Gone now. All of it.
I let the empty bottle roll from my fingers onto the floor. It doesn't break. Just spins in a slow circle until it comes to rest against the leg of my nightstand.
The cigarette has burned down to the filter. I crush it out on the expensive wood of my bedside table. Let it leave a mark. Let it remind me.
My phone buzzes again. I ignore it.
Outside, the sky has gone dark. Stars are coming out, one by one, like witnesses to my destruction.
I close my eyes and let the whiskey drag me under.
"Nico!"
Vittoria's voice comes from somewhere far away. Another planet, maybe. Another lifetime.
"Oh my God. Oh my God, there's blood everywhere."
I want to tell her it's fine. The blood isn't from anywhere important. Just my hand. Just glass. Just stupidity made visible.
But my eyes won't open. My mouth won't move. Everything feels wrapped in cotton and whiskey, soft and distant and wonderfully numb.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Kristen
The phone sits on my kitchen counter like a grenade with a pulled pin.
Seven days since I walked out of the Sartori compound with a sad Lily in my arms and a hole in my chest the size of Lake Michigan. Seven nights of crying into my pillow after she falls asleep, muffling the sounds so she doesn't hear her mother falling apart.
I've put this off long enough.
My finger hovers over Pietro's number.
Just do it, Kristen. Rip off the bandage.
I hit call before I can talk myself out of it again.
"Mrs. Thomas." Pietro's voice is calm, professional. "I wondered when you'd call."
"I need to discuss the debt." The words come out steadier than I feel. My free hand grips the edge of the counter hard enough to turn my knuckles white. "The hundred and forty thousand. I want to set up a payment plan."
Silence stretches across the line.
"I can do fifteen hundred a month," I continue, because silence makes me ramble. It always has. "It'll take years, I know, but I'll pay back every cent. I just need?—"
"No."
"Excuse me?"
"Every payment you attempt will be returned to your account within twenty-four hours." Pietro's tone doesn't shift. Completely matter-of-fact. "The family won't accept a penny. That decision was made the moment you saved my mother's life."
"That's not—I can't just—" My voice cracks. Dammit. I press my palm against my eye socket, pushing back the burn of tears I refuse to shed. Not now. Not on this call. "Pietro, I need to pay this back."
"Why?"
The question catches me off guard. "Because I owe it."
"You owe us nothing." A pause. "If anything, we owe you. And not just for Aria."
