"Please don’t fight me on this." He reaches out and pulls me into a hug and I collapse against him, crying into his shoulder. "You have to go. Just for a little while. Until things settle."
I cry against him and he holds me and neither of us says anything else because there's nothing left to say.
The decision is made.
I'm leaving tomorrow.
Leaving this house, this city, this country.
Leaving the place where Enzo might come back looking for me.
And I don't have any choice in it at all.
They pack my things later that night.
I sit on my bed, watching Alessia and Bianca fold clothes into a suitcase, I feel nothing, just empty, hollowed out, watching my life get dismantled and put into luggage.
"How long will I be gone?" I ask quietly.
"I don't know." Alessia's voice is gentle. "As long as it takes for things to calm down here."
"What if he comes back while I'm gone?"
She stops folding and looks at me. "Who?"
"Enzo." His name hurts to say out loud. "What if he comes back looking for me and I'm not here?"
"Then Matteo will tell him where you are." Bianca says.
"Will he though?" I look at her directly. "After everything? Will Matteo really tell Enzo where I am?"
She doesn't answer and her silence is answer enough.
I lie back on the bed and stare at the ceiling and listen to her pack and I think about tomorrow, about getting on a plane, about flying away from the only place that matters.
About leaving without saying goodbye.
About going somewhere Enzo can't find me even if he tries.
The tears come again and I let them because there's no point fighting anymore.
Everything is falling apart and I can't stop it.
All I can do is leave.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Ihear about it from Rafael.
"She's gone," he says. "Matteo sent her to Europe. Left this morning."
My whole world stops.
I'm sitting in a motel room forty minutes outside the city, the same room I've been in for three days, staring at walls and trying to figure out how to fix this, how to get back to her, how to make Matteo understand.
And now she's… gone?
"When did he decide this?" My voice comes out flat and dead.
