Page 510 of Reign

“You told me the water made your mind quiet.”

“I told you that months ago.”

“Yes.”

“You remember everything I say?”

“Everything important.”

Above us, more photos appear.

I close my eyes, but the room remains around me. Her perfume warm against my wrist. Her song. Water moving beneath my body without closing over my head.

“You drained the pool,” I whisper.

“I did.”

“And then you built me one you knew I couldn’t drown in.”

His arm tightens around me. “Yes.”

“In Florida, you can go beneath it, but I’m going to be there every single time.” His fingers move slowly through my hair. “But here, there’s no pool. You deserved your peace.”

I look around the room he built. At the light moving above us. At Mamma’s face drifting through the projected ripples.

“And this way you also get your peace?”

“Yes. I can’t lose you here.”

A fresh wave of tears spills over.

“When did you start this?”

“The day after I drained the pool. I can survive your anger, mi vida. Doesn’t mean I want it.”

I frown. “You started building this then?”

“It took time to design,” he continues. “I wanted it to feel real without putting you in danger. The mattress is temperature controlled. The room has independent power, and nothing locks from the inside or outside. You can change the images, the sound, the movement—anything you want.”

“But that was before you knew whether I would stay with you indefinitely. We’d just run away from my brothers.”

His gaze holds mine. “I knew you were staying.”

Despite the tears, I laugh. “Arrogant.”

“I wasn’t letting you go.”

I press my face into his chest again.

The melody travels through the mattress beneath us, faint enough that I feel it as much as I hear it. Luciano’s heartbeat rests beneath my ear, slower and steadier than mine.

Mamma’s perfume rises from my wrist between us.

It should hurt more than it does.

The grief is still here, tucked into every photograph and every note of her song. Nothing Luciano built can change the morning she left me or return all the years I should have had with her.

But the grief is no longer the only thing in the room.