Because of me.
Because I had pushed. Because I had insisted on coming—and now he was paying for it.
A weight settled heavily in my chest.
Guilt.
Sharp. Persistent.
Vincenzo had ordered him locked away for seven days.
Yesterday marked the end of that sentence.
Which meant today—Renzo should have been standing at the front of the classroom, leading his session from 10:00 to 11:00.
Close-quarters knife work.
Yet when the hour came... it wasn’t him who stepped up to the podium.
It was a replacement. A senior soldier.
I had been replaying the moment Ciro dragged Renzo away in my mind over and over again—his grip iron-tight, almost malicious, clamped around Renzo’s arm.
The way Renzo didn’t resist.
Didn’t fight. Didn’t say a single word.
The guilt in my chest pressed heavier with every passing second.
I had tried—carefully—to ask Ciro how Renzo had been during the week.
But he refused to comment on anything involving Renzo.
Lately, though... I noticed him watching me more often than necessary.
A fleeting glance at first, then longer, deliberate stares.
I wondered if it was part of some new task Vincenzo had given him.
My eyes met his more than once—while cooking, while arranging the supply room, while carrying water from the well, while cleaning the training weapons—and each time, he did not look away.
Not once.
The fact that no one would tell me about Renzo gnawed at me.
It was frustrating.
Painful.
I could only hope he was still alive in that cell.
That he had not been broken completely.
Because if anything had happened to him... I don’t think I would ever forgive myself.
A lifetime of guilt would consume me.
I exhaled slowly, forcing my lungs to cooperate, forcing my mind to slow, to steady.
