Chapter 17 – Calista
The morning light filters through the curtains, but it does nothing to ease the ache inside me. Nothing to erase the grief that presses down on my chest, suffocating me in its relentless grip. My body feels like it’s been crushed under a heavy weight but I just lie there, staring at the ceiling, wondering if it’s all real. Was yesterday real? The docks, the box, the blood… It all feels like a bad dream.
But it’s not. It’s the kind of nightmare that’s all too real, and it lingers like an open wound that refuses to heal.
I shift beneath the sheets, trying to stretch, to loosen the stiffness that has settled in my muscles. And then I freeze. My breath catches in my throat, and I feel my pulse skip.
There she is.
Lucrezia. Sitting in a velvet chair near the window, legs crossed, a cup of untouched tea in her hands. She’s just sitting there, looking like the world hasn’t come crashing down. Her aura is so calm, so composed, that it makes the ache in my chest feel a little sharper.
“You sleep like someone trying to escape in their dreams,” she says quietly, her voice smooth and soft, like she’s discussing the weather instead of the nightmare I’m living in.
I don’t say anything at first. What’s the point? I already know what she’s here for. It’s always the same. Strategy. As if the pieces on the chessboard matter more than the lives of the people playing the game. As if I’m just another pawn.
I sit up slowly, wiping at my face with the back of my hand, trying to shake off the haze of sleep that still clings to me. My throat is raw, dry from the endless sobbing that I’m too fucking tired to care about anymore. Lucrezia’s face remains the same. It’s still that calm, measured mask of a woman who has seen too much bloodshed to care about anything anymore.
“What do you want?” I croak, my voice cracking from grief and heartache.
Her gaze flicks to me, and there’s a faint sympathy in her expression, but it’s almost imperceptible. The kind of sympathy that makes my skin crawl. I can’t stand it. Pity has no place here—not from her. Not from anyone.
“To tell you that you can’t stay in this room, mourning,” she says, her voice still calm, still too calm. “This isn’t a tomb, Calista. It’s a battleground.”
My chest tightens, and my breath comes in short, ragged bursts. My rage rises quickly, bubbling up from a deep well inside me, and it feels like it might consume me. The thought of them. The De Corsi family. What they did to Noel. To me. To us.
“My brother was butchered and boxed like meat, and you’re here to talk strategy?” I spit, the words coming out rough, jagged.
Lucrezia raises an elegant brow, not at all intimidated by the venom in my voice. “Exactly,” she says, her tone as icy as ever. “Because that’s what the De Corsis want—to rattle you, unbalance you. If you fall apart now, they win.”
I don’t know what I hate more—the words, or the way she says them like they’re some kind of sacred truth. Strategy means nothing to me. Their games mean nothing. I just want them to burn. I want them to feel the fire of my anger, the fire of my grief. I want them to know what it’s like to lose someone, to have their entire world shattered.
I didn’t want calm. I didn’t want focus. But it crawls into me anyway—quiet and unrelenting. Grief doesn’t vanish. It just gets outpaced by fury.
I grab a pillow from the bed and hurl it at the wall with everything I have left. It bounces off and hits the floor with a dull thud, offering no relief. The wrath inside me keeps building. Anger and grief bleed together—rage tangled with helplessness.
“Screw strategy!” I yell, my voice raw, hoarse from the days of mourning and the lack of sleep. “I want them to burn.”
Lucrezia remains still. She doesn’t even blink. She’s just... there, watching me, like she’s waiting for a change. A moment where I finally get it.
“You’ll get your vengeance, Calista. But it won’t come through blind rage. It’ll come through control. Through strategy.”
I want to scream at her. I want to tell her that right now I don’t care about plans or strategies. I just want to make them pay. I want to make them feel what I felt when I saw Noel’s head in that crate. What I felt when I realized that my brother—my only family left—was gone, reduced to a fucking message.
But I can’t say it. Because she’s right, in a way. They want me to fall apart. To lose control. To make a mistake. And I can’t give them that satisfaction. Not now. Not ever.
There’s a knock at the door, breaking the lull that’s stretched between me and Lucrezia. It’s a sharp, insistent knock, and I know who it is before the door creaks open. Lazaro.
I don’t look up at first. It will take too much energy. But I can feel him, standing there in the doorway, his presence filling the space with his signature scent. He’s calm. Too calm. I want to scream at him, to tell him how much I hate him for bringing me into this world, for dragging me into this nightmare. But I can’t.
He steps inside, his eyes dark but calm, the same blank expression on his face that I’ve come to recognize all too well. It’s the look of a man who’s seen too much bloodshed. Who’s buried too much of his humanity to care about anything that isn’t his.
Lucrezia stands up, brushing invisible dust off her coat. She glances at Lazaro and then, with a rustle of silk, turns toward the door.
“Talk to her,” she says, her voice still controlled. “Remind her that emotions don’t win wars.”
Lazaro waits before answering. His eyes lock with mine, and for a split second, something raw passes between us—which is too real to ignore. He knows what I’m feeling. He’s felt it, too.
“Give her time,” he says quietly, his voice low, almost tender. “Her brother just died.”
