It’s all fantasy, isn’t it? Beautiful, impossible fantasy. Carlo would never agree to it. He has a life, a business, responsibilities. He can’t just disappear into the wilderness with his unstable captor, no matter how much I love him.
If I unchain him, he’ll run awayfromme, not with me. I’ll never see him again. He might even tell my parents so they lock me up to stop from abducting anyone else. Not that I would. Carlo is the only one I’d ever steal. He’s the only man for me.
The tears are coming faster now, hot and desperate and full of years of accumulated pain. This is how it ends. Not with running off into the sunset. Not with the beautiful second wedding and the house in Hampstead and the children with dark hair and blue eyes. Not with anniversary parties and growing old together and becoming legends of romantic devotion.
This is how it ends. With my parents finding us, with Carlo being taken away, with me being locked up somewhere I’ll never see sunlight again.
That’s what is about to happen if I don’t take action.
I suck in a deep, shaky breath.
There really is no other option. No Choice. Because a tragic ending, is the right ending. It’s preordained. Destiny. The way things are meant to be.
The certainty creeps in quietly, almost whispered, like something dangerous trying not to be noticed. But once it’s there, it grows stronger, more insistent, more beautiful in its terrible simplicity.
I shouldn’t fight the truth.
They can’t separate us if we’re dead.
I stop crying, stop shaking, stop moving entirely. The laptop screen blurs in front of me as acceptance settles into my bones. The solution is perfect and terrifying and absolutely logical.
Romeo and Juliet. Star-crossed lovers whose families could never accept their love. Two people so devoted to each other that death seemed preferable to separation. The most beautiful, most romantic, most tragic love story ever told.
And they died together. In each other’s arms. United for eternity while their feuding families wept over what their hatred had cost.
My hands are steady now as I close the laptop and push it away. This could work. This could actually work.
Not violence. Not pain. Just... sleep. Peaceful, eternal sleep in each other’s arms while my family realizes too late what their cruelty has cost them. They’d find us here, beautiful and serene, and finally understand that what we had was real, was precious, was worth dying for.
They’d never be able to hurt us again. Never be able to separate us or shame us or try to change us into something we’renot. We’d be together forever, exactly as we are, exactly as we’re meant to be.
I know where Papa keeps his sleeping pills. The strong ones, the ones the doctor prescribed after his heart attack last year. He never uses them, says they make him groggy the next day. There are probably dozens of them, more than enough for both of us.
We can have a beautiful last meal together. Something perfect, something that tastes like love and devotion and everything we’ve shared. Wine, candlelight, soft music. I could tell Carlo how much he means to me, how grateful I am for every moment we’ve had together.
Then we could lie down together, hold each other close, and simply... go to sleep.
The vision is so beautiful it makes my chest ache. Carlo’s arms around me, my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow and stop while mine does the same. No more fear, no more pain, no more families who can’t understand that love is love regardless of what form it takes.
Just peace. Perfect, eternal peace.
I’m already moving toward the stairs before I fully realize I’ve decided. My feet are silent on the hard floor, my breathing steady for the first time all day. This is right. This is the answer I’ve been searching for. I didn’t need to try to think of something else.
Papa’s study is exactly as he left it, all dark wood and leather and the lingering smell of expensive cigars. The sleeping pills are in the bottom drawer of his desk, hidden behind files and documents like he’s ashamed of needing help to rest.
The bottle is nearly full. More than enough for what I need.
I slip it into my pocket and head back downstairs, my heart truly calm and sure for the first time since Mama called. No more panic, no more desperate planning, no more impossible fantasies about futures that can never exist.
Just one last perfect evening with the man I love more than life itself.
Then we’ll sleep, and dream, and never have to wake up to a world that wants to tear us apart.
They’ll find us tomorrow when they come home. Beautiful and peaceful and finally, eternally together.
And maybe, finally, they’ll understand what love really means.
Chapter thirty-one
