Chapter 45
I stopped talking after the call.
Valeria didn’t push. She stayed close—quiet, hovering like she wasn’t sure what to do with me but didn’t want to leave me alone either.
When Emilia arrived that night, the first thing she did was hug Valeria so tight I thought one of them might break. Then she turned to me.
She didn’t say anything right away.
Just crossed the room, sat beside me on Vera’s bed, and held my hand.
It was the softest thing I’d felt in days.
I didn’t cry again. I couldn’t. There was nothing left in me but static.
“She’s staying here,” Valeria said from the doorway.
I didn’t look up.
“And I am too,” she added, quieter this time.
They didn’t argue about it. They didn’t fight. They both just… stayed.
One on each side of me. Silent. Waiting.
Like they were afraid I’d shatter if they let me out of their sight.
I knew they wanted to take me back to Emilia’s place. Back to normal. Back to food, and sleep, and pretending time would make any of this feel better.
But I couldn’t leave.
Because this was Vera’s room.
And I didn’t want her to come back to find it empty.
Valeria brought me water. Emilia made soup and left it on the nightstand even though I didn’t touch it.
At night, they both stayed in the safehouse. I heard Valeria pacing outside the room. I heard Emilia crying quietly once, when she thought no one was listening.
And still, I didn’t move.
Her jacket hung on the back of the chair. Her scent was fading, but still there—gunpowder and leather and something subtle I could never name but always noticed when she was close.
I curled up in her bed at night with the lights off and the window cracked open. The cold made it easier not to feel anything else.
Sometimes I thought I heard her boots in the hallway.
Sometimes I woke up thinking she was in the room, standing by the door, about to say something sharp and awful that only I would find comforting.
She never was.
Because if I moved, I had to admit she was really gone.
And I wasn’t ready to let her go.
The days bled together.
I didn’t know what day it was anymore.
Sometimes it was morning. Sometimes it was night. The only way I could tell the difference was by the way the sunlight hit the floor in Vera’s room.
I barely left it.
Valeria brought food. Emilia made coffee. I didn’t touch either.
The bed smelled less like Vera now. That was the cruelest part. Like even her ghost was starting to leave me.
I stared at the same crack in the ceiling for hours. I didn’t move unless I had to. I didn’t speak unless one of them pushed.
Valeria asked me once if I wanted to talk. I laughed.
Then I cried.
Then I threw a glass across the room.
She didn’t ask again.
Emilia tried to get me to shower. I did once, maybe twice. I stood under the water with my clothes still on the first time. I don’t think I even blinked.
They didn’t force me.
They didn’t leave, either.
They took turns sleeping in the next room, just far enough to give me space, just close enough to catch me if I broke.
I kept waiting for a knock. A call. A note under the door. Anything.
But there was nothing.
The worst part wasn’t the grief.
It was the absence.
No answers.
No body.
Just silence.
And the more days passed, the more it started to feel like maybe Vera really was dead—and maybe she never even knew what she meant to me.
That thought sat on my chest like a weight I couldn’t move.
I started talking to her at night. Whispering to the dark like she might hear me if I said it softly enough.
"I would’ve gone with you."
"I should’ve made you stay."
"Please… if you’re out there… come back."
And when there was no answer, I started whispering something else.
“I don’t know who I am without you.”
And I meant it. Every word.
Because without her, I was just floating in the wreckage.
And I didn’t know how to claw my way out.
I don’t remember what time it was. Morning, maybe. The light through the window was soft, but it didn’t matter. I was still in the same place I’d been for days—curled up in Vera’s bed, wearing her jacket like it could hold me together.
I heard the door creak open behind me.
I didn’t move.
I didn’t need to look to know it was Valeria and Emilia. Their footsteps were careful. Too careful. Like they were afraid I might shatter.
“Claire?” Emilia’s voice was gentle. She hadn’t spoken to me in a tone like that since I was fifteen and crying in her lap after my first heartbreak. “We need to talk.”
I didn’t answer.
The mattress shifted as Valeria sat down on the edge, but she didn’t touch me.
“You’ve been here for two weeks,” she said. “You haven’t eaten. You barely sleep. This place… it’s not helping you.”
“She might come back,” I muttered. My voice cracked on the word might.
Valeria looked down. Emilia spoke instead.
“If she does, we’ll be here. We’ll know. But we can’t stay in this place waiting for something we can’t—”
“No.” I sat up too fast, heart hammering. “No, don’t say it like that. You’re talking like it’s over.”
Valeria reached out. “Claire—”
“Don’t,” I snapped, pulling away. “Don’t touch me.”
They both froze.
“You want me to leave?” I said, voice rising. “You want to drag me out of the only place she might come back to? What—so I can play house with you two again? Pretend she wasn’t the only person who ever made me feel like I belonged in this world?”
