The crowd spilled out like floodwater, chattering, gasping—anxious voices blending into one. I stood frozen at the garden’s edge, naked, swaddled in the shadows of a man who should not exist.
Their eyes began to turn.
Toward me.
Whispers swept through the group like smoke. I could feel their stares—heavy, questioning, some accusatory.
And then?—
A procession of men emerged from the barn, solemn and pale, carrying a limp figure in their arms.
Tomaso.
His lifeless form was cradled gently as if he could still feel it.
His head lolled to one side, his eyes unblinking, staring skyward as if searching for something beyond reach.
I stood frozen, unable to move, barely able to breathe.
Grief crashed into me, raw and merciless. My vision blurred, and my chest convulsed with a silent cry.
Gone.
His laughter, touch, and warmth ripped away in one brutal night.
Tears streamed down my cheeks, hot and unrelenting. I pressed my palm to my chest as if I could hold the splintered pieces of my heart together—fragile shards of love, loss, and guilt.
In just days, I had lost two men.
Two hearts that had touched mine.
One with fire.
One with innocence.
And now, the world around me was collapsing into silence and whispers.
The crowd stared—stiff and murmuring, exchanging glances of suspicion and veiled disgust. Their pity was tinged with poison. Their silence was louder than screams.
They knew.
Or they thought they did.
Francesco’s curse echoed in my mind like a prophecy fulfilled.
I was doomed.
Marked.
Rotting with sins, I could not undo.
A voice rang out—clear and furious.
Maria.
Tomaso’s mother.
She stepped forward from the crowd, her eyes burning with grief and vengeance.
