His throat moved as he swallowed.
He nodded once, but didn’t speak again.
Renzo crouched a few feet away—close enough that his body broke the worst of the wind cutting across the ridge.
His posture was careful.
Like everything else about him.
The air itself felt wrong—thick, metallic, charged with the kind of silence that came just before violence.
Even the wind seemed hesitant, as if the sky was holding its breath.
Renzo’s voice came quiet, edged with something that didn’t quite match his usual restraint.
“I did not believe you struck Violet,” he said. “That you made her bleed, as she claimed.”
My throat tightened, but I didn’t look at him.
He continued, slower now, each word weighed before it left his mouth.
“I checked the camera feed,” he said, voice sharp. “It’s completely wiped. The techs call it a glitch, but it’s too convenient. I think she’s setting you up—and it’s working.”
It’s obvious she’s laying a trap.
Yet Vincenzo’s hatred is so thick he refuses to think rationally.
To him, logic doesn’t exist. Only what his mistress says matters.
My fingers curled slightly against the rough stone, nails scraping against the surface as another wave of pain rippled through my knees.
Blood had already begun to pool beneath me—dark, sticky, seeping into the jagged limestone like the ground was drinking it in.
I stared at it because it was easier than looking at Renzo.
The sky rumbled faintly in the distance, like a warning that hadn’t fully decided whether to become a storm.
My voice came out thin, scraped raw by cold and restraint.
“This hurts... so bad,” I groaned, every nerve on fire.
The words felt like surrender, and I despised myself for letting them out.
Tears slipped free before I could stop them—warm against my chilled skin, quickly swallowed by the wind.
I blinked hard, but they kept coming, traitorous and unstoppable.
“Has anyone... ever survived this?” I whispered, grit in my voice despite the pain shredding my knees. “Renzo... I can’t... I feel like I’m going to die...”
Renzo’s jaw tightened visibly.
For a moment, he looked at the blood pooling beneath me—at the way it spread, slow and unavoidable.
Then he looked away, like the sight burned him.
The silence stretched.
When he spoke again, his voice had shifted—lower, heavier, stripped of its usual distance.
