Amber is in the kitchen when I step inside, wrapped in one of my shirts, hair loose and wild like she hasn’t decided what kind of morning this is yet. She looks up when she hears me, eyes narrowing immediately.
“You look like hell,” she says.
I shrug out of my jacket, aware of the dried blood at my cuff, the faint ache blooming in my shoulder. “I’ve had worse days.”
She studies me for a moment longer, then her gaze drops to the smirk I haven’t managed to shake.
“What?” she asks, gaze narrowing.
I walk past her and pour a glass of water, down half of it in one go, then set it aside.
“How would you like to go see Rose?”
19
AMBER
The hospital smells like disinfectant and coffee that’s been sitting on a hot plate too long.
I hate hospitals. Always have. Too many bad conversations happen in places like this. Too many people waiting for answers that don’t come.
Giovanni walks beside me, close but not crowding, one hand light at the small of my back when we stop at the nurses’ station. It’s grounding. I let him guide me down the hall, past doors half-open and curtains drawn, until we stop in front of a room with Rose’s name on it.
My heart kicks painfully against my ribs.
She’s sitting up in bed when I step inside. Pale, wrapped in white sheets, hair pulled back in a messy knot. There’s a faint bruise along her jaw, another blooming at her wrist.
She’s alive.
The relief hits me so hard my knees almost buckle.
“Hey,” she says, softly.
I cross the room in three steps and pull her into a careful hug, mindful of the IV and the bandages. She hugs me back anyway, arms tight, stubborn as always.
“I scared you,” she says.
“You think?” I choke out, and then I’m laughing and crying at the same time. “You’re an idiot.”
She smiles, tired but real. “I’m sorry. Matteo said it was dangerous to tell anyone anything. I didn’t want you to get hurt”
“As you can tell, I’m not hurt.” I can’t bring myself to be mad. I get it. After what happened in my own apartment, how could I not? “Now you’re going to tell me everything and put my poor heart at ease.”
For once, Rose agrees.
She tells me about her past. About being the girl named Brooklyn Lark, who went missing after her family announced her engagement to Anton Pavlov. I remember reading about it in the papers and thinking it could be connected to Coral, but after the cops waved me off again, there wasn’t much I could do. I felt for the girl, but I told myself that maybe this time, it wasn’t some man who took her. Maybe this time, the girl had fled and was free.
Turns out, she was. Right by my side.
She tells me about Matteo. How kind he was to her, how love bloomed before either of them knew it. He lost his mind and tore half the city apart to get her back. And in the end, he did get her back.
But not before my best friend decided to poison herself to give Anton the goddamn kiss of death.
My jaw keeps dropping lower with every sentence.
“You’re kidding,” I say, for at least the fifth time.
“I wish,” Rose replies dryly.
