“So go ahead. Kill me. It won’t change a fucking thing. You just lit the fuse.”
I rise from my chair with slow, unbothered grace. Let his words hang like smoke in the air. I walk around the table, every step deliberate. My heels click against concrete. Echoes of judgment. I stop behind him, lower my voice to a whisper.
“Maybe you’re right.”
I pull the silencer from my coat and twist it onto the barrel with a steady hand.
“Maybe we did light the fuse.”
The muzzle presses behind his ear.
“But I’ve always loved fire.”
Pfft.
The shot is clean.
Gianni slumps forward, slack and silent. Still wearing that smug half-smile he didn’t earn. I breathe in. Slow. Controlled. Like I just reset something deep inside me. Then I look down at the blood pooling at my feet.
“Let the Coumbassa’s and whoever else wants to come,” I whisper, more to myself than anyone else.
Because if they think I’ll kneel...
They don’t know who I am yet.
But they will.
Eighteen
Every moment is like a dagger in the heart I forgot I had.
My chest is heavy—too fucking heavy—and my arms feel like they’re buried in concrete. Useless. Numb. Voices echo around me, low and urgent, like ghosts arguing underwater. I can’t catch a single word, but the tone says enough––something’s wrong.I’mwhat’s wrong. Beeping. Rhythmic. Sharp. There's a swooshing sound, a mechanical breath that doesn’t belong to me. My brain latches onto it, confused and foggy. Where the fuck am I?
I try to move—just a twitch of fingers, a turn of my head—but every signal I send gets lost in the void or comes back with pure agony. When I manage to shift, it feels like fire tears through my side. My whole body screams at me. I grit my teeth, but it’s like the pain has claws. It doesn’t just hurt—itravages.
The world around me blurs. I fight to open my eyes, even though they burn like hell. They flicker open for a second, thenslam shut like I’ve been hit with a spotlight. Every blink is a war. When I finally win, I wish I hadn’t.
The ceiling is pale and bleached, that sickly hospital white that always looks like it's hiding a thousand bad stories. The light above me stutters—cheap and fluorescent—and my pupils rebel against it. My vision swims. My chest rises and falls in uneven, shallow bursts, each breath edged with pain and panic.
I inhale, and it hits me all at once.
Sanitizer. Sterility. Blood under bleach.
Hospital.
I fucking hate hospitals. They stink of false hope and quiet death. They make you feel like you're on the brink—alive enough to feel the pain, dead enough to wonder if it’s worth crawling back from. The memories crash in, jagged and violent. I remember the club. Leaving. My mind spun from everything—the secrets, deception, and deceit from the one person I dedicated my life to and the woman I once loved, both women leaving me spiraling. I needed air. I needed space.
I needed to run.
I didn’t realize I was running into a damn ambush.
“Fuck,” I hiss, voice rough as gravel, almost unrecognizable.
The pain flares again—hot and deep, slicing through my ribs, shoulder, and skull like a butcher has stitched me together. I try to turn toward the movement beside me, someone rushing in fast. A nurse? A doctor? Hell, maybe even family.
But I can’t tell. My eyes won’t hold a face. Just shapes and smears of color. They say something—urgent, maybecomforting. I don’t know. The words sound like they’re miles underwater, muffled by the roar in my ears. My heart’s beating too fast, and not fast enough all at once.
Panic slowly creeps in. I feel it in my bones first. It’s a cold coil at the base of my spine. Then my chest tightens. Like someone’s wringing the air out of my lungs with bloody hands. Voices grow louder. More than one now. Screaming? Crying?
