Even now, with everything broken around me, I cannot make myself regret that.
But I regret being careless with the consequences. I regret believing my choice would only cost me. I regret thinking I could run from this world and leave no one else behind to suffer in my place.
I was selfish.
The truth lands with such force that my eyes burn.
I was selfish, and Camilla is the one being punished for it.
Outside, my father shakes Alessandro’s second’s hand. He smiles, that cold political smile I have seen a thousand times, the one that means he has survived another threat and sacrificed whatever was necessary to do it.
The men laugh softly. One of them claps another on the shoulder. Then the black SUVs begin to fill, doors shutting one after another.
No one looks up at my window.
No one wonders what Camilla felt when her future was handed away.
No one wonders what I feel, either. Perhaps they think I have no right to feel anything anymore.
The whole underworld knows what I did. News travels fast when a Caruso daughter runs away with a man she is not married to. In their eyes, I am tainted. Damaged goods. A warning whispered behind painted smiles.
At first, I thought the shame would fade.
It has not.
If anything, it has sharpened.
The women I once called friends keep their distance at gatherings. They look at me with pity and disgust, as if ruin is contagious. Mothers pull their daughters closer when I pass. Men stare too long, not with respect, but with the kind of curiosity that makes my skin crawl.
Last week, while shopping, a woman called me a whore loud enough for half the store to hear.
I stood there frozen, my hands wrapped around a pair of gloves I no longer wanted, while everyone pretended not to listen.
I wanted to disappear.
The first SUV starts down the driveway. Another follows.
My reflection stares back at me from the glass. Pale face. Hollow eyes. A woman the world has already judged and discarded.
Maybe that is what gives me power now.
I have already lost my reputation. I have already been whispered about, shamed, condemned. There is very little left for them to take from me.
But Camilla still has a future.
And I will not let them destroy it.
A tremor runs through me as the idea begins to take shape. It is dangerous. Reckless. Maybe impossible. But for the first time in weeks, something other than grief moves inside my chest.
Purpose.
I cannot undo what I did. I cannot bring Domenico back. I cannot make myself pure again in the eyes of men who never deserved the right to judge me.
But I can save my sister.
I can try.
No—I have to try.
