Chapter 53
Claire’s POV
Days passed.
They blurred into each other like watercolors bleeding together—light, silence, the soft beep of machines, the occasional knock of a spoon against a mug.
But Vera barely moved.
She drifted in and out of sleep, never fully waking. She hadn’t spoken, not more than a whisper here and there—my name, once. A breath of something I couldn’t make out. The rest was silence.
I didn’t leave her side.
Not for a minute.
She’d been moved to the guest room upstairs, the only one big enough for the medical equipment and quiet enough that Valeria could pretend she wasn’t checking in every five minutes.
Emilia barely spoke anymore either—she just made tea, cleaned up without asking, and watched us from doorways like we were ghosts.
I curled beside Vera each night, careful with my arms, careful with her bruises, careful with the way my heart cracked open every time I touched her and she didn’t respond.
Sometimes I’d talk to her in the dark, just to fill the space.
About Emilia and her terrible cooking.
About Dani and the dramatic messages she kept sending.
About how angry Valeria was at the crew, at Antonio, at herself.
I told her about the gun I kept beside the bed, the one I’d already cleaned twice that day. How I hadn’t forgotten about Antonio. How I was just waiting for her to wake up—really wake up—so we could decide together how to end this.
But mostly, I just told her I loved her.
Over and over, until it stopped sounding like a word and started feeling like armor.
I’d wake up sometimes to find her staring at the ceiling, eyes glazed, chest barely rising.
And I’d take her hand and whisper, “I’m still here. You’re not alone.”
And if I was lucky, her fingers would twitch in mine.
If I was really lucky, she’d turn her face just enough for me to see her eyes, heavy-lidded and lost—but still holding on.
I didn’t need more than that.
Not yet.
Because the hardest part wasn’t waiting.
The hardest part was hoping.
Vera’s POV
The first thing I felt was warmth.
Not the burning fever kind. Not pain. Just… soft. Steady. Familiar.
Something pressed against my side.
Breathing.
I blinked slowly. My eyelids felt like they were glued shut, my body heavy like someone poured concrete into my veins. Every muscle ached. Every bone throbbed. But I was alive.
And I wasn’t alone.
I turned my head, just enough to see her.
Claire.
Asleep.
Curled beside me in bed, one arm wrapped gently over my waist like she was afraid I might disappear again if she let go. Her hair was messy, her mouth slightly open, her face slack with exhaustion—and still the most beautiful thing I’d seen in months.
My chest tightened.
She was here.
She’d stayed.
I shifted, barely, and it was enough to make her stir.
Her eyes blinked open slowly. Then widened.
“Vera?” Her voice cracked, like she’d forgotten how to use it. She pushed up on her elbow, eyes searching mine like she couldn’t trust they were real. “Hey—hey, are you awake? Can you hear me?”
I nodded. It was weak, but it was enough.
A breath broke out of her—half a sob, half a laugh—and she leaned in, her forehead touching mine, her hand cupping my cheek like it might break if she wasn’t careful.
“You scared the shit out of me,” she whispered.
I tried to speak. My voice was rough, barely air.
“You stayed.”
She laughed again, tearful this time. “Of course I fucking stayed.”
I closed my eyes for a second, felt the press of her against me, the way her hand trembled on my face.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, lips brushing my temple. “You’re safe now.”
Claire hadn’t moved.
Even now, as my body ached and my throat burned and the world felt like it was barely stitched back together—she was still here.
Her arm stayed around me like it belonged there. Like she’d carved out a space on my side and refused to let anything else fill it.
Her eyes were red. Exhausted. She looked like she hadn’t slept in years.
But she was looking at me like I was the only thing that existed.
“I love you,” she whispered.
I blinked.
For a second, I thought I’d imagined it. That maybe I was still half-dreaming, slipping between reality and whatever hell Antonio had shoved me into.
But she said it again—soft, sure, no fear in her voice this time.
“I love you, Vera.”
The words hit harder than anything that had been done to me in that dark room.
I stared at her, breath caught in my throat, completely disarmed. Me—the one who never flinched, never froze. But hearing it from her?
It shattered something open.
“Say it again,” I whispered, barely able to push the words past my lips.
