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Pieces finally click together, and my blood starts to boil as I glare at Amara.

“She—she never had a boyfriend. Did she?” I speak in a low voice, vibrating with restrained fury.

She shakes her head and I close my eyes. I could’ve prevented this. If only I’d dug hard enough.

“Fuck!”

He’s going to hurt her. Her rap—fuck, I cannot even say the word. She was…raped. The scars, the nightmares, it was all too real yet I was fucking blind.

My useless leg forces me into a staggered limp as Roman follows close behind, every bone in my body vibrating with hot blinding rage and…fear.

I cannot lose her.

I cannot lose my only hope.

We reach the elevator, the seconds stretching too long, and just as the doors begin to slide shut, I hear her name.

My leg shoots forward, stopping the metal doors just in time, pain flaring but irrelevant as I force my way out and follow the sound of a rough voice echoing down the corridor.

“Fucking bitch.”

Roman and I break into a run, finding a large man standing in the doorway of the hospital washroom, his back half- turned, body trembling like a leaf.

He finally turns and the ground slips beneath my feet when I come face-to-face with my trafficker.

Anthony De Luca. That Italian motherfucker.

H-how? He’s been living under a fake identity? But the photos I found of Austin Blake…

They weren’t him. Fuck. Fuck.

Roman reacts first, chasing after him, his shoulders rigid as Anthony sees his impending death, while I turn towards the washroom.

Every fibre in my body is pleading me to hurry up, but a very dark, unhinged voice is forcing me stop. As if already knowing what I’m going to find is going to scar me for life.

I stand on the spot Anthony occupied seconds ago, and my eyes widen as I meet my biggest nightmare.

Blood.

Blood everywhere.

The entire floor is covered with blood, it’s creeping and slowly reaching me, as if asking for help.

My body moves on instinct the moment I find Elara slumped against the wall. Her head tips forward and I’m already running, desperate to catch her before she falls.

But I’m too late, and her head cracks against the blood- slick tile right before my eyes.

Her wrists red, both of them marred with long cuts that won’t stop bleeding.

So much blood.

“No. No. No. No.” I choke out, dropping to my knees as I gather her limp body into my arms, her hair damp, clinging to her face, stained with her own blood.

My chest constricts so tightly it feels like I’m being strangled, like there’s a rope around my neck pulling tighter with every second, stealing the air from my lungs as I try to hold on to her

“Somebody! Help!” I scream, my voice tearing out of me as I clutch her closer. “Elara, baby, no…no, no—NO!”

Her pulse is faint beneath my fingers, barely there, and the thought of losing her rips my chest open.