Page 145 of Lovely Venom

“Someone just tell me,” I plead.

“Angelo received word this morning from our security team,” Mariella says. “The GPS signal on Cristian’s boat disappeared, and it never arrived at the marina.”

“So he had boat trouble?” I ask, somehow knowing that’s not what they mean.

“We have everyone out searching,” Abella assures me. “They’re using every resource they can.”

A dark cloud hangs over the family, and their expressions are so grim, I know there has to be more to it.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

The room falls eerily quiet, and a cold chill settles over me.

“Someone please—” I beg.

“There was a confirmed explosion,” Mariella’s voice frays. “They’ve found pieces of debris.”

“No.” My stomach lurches, and I stumble back a step, desperate to escape a reality I can’t face.

“Chantel—”

“No.” I free myself from Abella’s grip, moving on autopilot as tears blur my vision.

It isn’t real.

It’s just a dream.

That’s what I keep telling myself.

But the moment I enter his wing and breathe in traces of his scent, I collapse to my knees.

Sobs wrack my body as someone comes to sit beside me, rubbing my back as they cry right along with me.

The agony attacks me with so much violence, I feel it trying to claw its way out of me. Staggering to my feet, I sprint into the closest bathroom and vomit as soon as I reach the toilet.

It goes on until there’s nothing left inside me but an aching emptiness I’m not sure I can survive.

“This can’t be real.” I curl into the fetal position on the floor. “Not Cristian. He wouldn’t leave things like this.”

“I know,” Mariella says softly.

But as I drown in my tears, I know it wasn’t Cristian who left things this way. It was me. I had so many opportunities to make things right this week. All I had to do this morning was reach out to touch him, and I just—didn’t.

That realization rocks me to my core and fills me with a regret I can’t escape.

The thought that it could be the last moment we had together is too painful to consider.

This can’t be the end.

That can’t be our last goodbye.

Unrelenting misery hollows out my chest as I close my eyes and pray to any deity that might exist. At some point, Mariella slides down the wall across from me, and we stay there in silence until numbness sinks in.

Eventually, someone else comes down the hall, and my stomach churns as I brace for potential news. But when Abella turns the corner, her expression is blank.

“Ares is here,” she tells us. “He wants to talk.”

Mariella rises to her feet with a wary expression, and I can tell she doesn’t want to go. But there must be a reason for his visit, and given the timing, it could be related to Cristian.