Chapter 5 – Elara
The boardwalk is finally quiet.
No yelling. No bass thumping from cracked speakers. No drunk feet stumbling over discarded popcorn bags or broken flip-flops.
Just me, a half-dead cigarette, and a fog creeping in from the sea like it’s trying to erase the whole damn city.
I sit on a bench that’s older than my trauma. The wood sags under me, splintered at the edges, like it’s been waiting for years to collapse under someone like me.
The sea’s close enough that mist beads on my arms. The cool air scratches the back of my throat, and I pull my jacket tighter even though it’s damp.
I haven’t slept.
Haven’t even tried.
I walked for hours after I left the club. Around blocks I stopped recognizing, past windows that blinked shut before I could see inside. Back here again, to the pier I’ve tried to avoid since I was sixteen.
And still—I sit.
Because I don’t know where else to be.
The chain around my neck is cold. I twist it once. The padlock taps against my chest, and for a second, I think about taking it off.
I don’t.
The last person who tried to remove it got a scar across his knuckles. Tommy. That smug bastard used to call it my pretty collar.
And now Nico Drago’s voice loops in my head the same way Tommy’s used to.
Except Nico didn’t try to claim me.
He just watched like he was figuring out where I fit.
I don’t know if that’s worse.
I think of Vince’s face in the dressing room. That smirk that wasn’t a smirk. That warning he thought I was too dumb to catch.
He talks like I’m still crawling.
Thing is, I already learned to walk through fire.
I take another drag and blow smoke up into the fog. It curls out of my mouth in a thick line that dissolves before I can follow it.
“I came out here to breathe,” I mutter. “Instead, I get ghosts.”
Footsteps behind me.
Sharp. Direct. Not drunk.
I don’t move.
Could be another security guy looking for a place to piss. Could be someone with a gun, coming to tie off whatever thread I accidentally tugged by speaking to Nico.
Or it could be nothing.
But my gut tightens.
The steps get closer.
Then stop.
“Elara.”
I freeze.
The cigarette falls from my fingers and rolls down the planks, spinning to a stop near the bench leg.
That voice.
Low. Confident. The kind that made me flinch before I even realized I was afraid.
I stand slowly.
Not because I’m scared of what’s behind me.
Because I need my legs to believe I can hold myself up.
I turn.
And there he is.
Tommy Lucetti.
Still alive.
Still built like a man who thinks women are currency.
Hair shorter now. Face a little harder. But those eyes? Same ones that watched me bleed and told me to clean it up before anyone saw.
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.
He steps forward.
“You look older,” he says. “But still mine.”
No.
No. No. No.
“Don’t say my name,” I tell him. “Don’t come near me.”
He smiles. That same smug tilt he used when he came home drunk and tossed cash at me like I was a favor he regretted asking for.
“You liked it when I told you what to do.”
I punch him in the face.
Fist to nose. Straight out, no hesitation. Years of buried rage in one clean strike.
Bone cracks under the impact.
Blood sprays across his lips and onto my knuckles.
He stumbles back, cursing.
I don’t wait for an apology. I don’t care if he’s choking.
My fists are already up.
He spits blood into the fog.
“Still got that attitude,” he says, voice garbled. “Always did.”
“Try finishing that sentence with a broken jaw.”
He wipes his face with the back of his sleeve.
“You’re lucky I don’t hit women.”
“You’re lucky I’m not holding my knife.”
He straightens. Doesn’t come closer.
But he doesn’t leave either.
“I came back for you,” he says.
I laugh. It’s loud. Real. Ugly.
“No, you didn’t. You came back because you ran out of people who’d listen to your bullshit.”
“El—”
“Don’t. Don’t say my name like it still belongs to you.”
“You ran.”
“I survived.”
His face shifts. It’s not regret. Tommy doesn’t know what regret looks like. It’s more like frustration—like he’s shocked I didn’t collapse at the sight of him.
“Back then, you didn’t even know who you were.”
“And now I do.”
“You think working in a cage makes you strong?”
“No. But walking away from you did.”
That shuts him up for half a breath.
He glances at the sea like it might offer him an exit.
“You owe me,” he says.
“I don’t owe you shit.”
“I made you—”
“You broke me.”
And I don’t say it like a victim.
I say it like a fact.
Because it is.
Tommy Lucetti broke me in ways I’m still piecing together. But I’m not seventeen anymore. And I’m not taking the fall for his bruised ego.
“You don’t get to come back and play resurrection,” I add. “You’re not a ghost. You’re just a mistake I buried in the dirt.”
He stares.
I stare back.
Then he moves.
Quick.
Hand to my arm.
Reflex fires before memory can stop it.
I elbow him in the ribs, pivot, and plant a boot in his knee.
He drops again, wheezing.
“I’m not yours,” I say, standing over him.
His breath comes ragged. Blood drips from his nose. He glares at me, red-eyed and furious.
“You’re gonna regret this,” he mutters.
“Already did. For years.”
I walk away.
Back toward the end of the pier.
My legs shake by the time I reach the edge.
I grip the rail and breathe through it.
I don’t cry.
I don’t scream.
I just breathe.
Long and deep, until the fog coats my lashes and the sea steals the last of Tommy’s stench from the air.
He’s not a nightmare anymore.
He’s here.
But I’m not that girl.
And he doesn’t get to win.
Then I hear him behind me again.
The shuffle of shoes on wet planks. The breath pulled through teeth. The kind of sound that used to mean run—back then, when I had nowhere to run to.
I whip around.
He’s coming.
Tommy’s eyes burn now. Not confused. Not sad. Just furious.
“You think you’re better than me now?” he snarls, walking fast.
