The glass spiderwebs under his fists, cracks spreading outward in complex patterns. His knuckles are bleeding, skin split open, blood smearing across the glass with each hit. But he doesn't stop. Doesn't seem to feel the pain or notice the damage.
I'm frozen, shocked by the intensity of his reaction.
Erion moves toward Artan with quick steps. "Vëlla, stop. You're hurting yourself."
Lily stands abruptly.
"Lily, don't," Erion warns, genuine fear in his voice now.
She shakes him off with surprising strength. Keeps moving forward with determination.
She approaches Artan from behind, not hesitating despite the violence radiating from him. Wraps her arms around his torso from behind. Pins his arms to his sides with her smaller frame, using her whole body to restrain him. Holds him with everything she has.
He struggles for a moment, muscles tensing, trying to break free to continue his assault on the window. Then suddenly goes completely still, recognizing her touch even through his fury.
"She didn't leave," Lily murmurs against his back. Her voice is soft but clear, cutting through the chaos. "Artan, listen to me.She didn't leave you. She didn't abandon you. She was stolen from you. It wasn't her choice."
Artan's knees buckle like strings have been cut.
Lily holds him as they both sink to the floor together, her arms never loosening, her body becoming his anchor to reality.
"She didn't leave you," Lily repeats, the words becoming a mantra, a prayer. "She chose you."
Over and over. The same truth delivered with gentle insistence until it can penetrate the grief.
37
LILY
We're all still in Luan's living room, trying to gather the pieces that the emotional explosion left scattered across the polished floor like shrapnel from a bomb.
Artan sits on the sofa, his large frame hunched forward, elbows resting on his knees. Staring at nothing. In shock that's written across every line of his body.
I'm kneeling in front of him on the hardwood, tending to his hands with careful movements. The cuts are deep, skin split open across his knuckles where they connected with glass again and again. Blood still seeps from the wounds, dark red against his olive skin. I clean them carefully with a damp cloth, dabbing at the damage, trying to be gentle even though I know it must hurt.
Behind me, Luan paces. Back and forth across the length of the room. His footsteps heavy, deliberate, each one a punctuationmark of barely contained fury. The energy radiating from him is violent, dangerous, like he's holding himself back from putting his own fist through a wall.
I understand them better now. The truth has stripped away the mystery, the careful distance I'd been maintaining. I can't say I approve of what they did. Killing someone, even someone evil, even someone who deserved it by any measure of justice, is still killing. Still murder. Still a line most people never cross.
But I didn't have their upbringing. Didn't grow up with violence as a constant companion. Didn't suffer what they suffered, didn't watch people I love be destroyed by someone who should have protected them.
And still, even with my comfortable middle-class background and my general belief in law and order, I feel a murderous rage toward this man I'm grateful I never knew. Toward Luan's father who trafficked children and murdered his own daughter and beat his son bloody for years.
If he were alive, I'd want him dead too.
Erion breaks the silence. His voice cuts through the quiet like a knife, sharp and sudden.
"It wasn't in cold blood."
We all stop. Freeze mid-motion. Look at him standing by the window with his arms crossed, his pale blue eyes intense.
Trying to understand what he's saying.
He speaks again, clearer this time, his words deliberate. "It wasn't in cold blood. Luan, didn't murder his father in cold blood."
Erion pauses. Looks directly at Luan with an expression I can't quite read.
"When he killed him, he was holding the wife of a rival family hostage. Had a gun pressed to her temple. She was innocent. Killing him was the only way to save her life."
