I abandoned the car in the middle of the driveway and ran. Someone tried to stop me—one of Papa's men, his face gray—but I shoved past him.
"Miss Aria, you shouldn't—"
I wasn't listening. Couldn't hear anything over the roaring in my ears.
The front doors were open. More people inside, all of them turning to look at me with expressions I couldn't read. Pity. Horror. Grief.
And in the main hall, one shape covered with a white sheet.
No.
No no no no no.
My legs stopped working. I stood there in the doorway, frozen, staring at that sheet while my brain tried to reject what my eyes were seeing.
Not real. This wasn't real. I'd walk closer and it would be someone else, some other family's tragedy, not mine, pleasegod not mine—
But I was moving. Stumbling forward on legs that didn't feel attached to my body. Someone was talking—explosion, they were saying, car bomb, got out of the vehicle, walking to the entrance when it went off, the blast, instant, he didn't suffer—but the words didn't mean anything.
I dropped to my knees next to the sheet. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely grip the fabric.
"Miss Aria, please don't—"
I pulled it back.
Papa's face. His eyes were closed but his features were wrong—burns along one side, cuts from the shrapnel, but it was him. Still him. My father who'd promised to help me just hours ago.
The sound that came out of me didn't sound human. Didn't sound like anything I'd ever heard before.
Not Papa. Not him too. I'd just lost Mama a week ago—seven days of grief so raw I could barely function—and now Papa was gone too?
I was alone. Completely, utterly alone.
The screaming wouldn't stop. It was tearing out of my throat in waves, animal sounds of pain and grief and soul-deep agony. My perfect night, my one act of rebellion, and he was dead. Dead while I was—
Arms wrapped around me. Uncle Vincent, pulling me away from the body, from my father, from everything I had left.
"I've got you, Aria. I've got you."
But he didn't. Nobody did. Because I'd been too selfish, too reckless, too desperate for one night of freedom. I'd been with a stranger while my father was being murdered.
First Mama. Now Papa. Both gone within a week.
And I'd been choosing myself while he was dying.
The screaming turned into sobbing, great heaving gasps that shook my whole body. Vincent held me tighter, making soothing sounds that meant nothing.
"When?" My voice was wrecked. "When did it happen?"
"Around midnight. He'd just left the Accardi estate after the meeting. Got out of the car, was walking to the entrance when—" Vincent'svoice caught. "The car exploded. The blast threw him. They said it was instant. He didn't suffer."
Midnight. He'd died at midnight. While I was kissing a stranger. While I was in bed with Kai, learning what my body could feel, discovering pleasure for the first time, my father was being blown apart by a car bomb.
Because of me. He'd gone to that meeting because of me. Because I'd asked him to find another way. Because I couldn't just accept my fate like a good daughter.
Mama had died from cancer. That wasn't my fault.
But Papa? Papa's death was on me. He'd been alive yesterday morning. Had listened to me. Had promised to help. Had gone to meet with Don Salvatore to discuss alternatives to my engagement.