Lucrezia pauses in the doorway, her gaze cutting into him, and I can see the challenge beneath her calm demeanor. It’s sharp and daring.
“Since when has that mattered to you?” she asks, her voice laced with a quiet venom.
Lazaro offers no reply. He simply watches her go, gaze ice-cold and unreadable.
The door clicks shut behind Lucrezia, leaving the room empty, filled with the lingering unease that neither of us seems to know how to handle. I can feel Lazaro standing there, his presence in the room like an anchor. He doesn’t say anything at first—doesn’t try to fill the space with words, and for once, I’m thankful for it.
But it’s suffocating, too. It presses down on me, making it harder to breathe. I keep my eyes averted, avoiding him. I can't bear the weight of his gaze. So, I just lie there, staring at the pillow, wishing I could disappear into it, hide from the world, hide from everything.
“How are you holding up?” His voice is soft. It’s a simple question, yet I know it means more coming from him—Don Lazaro, the man who usually couldn’t care less about anyone’s feelings. His tone is softer than I expected. More concerned. More... human.
I want to laugh at the question, want to scream that I’m holding up just fine, as if my world hasn’t just imploded. But the truth is, I’m not fine. I feel broken. Like a fragile shell that’s been shattered and put back together with cracks running through it.
Instead, my lip trembles, and the tears I’ve been holding back finally spill over. They burn my eyes, a sting I can’t ignore. I turn my face into the pillow, trying to muffle the sound of my sobs, but it doesn’t help. It never helps.
“I look awful,” I whisper into the soft fabric, my voice cracking.
There’s a long pause. I hear his steps, and then the bed shifts slightly as he moves closer. My heart skips a beat when I feel him kneeling beside the bed. His hand, warm and firm, brushes gently over my shoulder.
“You don’t,” he says quietly. His voice is steady, but there’s a tenderness I’ve never heard from him before there. “You look human.”
The words, simple and quiet, hit me harder than I expect. I don’t know what it is about them—maybe it’s the fact that in all this mess, in all the pain and chaos, he sees me. Just… me.
The sobs tear through me, ragged and desperate. I have no idea how to stop them—and no desire to. There’s nothing left for me to do but cry.
Lazaro’s grip on my shoulder tightens, and then he’s pulling me gently into his arms. His chest is solid beneath me, his heart beating steadily against my ear. It’s grounding. Steady. There’s no reason it should feel this good. But somehow, it does.
I don’t fight him. I can’t. Instead, I let him hold me, my hands clutching at his shirt like a lifeline. I cry harder, my body shaking with the force of it. The grief, the loss, everything that has been building up inside me—it’s all coming out, and I’m not even sure I care anymore.
I hear him murmur, but it’s muffled against the sounds of my own tears. It takes me a second to realize that he’s speaking to me, speaking to the broken woman in his arms.
“We’re going to make them pay for what they did to him,” he says, his voice steady, unwavering. “Trust me, Calla. I won’t let them walk away from this.”
His words feel like a promise, like a vow he’s making to me, and I believe him. For all the cruelness I’ve seen in him, all the ruthlessness, his voice is different now. It’s deeper. And it feels… real.
I can’t speak. I can’t find the words to tell him how much I need this. How much I need him to keep his word. My brother is gone. My family is gone. And the world feels too big, too empty without him. But Lazaro’s arms are solid around me, and for the first time in days, I feel like maybe, just maybe, I’m not completely alone.
His chin rests on top of my head, and the warmth of his body sinks into mine. There’s something comforting about the way he holds me—like he’s the one thing in this world that hasn’t been broken yet.
I don’t know how long we stay like that—him holding me, me crying against his chest—but it doesn’t matter. Time seems to stop, the world outside fading into nothing. It’s just him and me, and for the first time in a long time, it feels like there’s some kind of peace in the chaos. Some kind of solace in the storm.
I feel his lips press gently to my hair. It’s a soft kiss—tender, almost protective. The warmth of it seeps into me, and I feel a wave of comfort rush through me, as if his kiss is the only thing in the world that can make the pain subside, even just for a moment.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs, his voice barely audible. “I’ve got you.”
I don’t know what to say to that. What can I say? So instead, I just cling to him. I bury my face against his chest and let him hold me. Let myself feel this strange, vulnerable comfort that he’s offering.
I stay silent. There’s no need for words. The ones I might say slip through my mind like water—I can’t catch them, can’t shape them. But I know one thing for sure: This—this quiet intimacy, this wordless comfort—is the most powerful thing he’s given me. More than the kisses we’ve shared, more than the moments we’ve spent tangled in each other’s bodies. This right here, right now, feels like the thing that matters most.
I’ve never been one to lean on anyone. To let anyone in. But with Lazaro, it’s different. Whatever this is, I haven’t figured it out yet. And maybe I’m not ready to.
I don’t know what’s coming next. I don’t know how this war will end. But I know one thing for sure: Lazaro will be there. And for some reason, that matters more than anything.
I pull away slightly, just enough to look up at him. His eyes meet mine, softer now. There’s a connection between us that neither of us can ignore. A connection, even if it’s fleeting, even if it’s born out of this mess.
And in this moment, I let myself believe that maybe there’s hope after all.