“Brothers,” Enzo said.
I looked at Oscar, my eyes locking with his. “Did you…?” My voice cracked as a tear slipped down my cheek.
“Yeah, Doll.” He smiled. “I knew I was fucking my brother’s girlfriend.”
“You’re a monster,” I said between gasps. “You disgust me.”
“Good,” he said, his eyes darkening.
My chest rose and fell so fast it hurt. My breath caught in my throat.
“Rio is alive,” Enzo said, stepping closer. “He might have played us all.”
“No.” The word tore from me. “Rio loved me.”
Oscar’s jaw tightened. He rushed forward, grabbed my wrists, and shook me hard.
“When will you get that love doesn’t fucking exist, huh?”
“It does.” I forced the words out, locking my eyes with his. There was nothing human left in them. “What do you want from me?”
“We want to hunt them,” Enzo said. “The Circle. The Crows. The Family. All of them.”
“Why?” I asked, looking from him to Oscar. “What do I get from all of this?”
“Freedom,” Oscar said. “You no longer belong here. You’ll be free to go anywhere you want.”
I clenched my jaw, holding his stare, searching for any trace of truth in his words.
“The Circle killed your mother,” Enzo said. “They separated us from our family, made our mother sleep with their members, made her believe it was for some greater cause until she lost her mind. They took too many people. Someone has to end it, make them pay for what they’ve done.”
“Fine.” I tilted my head toward him. “What do I have to do?”
“In three weeks, we’ll open the carnival again,” Oscar said. “They’ll get an invite. The theme will beAlice in Wonderland. We’ll make them drink tea with Oleander flowers, and when the poison hits, we’ll make them run. Then we’ll hunt them, one byone.”
He let go of my hands, brushed his fingers across my cheek. “And all you have to do, little Doll, is close your eyes and dream.”
“I haven’t been able to in a while,” I said quietly. “I won’t be able to.”
“Hypno will help you,” he said. “He’ll guide you through every step.”
I nodded, my eyes lifting to his. “And Rio?” I whispered.
Enzo parted his lips, about to say something about Rome, but before he could, Oscar grabbed my arm and pulled me close. His breath brushed my ear as he spoke. “Rio doesn’t give two shits about you, Doll.”
A tear slipped down my cheek. “You’re a liar.” More tears blurred my sight.
“You were nothing but a good fuck. Just like you were to me,” he said, pushing me back.
“Liar!” I shouted. “You’re such a liar!”
Each step I took back, he followed, his shadow swallowing the space between us. My tears fell faster, my breath breaking apart. I turned, flung the doors open, and ran. My bare feet slapped against the cold ground as I moved faster, the sound of his growl behind me, the scrape of boots chasing close.
You know what hurts the most?
It’s not that he didn’t love me. It’s that he pretended to. Rio. Oscar. Same story.
They said all the right words, touched all the right places, looked at me like I was the only thing that ever made sense, and I believed it. God, I believed it. But I was just a distraction. A fragile, bleeding heart they could press their thumbs into, just to see how deep I could break. I was a story they told themselves for a while, maybe even a game they played until it stopped being fun.
