, and now I remember her smile on that terrace in Florianópolis.Sunlight turning her dark hair into a halo.Her amber eyes soft.
I’m falling for you,she said.
But I let her slip through my fingers.
The glass shatters against the far wall before I realize I’ve thrown it.Whiskey drips down the expensive paneling like tears.
The door opens.
I don’t turn around.The twin bond, forged in the womb and tempered in our bloody lives, tells me Tommy’s back.
“You look like shit,” he says.
“I look like I feel.”I reach for the bottle and drink straight from the neck.“Shouldn’t you be resting or some shit like that?”
Tommy moves into my peripheral vision, his reflection ghosting across the darkened window.“I’d rather handle you.”
“I don’t need handling.”
“No?”He gestures at the shattered glass, the whiskey stain spreading across the floor.“Could’ve fooled me.”
I finally turn to face him.He stands in the doorway, his expression carefully neutral in that way that means he’s worried as hell.We share the same icy blue eyes, the same dark hair, the same stubborn set to our jaws.But right now, the differences between us feel more pronounced than ever.Tommy found his happiness.Tommy married Maeve and built something beautiful from the ashes of his own trauma.
And me?I’m still standing in the wreckage, setting fire to everything I touch.
Tommy crosses the room and drops into a chair.He doesn’t say anything.He just sits there, patient and solid and infuriatingly present.
“She’s going to die.”The words escape before I can stop them, raw and bleeding.“She’s going to die because of me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Don’t I?”I laugh, but there’s no humor in it.Just broken glass and burnt edges.“This is what I do.This is who I am.Abeera.Those kids.And now Serena.”
Tommy leans forward.“That’s bullshit.”
“Is it?”I slam my palm against the desk.“I was supposed to protect her.That was the whole fucking point of this marriage, real or fake.Keep her safe from Cesare, from her father, from all the monsters circling her.”
“Giovanni took her.Not you.”
“Because I wasn’t watching!Because I was too busy playing house, planning a future like some lovesick idiot who forgot the first rule of this life.”I turn back to the window.“Caring is a liability.Attachment is a weakness.”
The silence stretches between us, heavy with everything we’re not saying.
I think about the beach in Brazil, where I allow myself to have hope again.
We should do this more often,she said.Steal weekends away.Escape the darkness.
The memory is a knife between my ribs.
I reach for the bottle again.Tommy’s hand intercepts mine.
“Enough.”
“Not nearly enough.”I try to pull away, but his grip is iron.“Let go.”
