Page 37 of Cara

The market wasn’t a coincidence. They’d already found me. My chest tightens as he cages me in, locking my arms when I push against him.

“Let her go!” Victoria shouts, the chain rattling louder as she pulls herself down. I want to tell her to stay there, to stop trying, that those who help me can only suffer. As his clammy hand tightens around my face, I pull open my mouth and sink my teeth into him as hard as I can.

He hisses in pain, pulling back just an inch, but that inch sets me free. With no time to reach into my bag, I whirl on him before I run, but his hand sinks into my hair. In the span of seconds, I’m on the ground, screaming, watching the lights in the buildings around us brighten as he drags me back to him. In the darkness, I feel everything. His fingers tear at my hair. His hands pin me down. His strength far surpasses mine, but I'm programmed to fight. Deep down, I know I’ll fight this until I can’t anymore. Tears stream from my eyes as he slams my face into the pavement hard enough to produce a pitched ring that drowns out his words.

My vision blurs, but I spin, pawing at his clothes, trying to get out from under him.

This isn’t happening.

It’s a nightmare.

Wake up.

As hard as I try, my body continues to wrestle out of his grasp. I feel an object at his side, something sharp he suddenly tries to get out of my grasp, but my hands are already around it. When the blade slices his face, he gasps before growling. Even as I scramble out from under him, looking up to see Victoria nearly at the edge, my thoughts change.

Don’t run.Stay.

Something ice cold washes over me, a familiar feeling I’ve known only once—in Greece.

I was afraid of it then. Now, it drives me. It propels my tired body toward the broken brick knocked loose from the building. As he lifts himself, clutching his bloodied face, I feel no urge to run.

Victoria’s on the ground now, jerking my arm. “Let’s go! While he’s down, let’s go!”

She emits a strangled sound when my arm swings the brick into his face, sending him onto his side, flush against the damp ground. That grotesque sound becomes something else when I climb over him, ensuring he stays down forever. It’s so easy to envision my enemies. At first, it was only my father. Now, I can’t even picture all their faces. There are just so many.

The brick drops from my hands, clattering onto the road.

Coming down from the surge of adrenaline, I straighten my knees, glancing at Victoria as sirens blare through the tense air, creeping closer. Strata’s men have broken through, finding us gone.

“What the hell is going on down there?” someone calls out from one of the windows in Spanish, unable to see the massacre below.

Without another word, Victoria grabs my hand, dragging me further into the darkness.

Xavier

Here lies Giulia Marcello

Loving Wife, Mother, Friend

My eyes haven’t left the headstone for hours.

Rain’s come and gone. Day turned to night, and I’m still standing in a black suit, staring at my mother’s grave, wondering how the hell it happened so fast.Sodamn fast.

An illness, formed so violently that it felt like a punishment. Like all of the sins I’ve committed culminated into a disease I couldn’t fix, a problem I couldn’t solve, in a person I couldn’t bear to lose. When I found her in the garden among her roses, she was so pale that I was sure she was already dead.

But she wasn’t. She held on for weeks, never fully grasping that those headaches she repeatedly insisted weren’t a problem were, in fact, something much worse. She never wanted to know about the tumor, about how much time she had. She insisted those of us around her pretend she was on the road to recovery. Dante had the hardest time abiding those wishes, but around the clock, they remained at her side when I couldn’t.

Because my world didn’t stop when she got sick.

My duties kept coming.

Complaints. Attacks. New information.

When I’d sit with her, she’d usually be sleeping. When she was awake, she faked her smiles, making light of her fear. She was still young, still vibrant—right up until she hemorrhaged.

“You should eat something.”

Dante thrusts a coat my way, nodding patiently for me to take it, understanding this cloudy haze because he’s been through it too. Although the wake ended hours ago, he’s also in his mourning suit. I wrap the wool around my wet clothes, numbed right to the bone.