Chapter Eighteen
The backseat bends as the road curves, and I keep one hand pressed flat against the window to brace myself.
Fausto hasn’t spoken since we left the house.
The journal rests in my lap. I look ahead.
The car slows. Gates rise into view, black iron set into crumbling stone. Beyond them, a mansion stretches wide—old, painted in beige that once tried to be white. Balconies sag above shuttered windows.
I don’t know where this is, but I don’t ask.
The car stops just past the gates. The journal passes into Fausto’s hand.
He flips it open.
A few seconds pass as he scans the page. Then he shuts it. The smile is already forming before he turns to me.
He taps the leather cover against his palm.
The lock clicks beside me.
The man seated to my right grabs my wrist. The other takes my opposite elbow. They pull me forward, one at each side. Fausto walks ahead of us, flipping through the journal as if reviewing a menu.
Ahead of us man waits. Deep wrinkles across his brow. His suit is wrinkled at the collar. A gold ring sits thick around his smallest finger.
He smiles as we approach. His eyes move down the length of my body.
“Meet your husband,” Fausto says without looking up. “Guillermo Valosi.”
He stops and closes the journal.
“Did you think I’d let you wander?”
The two men stop in front of Guillermo.
Guillermo steps forward.
His hand lifts. Two fingers press beneath my chin. He turns my face left, then right. His breath smells like licorice and gin.
“I expected prettier,” he says, chuckling. “But I like my women bruised. Means they fight. Means they know when to stop.”
He runs a hand from the edge of my jaw down toward my waist.
“You’ll learn to be soft with me.”
He leans in.
His mouth brushes the corner of mine.
Then—
I drive my forehead into his nose.
His head snaps back. He stumbles against the edge of the gate, one hand to his face. Blood flows instantly between his fingers.
The guards tighten their grip. My arms are wrenched back, and I’m dragged forward.
My feet scrape stone, leaving dark patches where the skin tears again.
Guillermo growls behind me, still clutching his face.
They haul me past the entrance. The doors open into a long corridor. Marble floors. Dust layered along the baseboards.
They pull me left.
Up a short staircase, then through a hallway with peeling wallpaper. One of them kicks open a door.
They shove me inside.
I hit the floor.
Hands land first. Palms split open again. The impact sends a jolt up through my spine.
I lie still for a moment.
Blood runs from my nose where Guillermo’s jaw caught the bridge. My shoulders twitch once, then stop. I reach into the folds of my clothes and I pull out a phone.
The phone feels foreign in my hands.
I had slipped it from Allegra’s pocket when she hugged me. I unlock it. The screen stares back—contacts.
Lorenzo. Cassian.
I stop, hovering over their names.
I can feel the message I could send. The message that could break this moment, this silence.
I type.
“Help.”
Then I stop.
Why would they want to save me?
I’m not the one they loved.
It was her.
Giovanna.
The name presses into my chest. My fingers hover over the keyboard for a long time.
Why would they want to save me?
I delete the message and slide the phone back into the folds of my clothes, my hand heavy against my side.
I sink back onto the cold floor.
I close my eyes, my breath shallow, but it feels too loud in the quiet.
The air next to me thins. She's here.
She’s almost transparent, except for the warmth that radiates from her—like a fire that’s been dimmed but hasn’t gone cold.
I swallow the dryness in my throat.
“Hey?” I whisper, not knowing what else to say.
She smiles.
“Hey,” she replies.
I close my eyes for a second, but when I open them, she’s still there.
“Are you real?” I ask, my voice quieter, but I can’t stop the tremor in it.
She doesn’t answer right away. She steps closer, though.
“I am real to you, aren’t I?” Giovanna says gently, her voice low, threaded with warmth.
“I forgive you,” I say, each word heavier than the last. “For taking him. I didn’t deserve him.”
Giovanna’s eyes flicker. She moves a step closer, her hand almost brushing my shoulder.
“Yes, you did,” she says softly. “I—I just never had anything that belonged to me. That’s why I took him.”
I feel her words pressing on my chest, but I let them sink in.
“He loves you so much,” I say. “I wish—”
“You wished he loved you the same way,” she finishes, her voice quiet.
I nod slightly.
“Is it such a bad thing?” she asks.
I hesitate.
“No,” I say softly. “It’s not.”
Giovanna smiles, and it’s not a smile for me—it’s the kind of smile someone gives when they’re glad to see the truth finally be spoken.
“You brought something back to his life,” she says. “Something I watched him lose. Elaria, you’re the sun. He—”
“He doesn’t love me.”
Giovanna smiles again, but it’s tinged with sadness.
“Do you love him?” she asks again, her voice still light, but it holds an edge.
My chest tightens. I feel her words like a spark in my throat, igniting something I’ve buried.
“It’s wrong,” I say. The words don’t sound right when they leave my mouth.
