Bandaged. Reconstructed.
Like a version of myself that had been patched together just enough to function.
A casualty made presentable.
I flexed my fingers once.
Twice.
Then turned toward the door.
Limping.
Each step sent fresh fire up my legs, but I gritted my teeth and kept going anyway.
I didn’t have the luxury of stopping.
Not here.
The courtyard stretched wide and open as I stepped out into it.
Bright daylight. Fresh air.
Too normal for everything I had just been through.
I had barely crossed halfway when—I saw them.
Two figures approaching from the opposite direction.
My steps slowed.
Stopped.
Recognition hit instantly.
Renzo.
And Violet.
Violet saw me first.
Her reaction was immediate.
Her eyes narrowed, sharp and calculating, the moment they landed on me.
Her hand moved instinctively—settling over the slight curve of her abdomen, protective, almost possessive, as though my presence alone posed some kind of threat to it.
Her voice cut through the space between us.
“Shouldn’t she be on the operating table right now?”
“Vincenzo promised me her heart would be taken for me today.”
A pause.
Her lips curled slightly.
The urge to react—to strike, to retaliate, to wipe that smug certainty off her face—flared so sharply it made my palm tingle.
