Page 24 of Run, Starlight (The Royal Ballet Presents #3)

ENZO

My wife and brother scream at each other in the other room.

I want to pay attention, but even though their voices are loud, I ignore them.

This is our happily ever after, whether they fight it or not.

The growing tick pokes at the back of my neck and takes all my attention.

Like hot wax dripping, drip, pain, pain fades, pick it away, but it keeps happening until I think I might go insane.

Marcella comes in, surprised to find me here so quiet while they argue, but she doesn’t understand what this place is doing to me. Bianchi Bay was the perfect place to bring her because no one knew about it except us, but I didn’t expect how it would feel to be back.

This house killed the old Lorenzo many years ago, and I turned all that pain and spilled blood into art. The man who stands here today shouldn’t fear these walls, yet here I am, reliving the memories I try to suppress.

Lucky comes after Marcella, his jaw ticking in a clear sign that she pissed him off.

My eyes fixate on them rather than the room around me.

We’ve redecorated since my mother died, but this room still reeks of her.

A full-body shiver takes over me, and I look at my brother with his shoulder tense and his eyes sad.

Maybe this was what Lucky meant when he said this was a bad idea.

Could he be thinking of me too when he said we should stay away?

“Come here, Marcella, I want to hold you,” I say, my lighthouse through the storm glowing like a beacon behind her eyes.

She and Lucky look at each other, speaking quietly with glances about how insane they think I am. I’m not. She’s my wife, and this place is messing with my head. I need her.

“Hold me?” she asks, and I just nod. “You’re not serious.”

Memories swell all around me. I flinch with the wet thump as my father beat my mother and her desperate cries.

It happens right now, in front of me, just like it happened before.

I watch Lucky begging him to stop, but when I blink, he’s not a teenager anymore.

It takes everything in me to tune out their voices, but they are louder than reality as many things are for me.

The splatter of blood drips down my face as he keeps swinging, reducing the woman who had given us life to nothing in his fury.

I shake my head. This is not now. I’m not that boy anymore.

“Please hold me, Marcella,” I ask again.

“Enzo, are you okay?” Lucky’s voice sounds so very far away.

The blood covers him too. It’s on our clothes, in our mouths. I choke with the blood of my own mother, but it doesn’t matter how loud our pleas are. He doesn’t stop. He won’t stop.

“I’m not fucking holding you or anyone else until someone takes some accountability and tells me what’s actually going on here,” Marcella says.

She shouldn’t hold me, no. Not when I’m covered in blood like this.

When I’m filthy with a death that I should have stopped.

The colors blur, the sounds become feelings rather than words, my skin vibrates, and though I’ve been told this is called dissociation, all it feels like is spiraling free through the universe without a tether.

My tethers are the only thing keeping people around me safe.

I don’t need them because I don't care what happens to me.

My fingers dig into my arms, squeezing as hard as I can, but all I feel is the pressure.

The pain doesn’t register. My fist swings, colliding with my leg, and that pain doesn’t register either.

I should feel pain. I should feel something, but I’m nothing at this moment.

Not human, not an artist. Just a thing like he once was.

“What the fuck are you doing?” a female voice screams. Is it Marcella or my mother? I’m not sure of my own name anymore.

Please stop, Vincenzo! My mother’s cries are behind my eyes and ears and under my skin.

I carve my nails into my arm, trying to physically stop the hurt.

If I bleed, it’ll stop. I’m certain. Lucky’s voice is far away.

He’s calling for me, trying to bring me back, but I shouldn’t be here.

I swing my fist again. I want to fight the man I couldn’t fight all those years ago. I’ll beat the demons out of my mind.

The side of my head pulses, but the sensation still doesn’t feel like pain.

“What the fuck? What the fuck are you doing?” There’s crying now, tears that mean something to me, and I know somewhere deep inside I want to respond to them, but I can't. I'm lost.

“Back up, Marcella, please. I know how to help him when he’s like this.”

Does he? I’m beyond help. The boy who stood here and watched his mother die in front of his eyes was too far gone to come back. Lucky can’t help me. And I don’t want him to.

I want my Marcella. He didn’t want my Marcella . Soft hands touch my skin, it’s a flame in the middle of the chaos, too soft for the life I lived, and I look up. The before and the now join in one picture, and she blinks at me with her long eyelashes and dark eyes full of hurt.

“I’m here,” she says. “I’m here. Please stop hurting yourself,” she begs.

That’s not my mama's voice. I begged for her. She never had a chance to beg for me. I shake as I center myself once again and search her eyes for forgiveness. I know I'm looking into the wrong eyes, but I need to hear from someone that it’s okay that I didn’t kill him.

“Lucky, get the fuck off me,” she shouts, and her harshness takes me by surprise.

I stumble back, but she does the unimaginable and reaches for me. Soft fingers trace my jaw. Her touch is a balm to my desperate soul, and I let out a ragged breath. She kisses me. Her mouth is warm and so good that it takes me by surprise. I’m not used to good things.

Finally, the pain comes for me. It’s a train with no stops, my skin is on fire, and I groan, but right then, she’s there with me.

“You’re okay,” she whispers.

Fuck, I did a number on myself this time.

I open my eyes, and the first thing I see is my brother staring at me.

His gaze is weighted with accusation, the obvious conclusion to why he was trying so hard to fight destiny.

He knows more than anyone what kind of monster lives inside me.

I’m barely a man, but just a thing made of murder, pain, and lunacy.

He wanted her safe, yet she’s on top of me, her whole body over mine, trying to save a man who can’t be saved .

His eyes say I told you so, but his mouth spells it out for me, “You’ve endangered Marcella for the last time.”

I would speak if I had words, but I’m hollow. My mouth is dry, and my body drained. It turns out I don’t need them, though. Marcella turns to Lucky on my behalf, her eyes hard over her shoulder.

“I’ll decide that for myself, thanks.” She turns soft when she looks back at me. “I’m going to hold you.”

And in what’s probably the single greatest moment of my life, she wraps her arms around me, and those tethers snap tight. This time, they don’t connect me to my brother, but instead, my Marcella.