I thought I’d never see him again. I thought he’d let me die down here, but I was so wrong.
His body moves away from me without warning, followed quickly by the horrific squishing sound of the knife puncturing whoever wandered into our cell. That coppery smell floods the area again, and I’m surprised with myself at the fact that I’m not about to pass out. Either fight or flight is taking care of that, or simply not being able to see the blood is helping me.
Or maybe it’s just having him close by.
“Is that it?” Nick asks, followed quickly by someone asking the same question in Italian.
A sense of calm enters the room as Alessandro helps me stand up. “I’m getting her out of here and letting them know to turn the lights back on. The rest of you, make sure there aren’t any survivors.”
He scoops me off my feet. I loop my arms around his neck, trying not to sob at the sudden relief of everything being over—the miscommunication with my family, this horrible attempt at overthrowing him.
“Wait, wait,” Max’s voice calls from across the dungeon. “Is she okay?”
“I’m fine,” I answer. A hand claps my shoulder, startling me.
“She can’t see,” Alessandro growls.
“Sorry.” I recognize Nick’s voice; he must be standing right next to us, and I didn’t realize.
“One of them is still alive!” a voice I don’t recognize shouts, followed by more sounds of killing.
The grip I have around Alessandro tightens as he hurries me up the stairs.
The lights are turned off in the hallway leading up to the dungeon, but it’s not as dark, and I can see Alessandro now. He rips off the night-vision goggles while still holding me with one arm.
“I can walk, you know.”
“Don’t care.”
He smiles down at me, but he looks like he’s on the verge of tears. I’ve never seen him like this before.
“You okay?”
“Yes,” he scoffs. “Why are you the one asking that question? Are you okay? Tell me what they did to you.”
“Nothing much.” Even I’m not convinced by that with how weak my voice sounds. “They hit me, but I was more scared than anything. And I thought that… Max and Nick convinced me that… you didn’t actually love me, and I was worried you weren’t going to come help me.”
He sets me down, lifting my chin up to look him in the eyes. Alessandro has a knack for looking tortured and intense, but his current expression is so extreme it nearly makes my knees buckle. “I love you. I regret not telling you sooner because of that mind-fuck of an afternoon we just had. But I can promise you that nothing like that is ever going to happen again. And if I’m wrong, then you will sit there and wait without a doubt in your mind that I will come for you.”
“I love you too.” I stand on my tiptoes to kiss him. “So much.”
I fall back on my heels, gripping his arms so that I stay supported. He must be able to sense how physically weak I feel from all of that and scoops me up again to continue walking. I feel his love radiating from him.
“Max and Nick messed with my head so much, trying to convince me you manipulated me and didn’t love me.”
“From their perspective, it makes sense. I made your family think that we seriously harmed you before we made up in the gym, and I was too cowardly to deal with that. I just wanted to be with you and ignore the drama with them. I’m so sorry, Sofia.” He tightens his grip on me. “I saw you in the hallway, laughing with your family and then guiding them out of the castle—”
“That was because—”
“They explained. I know you didn’t want to go with them. Either way, the thought of you leaving me broke me in a way I never thought possible.”
I think about how he must have felt in that moment. Just finding out that his sister isn’t who he thought she was and thinking that I manipulated him so that I could escape. I was tied up and thought I was going to die, but I’m not sure that I had it worse.
I still have my family, but he lost the only family member he truly had.
“I’m sorry you had to see that. And I’m sorry about what happened with Elena.”
He forces a tight smile—he still has a problem with my ‘pitying’ him. But it’s improving. Slowly.
