CHAPTER ONE
Vittoria
The hallway stretches ahead of me, familiar and suffocating all at once. Everyone's retreated to their corners of the compound. Pietro to his office, Lorenzo somewhere with Sophia, Nico vanished like smoke the second the meeting ended.
And me? I'm heading to my room to do what I always do.
Work. Code. Pretend the world outside these walls doesn't exist.
My phone buzzes in my hand.
I glance down, expecting another security alert or maybe Mamma asking if I've eaten. Instead, Amanda's name lights up the screen with a text that makes me stop dead in my tracks.
Amanda:Babe. Nexus tonight. You in?
I stare at the message like it's written in a foreign language.
Nexus. The club everyone's been talking about for... how long now? Two years? Three? It opened right around the time my world collapsed, when Riccardo's blood was still fresh and I couldn't breathe without feeling like my lungs were filled with glass.
I never went.
When was the last time I went to a club?
I scroll through my mental calendar, searching for the last time I dressed up for something that wasn't a family obligation. The last time I danced. The last time I let myself be young and stupid and alive.
Nothing. A blank space where memories should be.
Two years of funeral and grief and burying myself in code because at least algorithms make sense. At least firewalls don't betray you. At least security systems don't die and leave you hollow.
My thumb hovers over the keyboard.
Say no. You always say no. It's easier that way.
But something shifts in my mind. Something rebellious and tired and desperate for anything that isn't this. The same walls. The same grief. The same careful distance from everything that might make me feel.
I type before I can talk myself out of it.
Vittoria:Why not.
Send.
The three dots appear immediately. Then disappear.
My phone rings.
"Okay, who are you and what have you done with Vittoria Sartori?" Amanda's voice explodes through the speaker before I can even say hello.
A laugh bubbles out of me. "What? I can't say yes to a night out?"
"Babe, you haven't said yes toanythingin two years. I've been asking you to come out every single weekend and you always have an excuse. Work. Family stuff. 'I'm tired, Amanda.'" She mimics my voice, high-pitched and dramatic. "Are you dying? Is this a bucket list thing? Oh my God, are youpregnant?"
"Dio mio, Amanda." I press my free hand to my forehead, still laughing. "I'm not dying. I'm not pregnant. I just?—"
I pause, leaning against the cold wall of the hallway.
"I need this," I admit, and the words feel like pulling teeth. "I need a night out. I need to do something stupid and dance and not think about?—"
Death. Grief. The curse. The suffocating weight of loving people who will inevitably leave me.
