Page 21 of Reign

It doesn’t.

It hurts everywhere.

“No.” Angelo, Santo, Luca, and Nico say it at once.

Sharp.

Broken and disbelieving.

The sound carves through me because I’ve already had my denial. I had it alone, with my mother’s journal open in my lap and tears soaking the pages. I already knew what it felt like to read the impossible and beg the ink to change.

“He wouldn’t,” Angelo whispers.

For a flicker of a moment, he’s just my brother.

Begging.

Santo pales.

His knees bend before his pride does, and he sinks into his chair like the air has been stolen from his lungs. Vasilisa reaches for him immediately, her hand finding his.

She always knows how to hold him.

No one knows how to hold me.

Riot’s hand is at my back.

Steady enough that I almost break.

“I want the book,” Santo says suddenly, sharp and low.

My head snaps toward him.

“No!” The word rips out of me. “It’s mine.”

His eyes harden.

“No, it’s not,” he growls. “You stole it.”

My face crumples before I can stop it.

There it is. Mamma’s journal becomes a stolen thing.

A possession.

Something Santo can reclaim because it came from his house. The house where I spent years with Mamma.

“I hate you,” I whisper.

Santo stills.

Good. Let it hurt. “Both of you.”

Angelo flinches. Let him hurt too.

Then my eyes find Adriana.

Beautiful, guilty Adriana, standing there beside my brother after opening a wound she had no right to touch. And I spit fire because if I don’t burn someone, I am going to collapse. “You’re the worst thing to happen to this family.”