“No, it’s not.”
“Do you love him?” she repeats, her voice gentle but relentless.
I close my eyes.
“Do you love him?” she asks again.
I swallow, my throat dry.
“Do you love him?” Her voice surrounds me, each question pulling at something inside.
I feel it breaking inside me, the dam I’ve built cracking under the pressure of her words.
“Yes!” I scream, breaking.
Giovanna’s smile widens, but there are tears in her eyes, soft and unspoken.
“Then fight for him.”
She steps back. She moves toward the window.
“You’re not real,” I whisper.
Giovanna’s voice is steady. “I’m not real. I’m in your head.”
But her smile is still there. She looks out the window and my heart sinks, she is asking me to escape through the window.
“I can’t jump that far,” I say, not sure if I’m trying to convince myself or her.
She turns to face me, a sly grin crossing her lips.
“Sure you can, you little monkey.”
She opens the window.
I take a deep breath, holding the phone tightly against my chest.
Giovanna watches me carefully as I edge toward the window.
“Do it,” she says.
The stone window frame presses sharp against my thighs as I hoist myself through. Cold wind slices up my arms, wrapping around my ribs like warning fingers. The drop beyond the ledge is no longer abstract—it stretches down into shadow, rough wall, thorned hedge, and somewhere below, dirt hard enough to break something if I fall wrong.
Giovanna’s voice is close—too close for someone who isn’t real.
“You’re doing it, Elaria,” she says. “You’ve already left. Now finish it.”
I swing one leg through, body twisting awkwardly, shoulders braced against the crumbling stone. My raw feet catch on the cold frame. Pain flares up my calves as I inch sideways. The window is narrow, too narrow, and the stone scrapes skin from my hips as I wedge myself through.
My chest sticks. I can't breathe for a moment. Panic claws its way up my throat.
“Breathe,” Giovanna says, her hand—light, impossibly warm—guiding my shoulder forward. “Push again.”
I grit my teeth and shove. The stone tears through my bandage. I feel blood bloom hot against cold air. But then—then I’m through. Hanging outside. One hand clenched around the window frame, my body scraping down against the exterior wall, feet kicking for a hold that doesn’t exist.
The wall is slick. Moss lines the grooves between stones, the drain pipe too far to grab. My foot slips, then finds a sliver of brick. It holds. Barely. I brace.
Giovanna’s voice hovers beside my ear. “Don’t look down. You’re almost there.”
The next step is blind. I stretch, fingers sliding across the icy surface until they catch a lower sill. My arms tremble. My shoulder screams. I shift my weight. Drop a few inches. Knees jarred. Breath ripped from my chest.
Another step. The wall narrows. No footholds left. Only the rusted lattice of an old trellis anchored near the foundation. I jump.
My grip snags metal and slips—then holds. I cling, gasping. Rust bites into my palms. The trellis groans under my weight, but it doesn’t break.
“Let go,” Giovanna says. “You’re at the bottom. You’ve made it.”
I drop. Knees slam into wet earth. My body folds forward. Dirt clings to the blood on my hands. The thorns from the hedge rake across my back where I landed too close.
The grass is cold and real beneath me. Wind cuts across the back of my neck. I turn onto my side, dragging in air like it might vanish.
Then, her voice—Giovanna’s voice—is behind me.
“I told you so.”
I wipe my eyes quickly and pull myself to my feet, my legs wobbling beneath me. The chill feels different. Giovanna stands there, smiling, but there’s something sad in her eyes. She’s fading again, her figure becoming less substantial, but still close enough for me to feel her warmth.
We sprint across the yard, slipping through shadows, moving with a purpose. My feet burn with every step, each stride forcing my body to fight against its own limits.
Giovanna’s voice guides me forward. “The guards are just ahead. We need to get to the far side of the house.”
I keep running, stumbling slightly but pushing on. Her voice is steady, pushing me faster. I’m close. Almost at the edge of the courtyard, the door that might lead to freedom.
A figure steps out in front of us.
A guard.
I try to dodge him, but my legs won’t carry me. He swats my arm.
His grip is firm, pulling me back. I stumble, losing my balance as he yanks me harder. My body crashes against his chest.
“No!” Giovanna screams, reaching out as if to stop him, her arms stretching toward me. “Don’t let him—!”
But her voice is cut off. She disappears, fading into nothingness before I can even react.
The world tilts, and everything around me turns colder. The guard pulls me away, his grip like iron around my wrist. My body burns in ways I can't control, every inch of my skin feels raw. I fight. I try to wrench free, but my legs—my burned feet—fail me.
I’m pulled back, dragged back toward the mansion.
“No!” I gasp, fighting against his hold, but it’s useless. His strength is too much. I’m being dragged back, and Giovanna is gone.
I can’t fight anymore.