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“Breakfast tomorrow. No more hunger strikes.”
“Will you join me?”
“Want me to?”
She shrugs. “Better the devil you know.”
I nod, unsure what to say. “Rest, Alessa.”
At the door, her voice stops me.
“Dominic. The gun.” She points to where it still lies on the bed. “You forgot it.”
I look at the silver pistol, the fleur-de-lis catching the light. “Keep it.”
“What?”
“Insurance. In case the Commission decides to finish what they started with your mother.”
“You’re giving me a weapon?”
“I’m giving you a choice.”
I leave her staring at the gun, confusion written across her face. It’s a risk—one that could cost everything. But for reasons I can’t fully explain, I need her to know she’s not completely powerless.
Not anymore.
Chapter fourteen
Alessa
“JesusChrist,Alessa.”
Dominic’s face goes pale, and I can’t say I hate it. There’s a sick kind of satisfaction in watching him reel after learning I was in the backseat the night my mother died. But that satisfaction is short-lived. My stomach twists, the same nausea curling inside me like it always does when I let myself think about it.
I barely remember the crash. My therapist said my brain locked away most of that night just to survive.
“The brain is a complex thing,” she’d told me right after I woke up from surgery, my collarbone freshly fractured, my headstitched up. They’d rushed me into a psych consult before I even had time to understand what had happened.
“She’s repressing her memories because it’s too much for her to process.”
“Will she ever get them back?” My father had asked. Not me. I’d been too numb, too lost to ask for myself. I couldn’t remember anything, but I knew my mother was dead. And I could feel—down to my bones—the impact of the car slamming into concrete.
“I can’t say when. But she’ll have triggers along the way.”
That’s how it’s been since I was twelve. Waiting. Hoping for something to bring the missing pieces back. Instead, I get night terrors and flashes of fragmented images—never enough to give me answers. But now, thanks to Dominic, I finally remember one thing:
The car was speeding. Way too fast.
“Oh, spare me, Dominic. Don’t look at me like that.” I take another bite of steak, letting the smoky char and buttery juices melt on my tongue. It’s good. Too good.
“Like what?” He slides a glass of green juice toward me. I don’t even hesitate before grabbing it. The second his butler strolled in with a food cart, any shred of dignity I had evaporated. Hunger has stripped me of pride. And at this point? I don’t care if the food is poisoned. If this steak is my last meal, so be it.
“Like you suddenly pity me.” I down half the juice. “I don’t even remember most of it.”
Dominic frowns. “You don’t remember most of it? Then what makes you so sure the Commission is responsible for your mother’s death?”
Because without them, I have no one to blame. Because if they didn’t do it, then my mother’s death was nothing more than a freak accident. And that? That would be worse than murder. That would make all this anger, all this hatred—all of me—completely meaningless.