It wasn’t locked. Just barely closed.
A thin crack showed a sliver of the room beyond.
I stayed a step back, arms pinned to my sides so I wouldn’t brush the door by accident and give myself away.
“I don’t know how to handle this now,” Enrico said, this time almost a whisper. “How am I supposed to look at her after everything I did?”
His tone was… stripped. Raw. Unarmed.
For the first time since our reunion, I heard a trace of the man I had once fallen in love with.
Except the sound coming through that crack hurt in a way I wasn’t prepared for—like Enrico was suffering just saying the words.
My heart began to pound, hard and fast, as I tilted my head slightly, drawn in by the distress in his voice.
“You have to tell her the truth, Enrico,” André answered calmly, in a normal voice—as if refusing to mirror his brother’swhisper. “Valentina deserves to know you’ve found out. It’s the least you can do.”
Wait.
They were talking… about me?
A heavy pause hung in the air.
My breathing turned shallow, tight.
Truth?
What truth had Enrico found? What truth did he need to tell me?
Cold swept over my skin as my mind fired through possibilities like sparks.
Had he—somehow—finally understood I was innocent? That I had never betrayed him?
No.
No, that was impossible.
If it were that, he wouldn’t sound so torn apart.
…Would he?
My hands started to tremble as I tried to assemble the pieces of a puzzle I hadn’t known existed.
Hope—sharp, painful hope—pressed against the caution I had spent years forcing into my bones.
I couldn’t allow myself to believe he’d discovered the truth and regretted what he did.
That kind of hope was dangerous.
But then why did André sound so certain? Why did he sound like this was clear and undeniable?
What had Enrico found that justified the hesitation in his voice?
A wave of vulnerability crashed through me. An overwhelming urge to step into that room and demand answers.
And still, I stayed frozen—paralyzed by the fear that the answer might be more devastating than I could survive.
“I can’t do this right now,” Enrico whispered. His voice shook. “I don’t even know how to act around her after this. Maybe it’s better to keep it quiet for now.”
