“Colin had it cleaned,” Raffaele explains while he gets the wheelchair, refusing to let me walk even the few feet to the vessel. Then, with a hint of pride, “You did well, you know. Few people could have operated a boat like that under those conditions.”
Guilt gnaws at me as I let him help me into the wheelchair and push me toward the boat where Colin’s waiting. I don’t know what to say to his praise. I was running from him in terror, convinced he would kill me for stabbing his dad. And now he’s praising my boat-handling skills.
He lifts me carefully from the wheelchair, folding it with one hand while supporting me with the other. The strength in him is effortless, controlled, deadly—yet so gentle with me that I could weep from the contradiction of it.
Once on the boat, he settles me on the cushioned seat, arranging pillows behind my back and beneath my broken arm. Every movement is calculated, precise, as if he’s handling something infinitely precious and unbearably fragile.
The journey back to the island passes in a blur of sun and spray and the steady rumble of the engine. Leaning against Raffaele, I drift in and out, lulled by the motion and the painkillers still coursing through my system.
His voice occasionally breaks through, checking on me, offering water, adjusting my position to keep the sun off my bandages.
When we reach the island’s dock, the pain in my head has intensified to a dull throb that beats in time with my pulse. While Colin cuts the engine and secures the boat, Raffaele retrieves the wheelchair.
“No,” I say as he unfolds it. “I want to walk.”
His face hardens. “Alina.”
“Please, Raffaele. I need this.”
“It’s the wheelchair or I carry you,” he states flatly. “Those are your only options.”
I consider fighting him on this, but the pounding in my head and the bone-deep fatigue that’s settled into my body make the decision for me. “Fine,” I mutter, allowing him to lift me into the chair.
As we approach the villa, everything looks exactly as we left it that fateful morning—the white walls gleaming in the sun, the bougainvillea spilling over the terrace railing in a riot of pink. It’s obscene how unchanged it appears from the outside, as if nothing happened here.
As if I didn’t watch a man get shot to death in its kitchen. As ifIdidn’t kill a man in its kitchen.
Raffaele pushes me through the front door, and I brace myself for what awaits inside. But the kitchen, when we reach it, isunrecognizable. New tiles gleam on the floor—different from the ones that held pools of blood.
The walls have been repainted in a soft cream instead of the stark white I remember. I grasp the wheels of the chair, stopping our progress. Slowly, I push myself to my feet, ignoring Raffaele’s protest.
I need to stand here, to feel the ground beneath me, to reclaim this space that was violated by violence.
The memories flash in my mind. Ian’s body crumpling, Andrea’s hands around my throat, the knife, the blood, the desperate flight. But they’re just memories now, ghosts that can’t touch me in this renovated space that smells of fresh paint and lemon cleaner.
“Alina?” Raffaele’s voice comes from very far away.
The pressure in my head builds suddenly, a wave of dizziness washing over me. The kitchen tilts sideways, the new tiles rushing up to meet me. Then strong arms catch me, gathering me against a solid chest with careful hands that avoid my injuries.
“I’ve got you,” Raffaele murmurs against my hair. “I’ve always got you.”
I’m drowning in morphine, thick and viscous, filling my lungs, my nostrils, even my ears and eyes. The heavy liquid seeps into every orifice.
My hands shake as I try to measure the dose while Mom cries for me to hurry. The syringe almost falls from my hand as the morphine mixes in my bloodstream, poisoning me. But I can’t stop. I need to do this.
The hospice room dissolves around us, replaced by the kitchen where Andrea died, blood pooling beneath both their bodies now merged into one. One body, two heads.
“You promised me,” Mom wails.
“You killed me,” Andrea thunders.
A wave the size of an elephant slams into me, sending me into a sea of morphine and pink cotton balls.
“Help!” I scream, flailing against the current.
But the ruthless sea of morphine batters me about as though I’m nothing more than a gnat.
I jolt awake with a scream caught in my throat, pain exploding through my skull and shooting down my broken arm like lightning.
