He hesitated. “Isn’t that where those two boys—and Bianca—are?”
“Exactly,” I replied.
A pause.
Then he smirked faintly. “So... you’re making friends already?”
There was something in his tone.
Caution. Disapproval.
Maybe even concern.
“Shouldn’t I?” I asked.
“No.”
The answer was immediate.
“You can’t make friends here.”
His voice dropped, firming. “It’s too dangerous.”
He gestured slightly toward the halls.
“Half these trainees are plants. Spies for rival families. Informants for the Spanish rebels.”
A beat.
“The Spanish have a bounty on your head, and anyone here would take any chance to hand you over. Focus on your training—your one year. Make us proud. Survive. Be one of the few who makes it to the end.”
Something inside me tightened.
“Isolated in every single way. I can’t make friends anywhere. Is this how I’m supposed to keep living?”
I scoffed, sharp and bitter.
I nodded, though it pained me.
“Understood. But Ciro... I truly thought you were the only kind one among you, Renzo, and Vincenzo. Yet the way you struck me with the baton that day I went on that mission with Renzo—it wasn’t natural. It felt... like a crusade against me. You would have hit me again if Vincenzo hadn’t stopped you. What changed? Do you hate me now too?”
He studied me for a long moment.
Something flickered in his eyes.
“I never hated you,” Ciro said evenly. “And I never will. In fact, I... I—” He paused, swallowed hard, and looked away, eyes distant for a long moment. “L
“Never mind.”
Then he shifted the subject. “I hope you understand... the child Violet is carrying is not Vincenzo’s.”
The words landed like stones, suspended in the air between us.
My brows knitted tightly.
“I refuse to believe that. Violet is carrying his child. There’s no reason to lie to me.”
His jaw flexed once.
