Page 31

The door opens, then slams shut. Footsteps sound again—fast. She’s coming.

The trunk clicks. Light slices through the darkness as the zipper rips open.

Air—real, clean air—pours in. I gasp like I’ve been drowning. My lungs expand sharply as I jerk upright, coughing, my vision spinning.

Emilia stares at me, wide-eyed, her face pale and slick with sweat.

“You’re alive,” she breathes. “Thank God.”

I swing my legs out, shaky, and rest my hands on the car’s frame to keep from collapsing. My heartbeat slams against my ribs like a drum.

“Where are we going?” she asks, her voice small.

I lift my head, my breathing still ragged, and give her a crooked smile. “Where else?” I rasp. “Your house.”

^^^^

The warm water laps against my skin like silk, but it does nothing to soothe the ache twisting through my limbs.

My body’s sore from hours folded like origami inside that cursed box, twice now.

The second trip had been even worse—more guards, more eyes to avoid.

Emilia had panicked the whole ride, her hands slick on the wheel.

By the time we made it up to her apartment, I could barely stand.

She’d bribed two of the house staff to carry the box inside, their grunts echoing as they struggled with my dead weight.

They never questioned what was inside. Money tends to silence curiosity.

Now I’m finally here, floating, letting the bathwater carry what’s left of my tension. My muscles burn in places I didn’t even know existed. The scent of lavender oil rises up from the water, but all I smell is exhaustion.

The door creaks open. Emilia steps inside, closing it softly behind her like she’s afraid to wake a ghost. She perches on the toilet seat, her arms hugging her knees, her face blotchy from crying earlier. She’s thrown on an oversized sweater that swallows her whole, her hair piled into a messy bun.

“I set out clean clothes for you.” Her voice is barely above a whisper.

I nod, resting my head back against the porcelain edge, closing my eyes for a moment. The tension between us sits heavy, pulsing like a second heartbeat.

For a while, neither of us speaks. Just the sound of water shifting with my slow breathing. Then she breaks the silence, her voice cracking. “Cassian asked if I knew where you were—I said I didn’t.”

My eyes stay shut as I mumble, “Thanks.”

More silence. Her breathing wavers. Then softly, “When did you get your memory back?”

I finally open my eyes and turn my head, meeting her gaze across the room. “Why do you care?”

Her lips quiver. She blinks fast like she’s trying to keep tears from falling. “I don’t know.”

I exhale through my nose and close my eyes again. “I’ll divorce Serevin when I’m done,” I say flatly. “You can have him. So don’t look so blue.”

There’s a sharp, bitter laugh from her corner. “Of course you will.”

I crack one eye open, narrowing my gaze. “Hey, what’s that tone?”

“You can’t live without him,” she blurts. “Neither can he. He can’t live without you.”

I roll my eyes and sit up slightly, water dripping off my shoulders. “And yet he was going to betray me. You all were going to betray me.”

She turns her face away, biting her lip. “I’m a piece of shit. You should know that by now. You should’ve gone through with killing me that day.”

I lean forward, letting the water drip off my fingers as I glare at her. “I should have, shouldn’t I?” My voice cuts sharp, cold. “I still can.”

She sniffs and wipes her nose with the sleeve of her sweater, shrinking into herself. For a moment, she looks so small.

I inhale deeply, the anger in my chest giving way to something heavier. “You did save me from Monte and Gustavo,” I admit, my voice softer now. “So I owe you for that. You could’ve let them give me those pills.”

“I’m not a monster.” Her voice trembles. “Maybe I am. I just…I just wanted someone to love me.”

My chest tightens at that. My voice comes out like a sigh, raw and fragile. “Me too.”

The silence stretches again, but this time it feels different. Softer. Sadder.

Without thinking, I hum. A tune from when we were kids. The one Brother Stefano used to hum when the grownups left us alone in the old chapel.

Emilia’s head lifts slightly. She recognizes it. And after a shaky breath, she hums along.

For the first time in a long while, we’re not enemies. Not friends, either. But something fragile in between.

The humming lulls me. Our voices blend softly like an old melody stitched into the bones of my childhood. But as the tune drifts from my lips, something breaks loose in my head.

The images slice in—sharp, brutal.

I see it.

I’m back there.

The night before the rooftop.

After Vittoria spit the truth into my face—the truth that I’m Serevin’s stepsister, born from a meaningless night his father had with a woman who didn’t even want me.

A pawn sold off to my adoptive father, raised like a chess piece in some sick family game.