Emilia looked pained. “That’s not what we’re doing—”
“Don’t lie to me!” I shouted. “You’re trying to erase her. You want to take me back, lock this place up, and forget she was ever here.”
Valeria’s face cracked then—just a little. “I lost her too.”
“No,” I whispered, tears already blinding me. “You left her long before this. You walked away. I didn’t.”
I was breathing too fast. My chest felt like it was collapsing in on itself.
“She’s not gone,” I said again. “She’s not. And I’m not leaving. Not until she walks through that door or someone brings me her body.”
Emilia stepped forward carefully, eyes glassy. “Claire… we’re not trying to take her from you.”
But it was too late.
The dam had already broken.
I sank back onto the bed, curled tight around the only thing that still smelled like her, and sobbed until my throat burned.
They didn’t say anything else.
They just sat there.
The safehouse was still.
Not quiet—still. Like everything inside it had held its breath and didn’t know how to let go.
It was late. I couldn’t sleep. I hadn’t slept properly since we got the call. Since the wreck. Since they told us Vera’s body was never recovered.
I told myself I was getting up for water.
But I think I just wanted to move before I drowned in stillness.
I stepped into the hallway barefoot, careful not to wake Emilia. I passed the guest room she shared with Valeria, but the door was open and the bed was empty.
The low sound of a voice came from the kitchen.
I froze.
Valeria.
Her voice was soft, broken, like she wasn’t even aware she was speaking out loud.
“I told her to stop playing hero,” she muttered. “But she was always too fucking proud to listen.”
Glass clinked.
“I didn’t know she existed for most of her life,” she said. “And when I finally found out, I was so focused on protecting Claire from her that I didn’t see…”
Silence.
Then—barely audible—“I didn’t see that she needed me.”
I stood there, breath caught in my chest, the ache swelling behind my ribs.
“She hated that I left the life,” Valeria whispered. “Thought I was weak. Thought I turned my back on the crew.”
A pause.
“She didn’t know I was trying to keep her out of mine. Keep Claire out of hers. I thought I was saving everyone. But it was me—I left. And she stayed. And she built an empire alone.”
There was a quiet sniff, like she was trying not to fall apart.
“She ran to save me. That’s why she got shot. She saw Leo’s knife in my hand and Dominic’s gun and—she fucking ran.”
She exhaled sharp, angry. “I should’ve handled Dominic myself. I should’ve never let her get that close.”
I stepped into the doorway slowly.
Valeria was sitting at the table, hunched over, a glass untouched in front of her. Her eyes were red. Her voice was gone.
She didn’t look at me right away.
“She died saving me,” she said.
“She’s not dead,” I said quickly, too quickly.
Valeria’s lip trembled. “You don’t know that.”
“I do,” I whispered. “Because if she was, I’d feel it.”
She looked up at me, broken.
“I didn’t get to be her sister for long,” she said. “And now I don’t get to try.”
I crossed the room without a word and sat beside her.
She didn’t resist when I took her hand.
We didn’t speak again for a long time.
Valeria’s hand was warm in mine, but limp—like she wasn’t even aware I was still holding it. Her walls had finally cracked. Not exploded. Not shattered. Just quietly… fractured.
And mine?
Mine had been in pieces for days.
She finally leaned back in the chair, her eyes distant, her voice hoarse.
“I kept thinking if I stayed quiet, if I kept you away from her, I was doing the right thing. I thought I was protecting you from what she’d become.”
I didn’t argue.
Because part of me had believed the same thing once. That Vera was danger. Trouble. A bad decision I couldn’t stop making.
And still, I would’ve followed her anywhere.
“She didn’t want to be saved,” I said quietly. “Not by us. Not by anyone.”
Valeria gave a bitter smile. “No. But she still threw herself between me and a bullet.”
I felt a sting behind my eyes again.
“She did the same for me once,” I murmured. “She never admitted it, but… she didn’t even hesitate.”
Valeria nodded slowly. “She always did that. Took the hit. Controlled the chaos. Acted like she was untouchable.”
“She wasn’t.”
“No,” she said, her voice cracking. “But I think she wanted to be.”
The weight of that truth settled heavy between us.
Outside, the wind howled against the safehouse walls. The silence inside felt sacred now. Not empty, but full of everything we couldn’t say.
“I don’t want to leave,” I said suddenly.
Valeria looked at me.
“I know it’s not helping,” I continued. “I know I’m falling apart. But I can’t leave this place. Because what if she does come back?”
Valeria didn’t argue.
She didn’t tell me I was being irrational, or that I was grieving wrong, or that I needed to move on.
She just said, “Then we stay.”
I blinked at her.
She squeezed my hand. “Until you’re ready. We stay.”
And for the first time in days, I felt like I wasn’t drowning alone.