I don’t answer. My hand finds the edge of my chain instead.
“You think some new guy fixes what I did to you?” he spits.
He grabs me again, hard this time—fingers sinking into my upper arm, yanking me toward him like I’m his fucking prize.
I shove him.
Hard.
He grips tighter. My feet skid on the slick wood. I lose ground.
My chain swings between us, catching the first orange hint of sunrise off the steel padlock. It hits his chest with a dull knock. I don’t care. I swing again. He jerks his head back to avoid it, laughing.
“This all you got now?” he says. “Pretty chain and fists?”
My muscles scream under his grip. My heart’s racing. But my eyes are wide open this time.
No flinching.
No freezing.
I don’t beg.
I won’t beg.
And then—he stops breathing.
Not in a poetic way. Not in a slow-drop realization.
I mean, he stops.
His eyes go wide.
His mouth opens.
And a low, choking gasp leaves his throat.
Behind him—Nico.
Blade buried in Tommy’s gut.
Steel deep. No hesitation.
No words.
Just violence.
Tommy starts to scream, but it’s wet. Choked.
Nico steps in closer, one hand gripping Tommy’s shoulder to hold him upright.
"You should’ve stayed dead to her," Nico says, voice flat.
Tommy tries to pull away, but there’s nowhere to go. The blade’s already in. All that’s left is the twist.
Nico gives it.
Tommy screams louder.
It cuts off fast.
Blood splashes onto the boards, hot and thick.
My mouth opens. No sound comes out.
He stumbles once—Tommy—then drops hard. One leg bent wrong under him, hand clutched over his gut. Blood pours between his fingers.
He looks up at me.
"You fucking whore," he wheezes.
Nico doesn’t move.
Then—just to make sure—he plants his boot on Tommy’s chest and pushes. Not hard. Just firm enough that the body stops twitching.
The sound of waves eats the rest.
Everything is still.
I don’t move.
I don’t breathe.
And then—I do.
My chest lurches. A ragged breath finally gets through. It burns.
I look at Nico.
He’s wiping his blade on Tommy’s jacket, methodical, like he’s done it a hundred times.
Maybe he has.
"Why would you do that?" I ask, voice sharp, cracking. "Why now?"
He doesn’t look up yet. Just tosses the jacket aside.
Then he meets my eyes.
"Because you looked at him like he still had power," he says. "I hate that look on you."
I step back.
Only a little.
The boards creak under my heel.
My throat tightens. The chain feels too tight suddenly.
"I didn’t need saving," I say.
He nods. “Good.”
I stare at the body. At the blood soaking into the pier.
“He was already dead to me,” I whisper.
“Then I just made it real.”
I look at him.
His face isn’t soft. It’s not smug either.
It’s just honest.
Like the kill wasn’t about proving anything. Just... ending it.
"You can’t just do things like that," I say.
“I just did.”
I pace once in a tight circle, fists clenched.
"You don’t own me."
“I know.”
I stop. Face him.
"I’m not yours."
He steps closer. Not enough to touch. Just enough for his voice to lower.
“No,” he says. “But maybe we’re not alone in this either.”
The word hits different.
We.
Not possession.
Not a claim.
A tether.
A line drawn in blood.
I don’t give an answer.
Because I don’t have one.
My brain’s still catching up to what just happened. To the years that wrapped themselves around Tommy’s name finally snapping apart in one slice.
He’s dead.
Tommy is dead.
And somehow, I’m still standing.
But the part that makes me want to throw up?
I’m not shocked that he’s gone.
I’m shocked how easy it felt to watch it happen.
And worse—how steady Nico’s presence is now that it’s done.
Like he knew the second he stepped out of the shadows that he’d be the one to end this chapter.
He doesn’t ask if I’m okay.
He doesn’t touch me.
That’s probably why I don’t hit him.
I step toward the rail. Grip it.
Salt coats my fingers.
The sun’s starting to rise behind the gray clouds, turning them peach at the edges. It should feel peaceful.
It doesn’t.
“Was this your plan?” I ask. “To follow me out here and make a scene?”
“I came looking.”
“For me?”
“Yes.”
“Because you thought I was going to fold?”
“No. Because I thought he might come back.”
That stills me.
“Why?”
“I got word.”
I turn.
He watches me calmly.
“You knew he was alive?”
“I knew he was circling.”
“You didn’t think to tell me?”
“I didn’t know how close he’d get.”
I shake my head. Step away again. The world tilts under my feet.
He doesn’t chase.
The chain around my neck clinks as I walk to the edge of the pier.
Tommy’s body is still slumped where it dropped. Blood pooled in the boards, warm in color even as the wind starts to dry it at the edges.
This isn’t a nightmare anymore.
It’s history.
And it’s done.
"You said we’re not alone in this," I say, not turning around. "But I don’t know what this is yet."
“Neither do I.”
We stand like that a long time.
Then I turn.
I face him fully.
He watches me like he always does—direct, unmoved.
"I’m not your girl,” I say.
“You don’t have to be.”
"I don’t fall into lines."
“Good.”
"I don’t want saving."
“I didn’t save you.”
I nod. Once.
Because that’s what’s been throwing me off the whole time.
He didn’t step in because I was in danger.
He stepped in because Tommy didn’t deserve to breathe the same air I did.
Because Nico watched me stare down the past and didn’t like the way it made me look.
Because he sees me like a piece of war equipment, not a damsel. Not a prize.
And somehow, that pisses me off less than I expected.
My chain settles against my chest.
My hands are steady.
But inside?
Inside, everything’s shifting.
Tommy’s dead.
But something worse just started.
And somehow, I think I already signed up for it.