My stomach twists as I relive it, the bitterness rising thick in my throat.

I remember storming out of that suffocating meeting room, my pulse racing, my hands shaking. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think.

Emilia. Serevin. Vittoria. All of them.

The betrayal burned like acid under my skin.

I had grabbed my diary. My only confession. My last bit of sanity. I sat at my vanity table, clutching the pen so tightly it nearly snapped. My handwriting was wild, desperate, as I poured everything onto the pages. The filth. The lies. The blood that ran through me.

I knew. I knew even then that something was coming for me. That I might not make it out of this house with my mind intact.

I wrote every detail.

And when the words dried up, I hid the diary in that compartment, pushing it far back like stuffing a secret into the mouth of hell. The little key—my final safeguard—I tucked it away in the drawer. The only insurance I had left.

I thought I could finally let myself cry, let the grief tear through me. But as I collapsed into my bed, my eyes puffy and raw, I heard voices.

Laughter.

Soft, intimate.

I crept out of my room, bare feet silent on the cold marble. The voices led me toward the east wing hall.

There they were. Emilia and Serevin.

His hand rested gently on her back, his voice low, his face far too tender. She smiled up at him, her eyes gleaming like victory. That single touch unraveled what little I had left inside.

I snapped.

Blind rage boiled in my veins. My vision narrowed, black and pulsing. I spun back to my room, grabbed the gun from my nightstand drawer, my fingers cold against the steel.

The world blurred as I raced back down the hallway like a madwoman. My bare feet slipped—I hit the ground hard, bruising my hip, but I didn’t stop. I scrambled to my feet, the gun heavy in my hand, my breath wild.

I reached them.

Emilia’s eyes went wide first, a soft gasp dying on her lips. Serevin froze.

I grabbed Emilia by the hair and shoved the gun against her skull, my fingers trembling as I pressed the barrel to her temple. “You fucking snake,” I hissed, my voice guttural, something primal clawing its way out of my throat.

Serevin stepped forward, stunned. “Fioretta, stop.”

Guards burst into the corridor, guns raised—but they wouldn’t shoot. They couldn’t. Not at me.

One guard tried to lunge. I pulled the trigger.

The shot cracked through the hall.

The guard dropped.

His blood splattered across my dress, warm against my skin, like war paint.

The others froze.

My breath heaved in my chest as my arm tightened around Emilia’s throat.

I tasted the metallic air on my tongue. I felt the pounding in my ears.

This was the moment everything shattered.

The memory snaps back into the darkness like a pulled thread, leaving my chest tight and hollow. I blink, refocusing on the bathroom. The water around me has cooled, my skin pruned and raw from soaking too long.

Emilia’s still sitting there on the closed toilet seat, her knees pulled into her chest, watching me quietly, like she knows I just relived it.

The words slip out of me before I can stop them. My voice is low, almost a whisper.

“I’m sorry for the rooftop. I…overreacted.”

Emilia exhales, her lips twitching like she wants to smile but can’t. She shakes her head and looks down at the tiled floor. “You didn’t,” she says softly. “You didn’t overreact.”

The silence between us grows heavy again, but this time, it’s not angry or sharp. It’s sad. Like two people standing on opposite sides of the same broken mirror.

^^^^

The next morning comes with a strange stillness.

Emilia drives us in silence through the sleepy streets of Melbourne, both of us tucked under wide black caps, shielding our faces like two poorly disguised fugitives.

I sit in the passenger seat, hands folded tightly on my lap. My stomach twists with anticipation.

As we approach the church, I pull my cap lower.

Emilia parks near the side gate and mutters, “You know I can just drive off and snitch.”

I turn to her, giving her the faintest smile. “Try me.”

Her throat bobs as she swallows, but she says nothing. She knows better.

I push open the car door and step out. The cold wind whips at my legs as I walk briskly toward the side entrance, slipping through a small door that leads directly to Brother Stefano’s office. My fingers tremble as I knock gently and turn the handle.

He is seated at his desk, his back straight, his eyes already lifted toward me as if he had been expecting this moment.

“Child,” he breathes softly. His eyes scan me—searching, seeing far more than I say. “You’ve remembered.”

I close the door behind me and press my back against it for a moment, breathing in the scent of candle wax, old books, and something deeply familiar.

“There’s no time,” he says gently, already rising from his chair and gesturing me forward.

I step closer, my hands still clasped together as if to hold my nerves in place. “Tell me.”