They are a family. A real, messy, blood-soaked family.
And I’m standing on the edge of it, still wearing my damp jacket, still feeling the phantom weight of a duffel bag on my shoulder.
“Amara?” Alessio is watching me, his brow furrowed. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I lie. The word tastes like ash. “I just… I need a minute.”
I turn and walk toward the stairs, my feet moving on autopilot. I don’t go to the bedroom. I go to the library, which should be the last place I want after everything Turi hid there, and maybe that is why my feet take me there. I need to besurrounded by books, by things that have a beginning, a middle, and an end. I need to feel something solid beneath my feet.
I find a chair in the corner, one of the heavy leather ones that smells like old paper and tobacco. I sit down and stare at the empty fireplace.
It’s over. The thought keeps looping in my head until the words stop sounding like language.
The silence of the house is different tonight. It’s not the expectant silence of a war zone. It’s the hollow silence of a graveyard. The war is won, but the cost has teeth. Turi is gone. Lorenzo is finished. The vendetta has nowhere left to stand.
I feel a sudden, sharp pang of loneliness that nearly takes my breath away.
I’ve been alone for ten years, but I’ve never felt lonely. I had my brother’s memory. I had the hunt. Now, I’m in a house full of people, with a man who says he loves me, and I feel like I’m drifting in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight.
I look at the door. It’s right there. I could walk out. I could try to find my car, try to grab my bag, try to become motion before anyone could stop me. I could go back to being the girl who doesn’t have a home. I could go back to the familiar comfort of the run.
It would be so easy.
I stand up, my heart pounding against my ribs. My legs feel weak, but the impulse is growing, a frantic, screaming need to get away from the quiet. To get away from the weight of the Costa name. To get away from the eyes that look at me and see a hero, when I only feel like a ghost.
I take a step toward the door, then another.
“Where are you going?”
I freeze. Alessio is standing in the doorway, his silhouette blocking the light from the hall. He hasn’t changed out of hisdark clothes. He still looks like a soldier, but his eyes are full of a desperate, searching light.
“I… I just needed some air,” I say, my voice cracking.
“The air is out there,” he says, gesturing toward the window. “The door is back that way.”
He walks toward me, his steps slow and deliberate. He doesn’t stop until he’s inches away, his heat enveloping me. He reaches out and takes my face in his hands, his thumbs stroking my cheekbones.
“Don’t do it, Amara,” he whispers. “Don’t run.”
“I don’t know how to stay, Alessio,” I sob, the first tear finally breaking free. “I don’t know how to be the person who stays.”
“You learn,” he says, pulling me into his chest. He wraps his arms around me, tight at first, then loosens them enough for me to choose to stay. “You learn one day at a time. You stay for coffee in the morning. For the way the light hits the floor. For yourself first. For me when you can.”
I bury my face in his shirt, breathing in the scent of him—soap, rain, and the faint, lingering smell of gunpowder. It’s a terrifying smell. It’s a beautiful smell.
“I’m scared,” I whisper into his chest.
“I know,” he says, his hand moving to the back of my head, holding me close. “I’m scared too. The ghosts are quieter now,” he says. “That’s a start.”
I cling to him, my fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt. I want to believe him. I want to let go of the door. I want to believe that the silence isn’t a graveyard, but a clean slate.
But as I stand there in the dark library, held by the man who found me in the middle of a war, I can still feel the ghost of my brother’s hand on my shoulder, urging me to keep moving. I can still hear the siren song of the open road.
The war is over. The vengeance is done.
But the battle for my own soul is just beginning.
I pull back slightly, looking up at him. His face is weary, his eyes shadowed with the weight of everything he’s carried for eleven years. He’s tired. He’s so, so tired.
