Page 15

Present

T he message comes through encrypted channels, terse and urgent.

I need to talk. Privately.

Bianca Leonetti.

My heart hammers in my chest, my stomach twisting into tight knots as her name blazes on the screen. My thumb hovers, trembling, over the keyboard. There’s only one conceivable reason for her to reach out— Roberto.

I hesitate, tension crackling through my veins, then force my fingers to respond.

Where?

She sends a location, a small bar on the outskirts of town, the type of place where silence is currency and curiosity is unwelcome.

I go armed.

Bianca sits cloaked in shadows at a secluded booth when I arrive, a drink cradled before her, her dark eyes etched with exhaustion and something more raw—grief.

The sight pierces through me, leaving me unsteady.

I force my expression into something neutral, slipping into the seat across from her. “You called.”

She exhales, reaching for her glass with trembling fingers. “I didn’t know who else to trust.”

The words land like a fist to my stomach.

Guilt coils in my ribs, sharp and punishing. She doesn’t know. She can’t know.

“What’s going on?” I ask, voice smooth.

Bianca stares at her drink, then looks up, and for a second, I see the girl she used to be before this world hardened us.

“My brother is dead, Evany,” she whispers. “And I don’t know who to trust anymore.”

I swallow hard. Keep my face blank. “I heard.”

A muscle ticks in her jaw. “There’s a rumor going around.” She leans in, her gaze sharpening. “That you had something to do with it.”

A long, slow beat of silence.

Then I give her my best smirk, the one that says I don’t have a care in the world. “You really think I’d be stupid enough to kill Roberto and stick around for the aftermath?”

Bianca studies me, searching for cracks. “No,” she admits. “But I had to hear it from you.”

She nudges the drink in front of me forward. Whiskey. My usual.

The ice clinks against the glass as I lift it, taking a slow sip. “You were close with him,” I say, keeping my voice easy.

Her eyes glisten. “He was my brother.”

And I put three bullets in him.

The whiskey burns down my throat, but then the rest of my body starts burning too. My vision blurs. My limbs go heavy.

Panic lances through me as I try to move. But my fingers won’t cooperate.

Bianca’s face shifts, sharpening at the edges.

“You shouldn’t have come, Evany,” she murmurs, voice like a lullaby.

The last thing I see before the darkness takes me, is her sad, knowing smile.