22. Carmen
Chapter 22
Carmen
I don’t know how long I’ve been in this room. Hours? Days?
When I do sleep, it’s fitful, haunted by dreams of a life that was never mine to keep.
I hear the door open before I see him.
Dante.
I push up on my elbows, bleary-eyed, my heart stumbling over itself at the sight of him. For the briefest moment, I allow myself the vain hope that he’s here to make things right.
But then I notice his posture—the sharp set of his shoulders, the way his face is carved into something unmovable, unreadable.
Something cold.
“Pack your things,” he says.
I blink, trying to shake off the sleep, trying to make sense of what I’ve just heard. His voice is wrong. Clipped and devoid of anything human.
“What?” My body feels sluggish as I sit up fully.
“We’re leaving.”
The words don’t hit at all for a moment.
Then, they hit hard. All at once. Something in my chest cracks. Fissures that had begun to appear since our conversation in Montecroce now break open with reckless abandon.
This is it.
We’re going home. No, I’m being returned to where I belong.
And Dante is…is…
I stare at him, searching for something—anything—in his expression. A flicker of hesitation, regret.
But there’s nothing. Just Dante, looking at me as though I’m already gone.
I shake my head, swallowing past the sudden tightness in my throat. “No. Dante, wait?—”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he interrupts, glancing around the room. Everywhere but my face.
No. Not like this.
It’s selfish; it’s my fault it ended. But please, please. No. Not like this.
I push the blankets off me, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. “Dante, please?—”
“Pack your things, Carmen.”
It’s a command this time. One I know better than to disobey.
The man standing before me isn’t the person who held me under the Italian sun, the one who kissed laughter into my skin and made me believe, even for a moment, that there could be something beyond the war waiting for us.
This man is someone else entirely.
I try again anyway.
“Dante, just tell me what’s going on.”
His jaw tightens, but his eyes stay distant, detached. “You know what’s going on. We have to leave. Now.”
“Right. Because that explains it.” A bitter laugh escapes me before I can stop it. “It’s dark out. Do we have to leave right now? What time is it, even?”
His eyes darken, but he doesn’t rise to the bait.
I want to push him. To make him feel something, anything, other than this icy finality.
But I already know—I’ve lost him.
And maybe I was never meant to keep him in the first place.
“You have ten minutes.”
The silence stretches between us.
Then, finally, I nod.
“Fine.”
I push past him, refusing to let him see the way my hands shake as I reach for my suitcase. Vaguely, I’m aware that he leaves me alone in the room.
Vaguely? I meant acutely.
If this is how it ends, then so be it.
But God, it feels so much like a death sentence.
My hands shake as I shove clothes into my suitcase.
Every fold of fabric, every item I toss into my bag is a nail in the coffin of the life I thought—no, I knew —I wanted. A life I was foolish enough to believe could be mine when I already had a life planned out for me somewhere else.
I pause, gripping the edge of the dresser as the room sways around me.
Brooklyn.
I’m going back to Brooklyn.
Back to my father. Back to the life I left behind as a different woman. A better woman, if I’m being honest. Certainly less prone to flights of fanciful daydreaming and terrible, awful, heartbreaking decisions.
I swallow hard.
I’m not the daughter Amos Rubio let be sent to Italy months ago. I don’t know how to pretend I am.
I’m not pure anymore.
The word sours in my mouth, bile rising in my throat.
My father’s definition of purity was never about innocence—it was about control. It was about power. I was supposed to return untouched, ready to be gifted to Hernando Lacruz like some obedient little bride, securing my father’s grip on the Cartel.
But I am not untouched. And if my father finds out?
A shudder wracks through me.
There’s no telling what he’ll do.
Part of me wants to believe that he’ll listen, that he’ll see reason. That he’ll look at his daughter—the one who has fought for his respect since the day she could walk—and grant her even an inch of freedom.
But the other part of me, the smarter part, knows better. Amos Rubio doesn’t grant freedom. He takes it. And if he thinks I’ve shamed him? That I’ve sullied myself?
I don’t finish the thought. I can’t.
I open the dresser drawers and reach for the first thing inside. My fingers brush over the soft silk of a dress, one of the many Evelina had made for me. It was a deep green, one that Dante once said made my eyes look like the hills of Montecroce in the sun.
I remember twirling in it the first time I wore it, laughing as Dante caught me by the waist and murmured something sinful against my ear.
I shove it into the suitcase and grab another. Then another.
A delicate blouse from the market—white linen, embroidered with tiny flowers by a woman who had smiled knowingly at Dante when he bought it for me.
The leather sandals he insisted I needed because, “Everyone wears them here. Just let me buy you something nice.”
The small silver locket he slipped into my hand one evening, its chain warm from his skin. I never asked why he gave it to me. I just kept it.
