And knowing Giovanni, he would.
My lungs scream as I slow despite myself, chest heaving, heart slamming so hard it hurts. I glance sideways and catch familiar faces staring at me like I’ve lost my mind.
Marcel, standing outside the bar, towel slung over his shoulder.
Jax, frozen mid-step and next to him, Naomi, hand pressed to her mouth. Jam Jam Sid from the record shop down the road.
People I know. People I trust. All standing there, watching me perform my chicken-with-its-head-cut-off routine.
“Lucy!” Marcel shouts. “Hey—are you okay, girl?”
The sound of my borrowed name hits like a punch.
Lucy.
The lie I’ve been living in cracks wide open and spills secrets I know deep in my bones I can’t put back into a box.
Slowing down a bit more, I look back down the beach.
Giovanni has turned slightly now, gaze slicing towards Marcel, sharp and assessing. A warning without words. Marcel falters under it, confusion giving way to instinctive, frowning caution, mixed with concern.
Then Giovanni’s eyes find me again.
Always me. Like he promised he always would. That reminder, that sex-and-death-laced threat ricochetting in my head, drives a second wind into me.
And I run.
Keep running.
Can’t… won’t stop.
I veer hard away from the beach, darting between two pastel houses so close together my shoulder clips a wall. Gravel bites into my feet. A man steps out of the shadows ahead, one of Giovanni’s, but I pivot instinctively, changing direction.
The man moves. Then freezes, his eyes darting over my shoulder.
I glance back.
To see Giovanni has lifted one hand.
Just that.
And the entire world seems to pause as he watches me.
There’s no shouting and no pursuit. Just bodies stilled mid-motion, watching as he taunts me with that hand, daring me to show him my next move or keep running.
As if this, this frantic flight, is something he’s allowing.
A test. Or worse.
The sun sinks lower, bleeding gold and bruised purple across the sky. Shadows stretch and tangle, lengthening around me like fingers reaching to pull me back.
I turn my back on Giovanni and his men and I keep running. Until my lungs burn. Until my calves scream and my feet throb, raw and aching.
I’m barefoot and the stickiness between my toes tells me I’m bleeding. Stupid. He’s going to scold me for this later.
The thought lands unbidden and I nearly sob as I hobble to a stop, lean back against a damp wall and try to catch my breath. To marshal my thoughts, even though I know I have very few options.
The most glaring one? Ican’tgo home.
