Guilt coils low in my stomach.I drag a hand over my face, trying to rub the tension from my skin, trying to find the right version of myself to give her.
I turn back to her.“Yeah,” I say, the lie catching rough in my throat.“It’s fine.”
She doesn’t believe me.Emery has always been able to see straight through my bullshit, cut through the lies, all the shit I tell myself to survive.
Her hand slides across the sheet, fingers brushing my thigh like she’s trying to pull me back from whatever dark place I was about to let swallow me whole.
"Come back to bed," she whispers, voice soft but steady, eyes locked onto mine."Come back to me."
And fuck… there’s something in the way she says it.Like I belong there, with her.Not out there chasing the man who lit this hell inside me.Just here.Just her.
I crawl back in without a word, slipping under the sheet and dragging her into me like if I let go, she’ll vanish.
She tucks herself against my chest.Her fingers brushing over my ribs.
I hold her tight, because she’s the only thing keeping me tethered to this fucked-up world.I breathe her in.Her warmth, her scent, the way her body molds against mine as if we were built to fit.My hand drifts down her back, tracing every soft line, committing her to memory all over again.And for one reckless second, I let myself believe this might actually last.That somehow, against every fucked-up thing chasing us, we might still find a way to survive.
But it won’t.Not unless we do something.Now.
I pull back just enough to see her face.To look into those sleepy, beautiful eyes.The ones that still manage to see the best in me even when I’m drowning in the worst.
"We need to come up with a plan," I murmur, my voice low, threading into the dark between us."No more waiting for them to show up.No more staying on the back foot, waiting to get fucked.”
She blinks up at me, waking up a little more, the haze clearing from her gaze.
"We have to get out in front of this, Em," I say, brushing my thumb along her jaw, needing the contact, needing her to feel the weight of what I’m saying."Control it before it controls us.Before he makes the next move and we’re left scrambling to survive it."
She’s fully awake now, her body going still against mine.
"If we wait," I add, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, my fingers lingering against her skin, "he’ll use it.Use you.Use me.He’ll turn us into fucking pawns in a war we never asked to fight."
She’s quiet for a moment, staring down at the sheets pooled around her waist like maybe the answers are written there if she just looks hard enough.
When she finally speaks, her voice is soft, uncertain.Not weak.Just wounded.
"I don’t get it," she whispers."Why would my father do that?"
I shift beside her, watching the way her brow furrows, the way her fingers twist the sheets like she’s trying to hold onto something solid while everything else falls apart.
"He knew what your father was capable of, Matteo.He knew the second he gave me up, I’d either end up dead...or used.So what the fuck did he think was going to happen?"
I don’t answer.I just let her speak.Because she deserves that.
Because if anyone’s earned the right to tear this open, it’s her.
"He sold me out to save his own skin," she says, voice harder now, sharper, the numbness finally cracking to show the rage underneath."But what was the endgame?Did he really think your father was just gonna forgive him?Take the trade and let him walk free."
She looks up at me.Her eyes are shining, but they’re fierce.Confused.Hurt.
"What did he think he was buying with my life, Matteo?"she asks, her voice cracking right down the middle.
"Time?Safety?Another chance to crawl back into your father's good books and pretend he hadn’t fucking betrayed him?"
I reach for her hand, but she doesn’t take it right away.Just stares at it first, then lifts her eyes to mine.
"I just want to know why," she breathes, slipping her hand into mine."Why was I the sacrifice?Why not run?Why not fight?Why not anything but that?"
"Because he was a fucking coward," I say quietly."Because when my father came looking for blood, yours didn’t have the balls to bleed for what he caused.So he gave you up instead."
