Page 358 of Reign

“One minute, she was hugging me. I could smell her perfume. I could feel her hands in my hair. Then I never saw her again. How does that happen?”

I have no answer worthy of the question.

“It isn’t fair,” she says.

“No.”

“It doesn’t make sense.” Her voice cracks, and the tears fall freely.

“No, mi vida.”

She looks down at her hands.

“In this life, people aren’t permanent. You never know when someone will leave and never come home.”

Her words find every place inside me capable of pain.

“I was always in the dark when my father left. I didn’t know where he was going or whether he would come back. Angelo would leave, and no one would tell me anything. Santo would disappear, and I never knew if that was the last time I would see him.”

Her eyes lift to mine.

“How are you supposed to attach yourself to someone when you don’t know whether they’ll come back?”

The question is so quiet I almost miss it beneath the water.

She gives a small, unsteady laugh.

“And now I’ve gone and attached myself to you.”

I move before I can think better of it.

My hands close gently around her face, and I draw her toward me.

This is what I wanted to keep Adriana from.

Not because women cannot endure this life. Elena has endured more than most of the men who answer to me and remained bright despite every attempt the world made to dim her.

But endurance should never have been demanded of her.

Strength is not payment she owed for being born into our families.

I can’t return her mother to that room.

I can’t make her father answer the phone sooner. I can’t give her a childhood where every goodbye was ordinary and every closed door opened before the light disappeared.

But I can build certainty where they gave her silence.

I can answer when she calls.

I can tell her where I am going and when I will return. I can fill my home with so many pieces of her that she never questions whether there is a place waiting for her inside it.

I can make sure she never has to become small to survive the dark again.

“I will always come back to you,” I tell her. “I will always come home.”

Elena shakes her head within my hands.

“You can’t promise that.”