Chapter 47
Vera’s POV
I stopped counting the days.
At first, I tried—scratching lines into the corner of the wall with a broken nail until it bled. But the days bled too. One into the next. No clocks. No light. Just the bulb that flickered every few hours to remind me I hadn’t died yet.
Maybe a month has passed. Maybe more.
Antonio hasn’t come back.
Not once.
They bring me food sometimes. Stale bread. Lukewarm water. A few pills shoved into my mouth if I’m too feverish to swallow. Always a different hand. Always silent. They don’t speak to me. They don’t look at me. And when I speak—ask—scream—there’s no answer.
“Where’s Claire?”
That’s the only thing I say now.
I whisper it to the shadows. I shout it until my throat bleeds. I beg it when I’m too weak to sit up.
“Where’s Claire?”
But no one answers.
And it’s driving me mad.
I don’t care about Antonio’s little empire. I don’t care what he’s building from Leo and Dominic’s ruins. Let him rot on their throne. Let him choke on the crown.
I just want to know if she’s breathing.
I’d take anything.
One word.
One lie.
A single syllable that sounds like her name.
But the silence is colder than the floor I sleep on. It creeps under my skin, worms into my bones. I used to be patient. Strategic. Controlled.
Now?
Now I claw at the walls.
I talk to her like she can hear me. I see her in the dark. I imagine her voice so clearly it shreds my sanity every time it fades.
Sometimes I feel her hands on my face.
I think about the way she looked at me the last night we were together. About the sound she made when she kissed my neck. About her laughter when she thought I wasn’t listening. About the way she used to sleep curled into my side like I was the safest place in the world.
Now I’m just a shadow.
A wasted name behind a locked door.
But I’m still here.
And I know this silence isn’t forever.
Because the moment someone tells me if she’s alive—if she’s okay—I’ll know what I need.
To survive.
To burn this place to the ground.
To crawl my way back to her.
Whatever it takes.
Even if I have to kill Antonio with my bare hands to do it.
And if I couldn’t, Valeria and Claire are coming for me.
They will come.
Claire's POV
The sun was out, too bright for how cold it felt.
We were in one of the city's oldest parks, the kind that looked like it belonged in a postcard—stone fountains, iron benches, trees in perfect symmetrical lines. The shoot was already running an hour behind schedule, but Emilia didn’t seem fazed.
She was in her zone, lens up, barking directions at the crew with calm efficiency.
I just stood off to the side, clipboard in hand, watching bodies move like clockwork. The world kept spinning, photos kept being taken, and I kept pretending I was fine.
A familiar voice pulled me back.
“Claire?”
I turned.
Camille.
She was one of Emilia’s regulars—tall, sun-kissed, the kind of model who looked like she woke up under flattering lighting. We’d worked together before. Back then, I used to tease her mercilessly about her obsession with mirror angles and almond milk lattes.
She smiled as she approached, a strand of hair falling across her cheek. “It’s been too long. You’ve been… gone.”
I gave a thin smile. “Yeah. Life got complicated.”
Her eyes softened with something like concern. “You okay?”
“I’m here.”
She studied me for a second. “That’s not a yes.”
I shrugged. “I’m saving my sarcasm for when it’s actually funny.”
She laughed, but it was tentative. Then she leaned in just slightly, lowering her voice. “You used to roast me every time I flinched during a pose. I almost miss it.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
Camille grinned and nudged my shoulder with hers. For a moment, it felt almost normal.
“Camille!” Emilia called from the other side of the fountain. “Let’s go!”
Camille turned to wave, then looked back at me. “How do I look?”
I reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, adjusted her collar, then smoothed the edge of her jacket with quick, automatic fingers.
“There,” I said quietly. “You’re perfect.”
She gave me a soft smile—sweet, unbothered—and jogged off toward the set.
I stayed still.
Clipboard still in my hand. My breath oddly shallow.
Something shifted.
It wasn’t the light. It wasn’t the breeze.
It was a feeling—like someone watching me from behind a lens. Too still. Too long.