The book of Italian curse words, now tattered and torn, pages folded, phrases highlighted, then whispered in jest. Or screamed into the night when our bodies were close enough to share the very molecules of our skin.
Everything I touch is a memory. A reminder. A piece of him.
I almost don’t want to take them.
But I can’t bear to part with them.
I fold them carefully as if that will somehow make this easier, tuck them into my suitcase like they’re fragile things. Maybe they are. Maybe I am.
I snap my suitcase shut, breathing hard. Evelina’s suitcase. The one she said I’d need if Dante ever took me to visit Modena.
This can’t be it.
But the sharp knock on my door tells me otherwise.
“Let’s go,” Dante’s voice cuts through the air, void of warmth.
I don’t turn around. I don’t want to see him like this. Cold . Indifferent.
The weight of everything crashes down on me as I force myself to my feet, dragging my suitcase behind me. I make it to the hallway. Then, down the stairs. The ones I’ve hurried down a hundred times by now.
Then, we step outside into the dark night. The car is already waiting, the engine on, the door open.
And before I can take another breath, Dante shoves me inside.
“Dante!”
Evelina’s voice is sharp, breaking the heavy silence that has settled between us.
I freeze. Dante does too, just for a moment, before his jaw tightens, his hand gripping the car door. He doesn’t turn around, doesn’t acknowledge her at all.
I barely have time to process before she’s in front of me, her expression raw in a way I’ve never seen before. Not the composed matriarch, not the shrewd, untouchable strategist—just a mother.
She clutches my arms, searching my face with desperate, pleading eyes. “You don’t have to go.”
My breath hitches.
“I do,” I whisper, though the words feel like shattered glass on my tongue.
Evelina shakes her head fiercely, her hands tightening. “No, Carmen. Listen to me. You are worth more than this. More than your father’s expectations. More than what men in dark rooms decide your life should be.”
My throat constricts. “It’s not that simple.”
“It should be,” she says, voice thick. “It should have always been.”
I don’t realize I’m shaking until she pulls me in, her embrace fierce, unrelenting. I clutch her just as tightly, my fingers digging into the elegant fabric of her dress as I squeeze my eyes shut.
I don’t want to go.
God, I don’t want to go.
Her hand smooths over the back of my hair, soothing, motherly, and it nearly breaks me.
“ Sei una figlia per me. ” You are a daughter to me.
A quiet, shuddering breath leaves me.
I never had a mother to hold me like this. To say words like that.
Slowly, painfully, I pull away.
Evelina cups my face, stroking my cheek one last time before she lets her hands drop to her sides, her expression unreadable but for the sheen of tears in her dark eyes.
“Ask me, principessa . Ask me for your favor.”
I swallow hard and step back.
Dante still hasn’t moved, hasn’t looked at her, at either of us. Silently allowing us these precious moments. Silently allowing our lives to be dictated by others. Silent and unwilling to fight for us.
He’s made his decision. There’s nothing left to fight for.
“Evelina,” I say softly. “Matriarch of the Grasso di Ferro. I call in my favor.”
She’s already turning to her son, anger on her tongue. But I cut in before she has a chance to unleash whatever hell she intends to reign down on him.
“Let me go.” I turn away before I can break, sliding into the car, the door slamming shut behind me.
As we pull away from the castle, I glance out the window.
Evelina stands on the steps, hands clasped to her chest, tears slipping down her cheeks.
She watches until we’re gone.
I don’t realize I’m crying until the car hits a bump in the road, and a tear slips from my cheek onto my hand.
I blink down at it, almost surprised.
Dante stares straight ahead, his hands gripping the wheel so tightly that his knuckles are white. His jaw is locked, his expression unreadable, but I know him well enough to recognize the tension in his shoulders, the way his breaths come slower, heavier.
I press the sleeve of my sweater against my cheeks, inhaling sharply. Enough. It’s done. There’s no turning back now.
I force my voice to be steady. “What happens now?”
“We get on a plane.” Dante doesn’t look at me. “We land in Brooklyn. You go back to your father.”
It’s a clean answer. A professional one. The kind of response that makes it seem like this is nothing more than a transaction.
I swallow against the ache in my throat. “And why now?”
Dante exhales through his nose, gripping the wheel even tighter. “Amos finally agreed to trade you for one of the Guild’s valuable assets.”
Something about the way he says it—low and tight, with something dangerously close to anger in his tone—makes my stomach twist.
I wait for him to elaborate. He doesn’t.
Instead, his fingers flex against the leather, and his mouth curls in something that isn’t quite a smile. “You can finally go home.”
A cold sort of bitterness seeps into my chest.
Home.
The word should bring relief, but all it does is hollow me out from the inside.
Because I’m not sure that Brooklyn is home anymore.