“You planning to explain?”
“No.”
He sighs. “You know, for someone who’s supposed to be the calm one, you’ve been real unpredictable lately.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not. You’re cracking. I can hear it.”
I don’t respond.
“You know what your problem is?” he continues. “You started to care. You let her in. And now she’s leaving and you don’t know what to do with yourself.”
“Enough.”
“You should thank me,” he says, ignoring me completely. “In forty-eight hours, this whole thing will be over. You’ll be free.”
I hang up.
The silence that follows feels heavier than before.
Free.That’s what this is supposed to be.
Except it doesn’t feel like freedom. It feels like loss.
And I don’t lose. Not people. Not control. Not myself.
I take another drink and stare out the window again. She’s somewhere in this house. Probably pacing, probably angry, probably hurting because I made her. And I know I should let her. Let her hate me enough that leaving feels like relief.
But part of me wants to walk down that hallway, knock on her door, and tell her the truth. Tell her that it wasn’t indifference that made me cold. It was fear. That every time I looked at her, I saw a future I couldn’t afford to want.
And that the worst part of all this isn’t losing her. It’s knowing she’ll never know why.
41
NICOLO
I’m in the library, where the air still smells like leather, dust, and rain-soaked stone. The fire’s burned down to embers, the light low, orange, and unsteady. There’s a half-empty bottle of vodka on the table beside me, condensation running slowly down the glass like time refusing to move.
I’ve been sitting here for hours. Not reading. Not thinking. Just breathing. If you can call this breathing.
This is what happens when you let yourself believe in something more than control, even for a second. It rots the edges. Makes you hesitate. And hesitation gets you killed in my world.
It’s ironic. I’ve survived gunfire, betrayal, and men with knives to my throat. But one girl—one stubborn, reckless girl with eyes too bright for her own good—has managed to take me apart without even trying.
I pour another drink. The burn feels clean. If I drink enough, maybe it’ll scrape her out of me.
The door opens. She doesn’t knock. Of course she doesn’t.
Her reflection catches in the window before I turn. Bare feet, hair loose, wearing that same soft gray sweater she favorswhen she can’t sleep. Duchess trails behind her, tail flicking, unimpressed as always.
“Mara.” My voice sounds rougher than I intend. “You should be in bed.”
“So should you,” she says quietly, stepping further into the room.
I don’t answer. She closes the door behind her, the latch clicking into place—a soft sound, but it cuts straight through the stillness. The silence stretches until it feels like something alive between us.
She crosses her arms. “You’re just going to sit here and drink until I leave?”