I turned, eyes scanning the quiet edges of the park. A few people walked their dogs. A couple sat on a bench beneath the trees. Nothing out of place.
But I knew that feeling.
Someone was watching me.
My skin prickled beneath my jacket. I held my gaze on a man by the far bench for a second too long—middle-aged, plain clothes, sunglasses, holding a coffee cup like he was waiting for someone. He didn’t move.
I looked away.
I was imagining it.
Probably.
But the unease lingered like a shadow under my skin. I crossed my arms, suddenly cold despite the sun. Emilia called out another direction. Camille laughed somewhere in the distance.
I tried to focus.
Tried to remember the list in my hand, the next outfit, the shoot schedule.
But my eyes kept drifting back to the edges of the park. The bench. The man. The stillness.
No movement.
Nothing suspicious.
And yet… I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had just happened—just slipped past me before I had a chance to catch it.
Like a moment stolen.
Like a line being crossed I couldn’t see.
Vera’s POV
The door opened with its usual groan, but I didn’t lift my head. I already knew it was him—Antonio, walking in like this was his kingdom. Like he hadn’t left me festering in a dark cell for what felt like weeks with nothing but the smell of blood, mold, and metal to keep me company.
He crouched in front of me, too close.
“You ready to cooperate?” he asked, like we were in the middle of a friendly negotiation. “Almost got the whole puzzle together—Dominic’s men, Leo’s old contacts. All that’s left is you.”
My lips cracked when I smiled. “I’d rather rot than hand you anything.”
He didn’t flinch. “Still asking about Claire?”
I looked up, sharp. My throat ached from dehydration, but I forced the words through. “Where is she?”
He reached into his coat and pulled out his phone, unlocking it with a single swipe. “You keep asking like I’m hiding something. Maybe it’s time you saw the truth.”
He turned the screen toward me.
It was a photo.
Claire. Alive. In daylight.
She was in a park somewhere—one I didn’t recognize. Dressed simply, sleeves rolled up, her hair a little messy, face caught mid-laugh. Her hand was raised to brush something out of another woman’s hair—someone tall, poised, beautiful.
And Claire was smiling.
Not forced.
Not broken.
Smiling.
Something in me stopped. My breath caught and held. The pain in my side pulsed harder, my wound reminding me I was still here—still bleeding, still rotting in the dark while she stood there, soft and whole and warm.
“She…” I swallowed. “She looks fine.”
“She looks like she’s moved on,” Antonio replied flatly, tucking the phone back into his pocket.
The floor shifted beneath me, the air going thin. My head buzzed with the pressure of trying to hold something in—rage, disbelief, heartbreak. I stared at the spot where the image had been, like it had been carved into the darkness behind my eyes.
Claire wasn’t looking.
Claire wasn’t searching.
She wasn’t clawing her way through the city trying to find out what happened to me. She wasn’t fighting for answers. She wasn’t falling apart like I was. She was… adjusting another woman’s hair and laughing like I’d never existed.
And Valeria—Valeria, who I thought would burn the world to bring me back—she was nowhere in sight either.
I realized then.
They thought I was dead.
They weren’t coming because they’d already buried me.
To the world.. Vera Castillo is gone.
Antonio must’ve seen the shift in my face, because he leaned closer. “Now you get it. The world moved on, Vera. They’re not coming.”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t.
The betrayal wasn’t sharp—it was quiet. It wasn’t a scream.
It was the slow unraveling of hope I didn’t even know I’d still been holding on to.
The part of me that whispered every night that Claire would find me.
That Valeria would tear the city open. That Gabriel would crawl through hell to drag me out.
Because Gabriel was dead.
My sister thought I burned in that car.
And Claire...
Antonio stood. “You ready to help me build something? Or do you want to keep pretending anyone out there still gives a damn?”
He left without waiting for an answer.
I pressed my head to the cold wall, closing my eyes, but the image was still there.
Claire.
I am here.
I am not gone.
Don't move on without me.
And for the first time since the day they pulled me from that burning car, I let the weight of it settle into my chest like a stone.
She’d let me go.
Maybe she had to.
But it didn’t make it hurt any less.