I try to open my eyes, but my lids are too heavy. Everything is engulfed in darkness, like I’m standing in a pitch-black room. Sounds reach me as if I’m underwater, sounding muffled, distorted, impossible to pin down.
A gunshot. Was that real? Or a memory?
Nero’s face exploding in a spray of red. The weight of the gun in my hand. Nevaeh’s voice screaming my name.
Then nothing.
Then…
Movement.
I’m moving, but I’m not walking. The world rocks beneath me; what sounds like a car engine rumbling somewhere close. The scents of leather and blood fill my nose.
My blood. A shit ton of it.
I want to speak, but my lips don’t move. My tongue is lead in my mouth.
There’s a hand gripping mine—small, delicate, trembling.
Nevaeh? Mia bella ballerina.
“Stay with me,” she whispers through the fog. “Please, Cael. Just stay with me.”
I want to tell her I’m trying. That I’m fighting with everything I have. But the darkness pulls me under again, and I sink into it like a stone.
When I surface, there are lights.
Harsh, artificial lights that burn my retinas. I flinch away from them—or do my best to—but my body won’t obey. I’m paralyzed, weighed down to the bed I’m lying in.
“He’s lost a considerable amount of blood,” comes a male voice.
“I don’t care what it takes! You have to save him. Please. He can’t die. He can’t?—”
The second voice breaks off into sobs. I recognize them immediately as Nevaeh’s. She’s sobbing at my bedside, the anguish so deep and poignant it tears through my chest worse than any bullet.
I need to reach for her. Tell her I’m still here. Still fighting.
But the pain surges up like a tidal wave, dragging me under again.
I fade to black, losing consciousness.
This time, the darkness eventually takes shape.
I’m in a room thick with cigar smoke that’s rich and earthy. It hangs in the air like fog, obscuring the faces of the men around me. But I can hear them talking, their voices low and conspiratorial.
There’s a stage in front of us, lit by soft silvery lights. Ballerinas spin and twirl to twinkling music.
They part like a wave in the ocean, making way for the prima ballerina. The star of their dance.
She’s… breathtaking.
Unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.
Her skin is smooth dark brown, gleaming like polished mahogany under the lights. Her hair—black as onyx, darker than midnight—is pulled back in a sleek bun that shows the elegant line of her neck.
She spins in perfect pirouettes, her movements so graceful she seems to defy gravity itself.
I can’t look away. Even as the voices around me grow louder, more distinct, I’m transfixed by this beautiful creature spinning and leaping across the stage.
