Page 461 of Reign

“You don’t own me, Luciano Castillo.”

“Yes, I do.”

He kisses me before I can protest.

When he draws back, the dark leather bag near the foot of the bed catches my attention again.

“What’s in there?”

Luciano reaches for it and pulls it onto the mattress between us.

“Things that belong to you.”

He opens the bag and reaches inside.

The handwriting reaches me first.

A date written across worn brown leather in faded black ink.

Mamma’s handwriting.

My breath disappears.

Luciano places the journal carefully in my lap.

I stare down at it without touching it.

“No.”

The word comes out as little more than air.

He opens the bag wider.

More journals rest inside. Different sizes. Different covers. A composition notebook with softened corners. Another bound in dark green leather. One I recognize immediately because it’s the one I stole from Santo’s library and spent months being made to feel like a thief for wanting it.

Six.

Six of them.

My fingers tremble as I touch the journal in my lap.

“You got them?”

“I got them back for you.”

I look at him through the tears already blurring my vision. “Santo gave you all of these?”

“No. Vasilisa convinced him to let me leave with them.”

Despite the pressure building in my chest, a wet laugh escapes me. “That’s not the same thing.”

“It was close enough.”

I look into the bag again.

Mamma’s life rests inside it. Her thoughts. Her memories. Pieces of her no one can rewrite for me.

“They were his,” I whisper.