She just stands there and bleeds quietly inside her skin while my past and my future tear each other apart.
I step closer.
“Guido. Look at me.”
He flinches.
Just a flinch.
Enough.
“She hasn’t hurt me,” I say. “Not once. Not ever. She’s the only reason I’m not dead in a concrete box right now.”
He looks at her again.
Confused.
Fractured.
Too young to hold grief and truth at the fucking same time.
Giovanni’s voice is still louder than mine.
Something caves in on his face.
He whispers it then—the sentence I will carry to my grave.
“He said you’d choose her over us.”
I swallow blood.
“I choose you every day,” I say.
It isn’t true anymore.
And he hears it.
He steps back.
Heel catches stone.
Fear detonates.
I lift my hand.
Not to grab.To stop.
“Guido—don’t—”
He turns and runs.
Boots slapping wildly into the dark.
A kid fleeing from the ghost his father left behind.
“Guido!” I shout—lunging—
But he’s gone.
