Page 172 of Rosetti Family New York

“Can it,” I say.

The house feels too small, too damn crowded. My bike’s waiting outside, and that’s where I need to be. But Sloane’s still in my head.

She wasn’t scared. She should’ve been, but she wasn’t.

And that’s the part that makes me sweat. Especially in that shit-for-security building that she calls home.

I get up, and Carmela’s on her feet. She hugs me and shoves more food at me.

“Take it, hon,” she says. “And look after yourself. You look spooked.”

“That goes for all of you,” Nanna snaps. “Bunch of clowns. Get to work.”

I’m out the door before she can say more. My mind’s a mess, and I need to clear it. I need to find out what the Callahans are up to and how it ties back to Sloane’s friend.

The ride’s cold and sharp, the city waiting for a war. But me? I’m thinking of a girl who shouldn’t mean a damn thing.

5

Sloane

Icurl up small on my bed, hugging my knees as Maddy’s ghost slips into every space between my limbs. I sense her presence everywhere and nowhere—her laughter echoing softly, her familiar voice floating in the air, and that haunting image of her lifeless body in the alley, splattered with blood.

I hear my own sob breaking through the silence and taste the salt of my tears. The empty apartment seems to swell around me, its shadows pressing into every corner. It all feels like too much and not enough at the same time.

Here, I simply can’t outrun my memories.

Tears burn down my cheeks, hot and unrelenting. I bury my face in the pillow, hoping to stifle the broken sounds that escape from me, but nothing helps. My mind plays a relentless movie reel, twisting Maddy’s soft laughter into piercing screams, her blood staining my hands, and my cries ripping open the quiet night. I squeeze the pillow even tighter, wishing it could somehow be her, warm, breathing, alive. But Maddy is gone now, and I’m drowning all alone.

I thought that returning to my apartment, surrounded by my books, my memories, my familiar walls, would make everything feel real, even better. Yet, every corner stinks of something lifeless, like my wilting plants I can’t even bring myself to water anymore. They all remind me of her, a world drained of color, and each moment pulls me back to last night in the alley, and to the silence that overwhelmed me after I screamed until my voice vanished. I close my eyes tightly, trying to banish the relentless picture of her lying there, so still and so empty.

No matter how hard I try, those images never leave me. My body feels like a raw nerve, pulsing with the shock of finding her. I'm reliving every second of that terrible moment: the sight of her crumpled form, a halo of red seeping across the concrete, and all the messy details of the life that suddenly vanished.

I’m sobbing again, or maybe I never really stopped.

Then there’s him: Rafaele Rosetti. He creeps into my memories like a quiet shadow just outside all this chaos, watching me. I barely know him, but when he offered me a coat, a ride, and a safe night under his roof, where the walls didn’t seem to close in so fast, I felt a flicker of hope. He’s both brutal and calm, like ice amid my internal wildfire. In a moment of madness, I let him take me to his place, a kind of fortress that smelled of polished wood. I slept in a bed that wasn’t mine. Even when he pushed me away from his bed, I felt safe.

But now, back in my own apartment, everything feels cold and empty.

I wipe my face with the heel of my hand, as the sobs slowly settle into a steady, low ache in my chest, like an unyielding anchor. I lean back against the wall, pulling my legs up so they fold beneath my chin. Memories flood in, racing too fast: Maddy with her sweet, creamy coffee; Maddy lying on my couch, barefoot with a case file spread out before her. She had this wonderful way of listening, of making me feel truly heard.

She wanted me to join her last night, to celebrate finishing another grad school exam.

“One drink,” she said with a playful grin, “it’s a crime to let all that whiskey go to waste.”

I insisted I needed to study and catch up on sleep, coming up with a million excuses that never really satisfied anyone, not even me. And then, when I finally relented and dashed through the alley to find her, it was already too late.

The tears come hard and fresh again.

I should have gone earlier. Maybe I could have saved her.

That overwhelming sense of failure pulses through my veins, a second heartbeat that’s constant and cruel. The way she died is all too similar to the first time, when I lost Charlie, our sweet labrador, the one love I lost a long time ago. I recall the knife in my hand, the blood, and the murmured words from those who looked at me with suspicion. My father’s doubts, everyone’s judgment. In those memories, everyone had turned their back on me except for Maddy. And now, she’s gone, leaving me with the same sad story and unanswered questions.

I feel myself falling apart all over again.

My eyes throb with exhaustion, swollen from the endless flow of tears. The room around me blurs and twists under the weight of my grief, and I drift into a restless, hungry sleep. In my dreams, I’m back in that alley, trembling as I shake Maddy’s limp body, the whole world painted in crimson. Rafaele appears in my dream too, his gloved hands reaching out for me only to vanish as quickly as they came.

I wake suddenly, gasping, my heart pounding against my ribs as panic still knots inside me. I find myself curled up on the bed, my fists clenched into the sheets, while a dim light softly filters through the windows. It might be morning or dusk. I can’t tell anymore. The apartment remains stretched with shadows andheavy silence, every creak of the floor a reminder of her absence, a reminder that her gentle laughter won’t fill the space.