Page 49 of Cara

There has to be something else, something I'm missing.

Life, it somehow exists outside this room. Cars drive by, sounds of the television gradually fade into the background. At this moment, our silence becomes grave, more frightening than any threats he could convey. I shake my head, unable to believe it.

Vito wouldn’t order a hit on his daughter.

That’s too easy. He wouldn’t make it easy.

Dominic’s eyes struggle to stay open, even as we hear footsteps thundering up the stairs. Even as I realize I’m in a trap, I'm unable to move, waiting for him to concede.

“Tell me you didn’t,” I choke out.

Something like recognition crosses his features, stealing his condescending smile. Maybe he realizes he was right. That if she’s dead, I wouldn’t be able to live with it. That my very life is in his hands. When hands seize me, pulling me off of him, beating me into the ground, I let it happen.

He tells them to stop, spitting out blood, saliva, a molar.

“We will have our chance. It isn’t today,” he says, pulling himself off the ground.

Kneeling, I raise my eyes as the darkness clears. Who I am returns… A man who lives for one woman.

Leaving me amidst the destruction that was once hers, the men file out one by one. Dominic takes his time to reach the door. I hear something hit the floor, something solid, before he departs.

The fact that he’s still breathing doesn’t matter to me.

None of this does.

Not when I see the shine of a wedding band on the floor, attached to a broken chain.

My fingers tremble as I lift the wedding ring I placed in her hands nearly three years ago.Myring. The noise I make is what losing hope sounds like. It’s horrifying, weak. The blood dried on the white gold provokes an upsurge of nausea until I’m forcing bile down my throat.

This ring in his possession could only mean one thing.

He’s taken it from her.

He wasn’t lying.

My body begins to sway, only moving to prevent me from tearing my own skin off. Hate seeps in, but not towards Strata, Vito, or my father.

You won’t survive this.

My eyes close as my chest distends with the realization.

The agony settling in is more cruel than anything I’ve ever known. I never knew my body held such depths. It turns meagainst myself, against the world. Everything, all the memories that have fueled me, become regrets.

I should have never married her.

I should have stayed away.

I should have let her hate me.

My phone vibrates in my pocket. I can’t reach to get it.

My eyes roam the room, utterly lost.

I'm lost to this world.

Without her, I don’t want it.

Sophie/Cara