Page 77 of The Seventh Circle

I finished dressing the wound, my movements careful. He watched me, his gaze unwavering. In this cramped, foul-smelling space, surrounded by strangers, we had built a fragile world of our own. It existed in these quiet moments—the shared crust of stale bread, the way he would lean his head against my shoulder, the silent pressure of his hand in mine.

"Tell me about the bookshop again," he murmured, settling back against the thin mattress.

It was our new rosary, a catechism of a future we prayed was real.

"It will have a green door," I began, the familiar words a comfort. "And a big window so the sun can get in. Shelves made from dark walnut, all the way to the ceiling."

"And a ladder on a rail," he added, a faint smile touching his lips.

"A ladder on a rail," I confirmed. "So you can reach the high shelves. We'll have philosophy. Poetry. The Greeks. Marcus Aurelius will have his own special place."

"In Italian?"

"And in English. You'll learn. Your mind is too sharp to be confined to one language." My own little carpentry workshop would be in the back, smelling of sawdust and shellac, a place where I could build things instead of breaking them. A life measured in the grain of wood, not the splatter of blood.

The hope of it was a fragile warmth in the constant, damp chill of the vessel. We were sailing toward a new life, a place where our names meant nothing. Yet, the past was a shadow that stretched long, even across an ocean.

Later, we stood on the crowded deck, the wind whipping at our worn coats. The raw, cold air was a relief after the stale confinement below. All around us, faces stared west, etched with the same mixture of hope and fear that I felt gnawing at my own insides. They were fleeing poverty, famine, persecution. We were fleeing my father.

I scanned the faces, a habit I couldn't break. Every man with a certain build, a certain hard look in his eye, sent a jolt of ice through my veins. Was that one of Paolo’s men, sent to follow? Did that one watch us for a moment too long? My father’s power was built on fear, but its foundation was his reach. He had associates in every major port in Europe. Did he have them in New York, too?

"He won't stop looking," Antonio said, his voice quiet beside me, as if he’d plucked the thought directly from my head. "Your father doesn't forgive betrayals."

"He won't know where to look. He can't have known that Father Giuseppe helped us." The words sounded hollow, even to my own ears. A man like my father did not simply allow things to disappear.

Antonio’s gaze met mine. The fear was there, a dark undercurrent in his eyes. But there was determination, too. Aresilience that I knew my privileged life had never required of me until now.

"Then we will have to be better at hiding than he is at seeking." He leaned against me, a small gesture of solidarity against the vast, unforgiving sea. The ship groaned beneath us, a weary beast pushing through the endless grey waves. New York. A new world. It felt like a prayer and a death sentence, all at once. We were sailing toward our only chance at life, with the ghosts of our past trailing silently, hungrily, in our wake.

FIN

They paid in blood to escape their fate. They crossed an ocean to leave the inferno behind.

But what happens when the violence you fled is not just a place, but a part of who you are? In the desperate struggle for survival, the whispers of the past grow louder, and the instinct to fight, to rule, to sin... becomes a temptation.

Lorenzo and Antonio fought to save each other. Now, they must fight to save themselves.