She leaned in, her forehead pressing gently against mine, her breath mixing with mine in the quiet between us.
“I love you,” she said again. No hesitation. “You stubborn, cold, maddening woman—I love you.”
A broken sound escaped from me. Something between a laugh and a sob. My hand—trembling, weak—reached up and found her cheek.
She turned into it like it was home.
Then her lips found mine.
Slow. Careful. Almost reverent.
It wasn’t the kiss I imagined we’d have the first time we said it. It wasn’t fire and teeth and chaos. It was everything after. The silence that followed the storm. The anchor in the wreckage.
When she pulled back, our foreheads still touching, I finally found my voice.
“I thought I was hallucinating you.”
She smiled through her tears. “I thought I lost you.”
I brushed my nose against hers, barely a motion, but it felt like a whole sentence.
“You didn’t.”
And as I looked at her—really looked at her—I realized maybe I didn’t lose myself either.
She’d gone quiet again, her body slack against mine, eyelids heavy. I thought maybe she was slipping back into sleep, her strength spent.
But then her fingers twitched in my grip.
“Claire…” she murmured, her voice barely air.
I leaned in. “I’m here, love.”
She blinked slowly, like the question already tasted like blood in her mouth.
“Where’s Gabriel?”
It hit me like a punch to the chest.
Her eyes were clearer now—too clear. And the way she looked at me… I think she already knew. She just needed to hear it. Needed to hope she was wrong.
I opened my mouth, then closed it.
There were no soft edges to this.
No gentle version.
I swallowed hard, my voice breaking around the words as I forced them out.
“He didn’t make it.”
The silence that followed was brutal.
Not the kind of silence that begged for comfort—but the kind that cracked.
She didn’t move.
Didn’t speak.
Just stared straight ahead.
Like the world had tipped off its axis and she was just now feeling the spin.
“He got you out,” I said quietly. “He carried you to the car. He gave everything to get you back to me. And then they forced him off the cliff.”
Still, she didn’t cry.
But her hand in mine went rigid. Her breath hitched—just once—and then her face shattered without a single sound.
She turned her head, eyes closing tight, and I could see the grief crawl up her throat like it was trying to choke her from the inside.
I moved closer, touching her jaw, whispering her name.
She wouldn’t look at me.
“Vera…”
“I told him to stay back,” she whispered. “Told him not to come for me. I ordered him not to.”
“He didn’t listen,” I said softly. “Because he loved you.”
A pause.
“He was your family.”
“No,” she said, her voice breaking. “He was better than family.”
I didn’t say anything else.
I just wrapped my arms around her as gently as I could and held her while her body shook in silence.
And for the first time since I brought her home—
She broke.
She didn’t make a sound when she cried.
No sobs. No gasps. Just silent, violent shaking as her body gave out against mine.
I held her tighter, my arms wrapped around her like they could keep her from falling apart completely. My hand cradled the back of her head, my fingers trembling in her hair as I pressed kiss after kiss to her temple, her forehead, anywhere I could reach.
“I’ve got you,” I whispered over and over. “You’re okay, I’ve got you.”
But we both knew she wasn’t okay.
Not after losing him.
Not after everything.
Her tears soaked into my shirt. I didn’t care. I would’ve let her tear me apart with her bare hands if it meant she wouldn’t have to carry this pain alone.
She clung to me like she was drowning. And I let her.
Let her fall.
Let her be small.
Because no one else ever let Vera do that.
Not once.
Minutes passed before her breathing started to slow, before her grip on my shirt loosened and she pulled her head back slightly, eyes still glazed, lashes wet.
I brushed the hair off her face gently, my thumb moving across her cheekbone. She didn’t flinch this time.
Then her voice—raspy and low—cut through the quiet like a blade.
“Where is he?”
I didn’t ask who she meant.
Her eyes found mine.
Not soft.
Not pleading.
Steel.
“Where’s Antonio?” she asked again, slower this time.
I held her gaze, my fingers still cradling her jaw. “Alive,” I said. “Tied up. Waiting for you to decide his faith.”
A flicker of something lit behind her eyes.
Not satisfaction.
Something colder.
Something earned.
She didn’t speak again. Didn’t need to.
Because I could feel it in her silence.
Vera wasn’t done.
Not even close.