Chapter 13 Amber
AMBER
The walk home gives me too much time to think.
The docks are quieter at night. Which doesn’t mean safer, it just means emptier. The streetlights flicker like they’re tired of doing their job, and the water smells sharp and metallic when the wind shifts.
It wasn’t like this when I was growing up. The docks were always a little shifty, but no more dangerous than anywhere else for a woman coming back home at night. Things got worse after Coral’s disappearance, though. As if she was the glue holding the city together as well as my family.
Gangs began seeping in. Russian, mostly. They keep to themselves if you keep to yourself, but lately, they’ve been spreading past the docks. There’s more of them now, even here. It would be smarter for me to move.
But I can’t afford it. Not without selling the apartment.
And I won’t do that. I won’t give up the last solid thing I have—the last place Coral was happy and my family was whole—just because the city decided to rot around it.
So I walk.
My thoughts drift back to the pub. To Giovanni’s calm voice, the way he listens like he’s filing every word away. I try not to linger on the way his hand felt when he shook on our deal, or how his eyes soften for half a second before he remembers himself.
I fail.
The thirst sneaks up on me anyway. It’s stupid and inconvenient and entirely unwelcome, but there it is. The competence. The authority. The way he doesn’t posture or brag or try to impress me. The way he never once talked down to me, even when he absolutely could have.
I shake my head at myself.
This is how people get hurt, Amber. This is how people get lost.
Still, the fact that he offered to help with Coral matters. I don’t let myself imagine outcomes. I don’t let myself picture miracles. But knowing someone is willing to look, to really look, not just nod sympathetically and move on, does something to me.
Maybe I misjudged him.
Or maybe he’s exactly what I thought he was, and I’m just tired and grasping at straws.
Either way, until I see Rose alive and well with my own eyes, I’m not quitting. I can’t afford to. Not again. I can’t lose another person I love.
The building looms ahead of me, concrete and tired, graffiti crawling up the side like it’s trying to escape. I fumble with my keys, irritation flaring when I drop them, then curse under my breath and scoop them up.
The door opens too easily.
That’s the first wrong thing.
The second hits me all at once.
The smell.
Not rot. Not smoke. Just… wrong. Like dust kicked up where it shouldn’t be, mixed with something chemical and sharp. My pulse spikes.
“Hello?” I call, hating how small my voice sounds.
No answer.
I step inside.
The living room looks like a bomb went off.
The couch is overturned, cushions slashed and spilling stuffing like exposed organs. The coffee table is cracked clean through. A lamp lies shattered on the floor, glass crunching under my shoe when I move.
“Oh my God,” I whisper.
I don’t stop to think. I don’t call the police. I don’t back out the door like a sane person would.
I run forward.
Down the hall. Past the bathroom, its mirror shattered. Past my bedroom, drawers pulled out and dumped onto the floor. I don’t slow until I reach the end.
Coral’s room.
The door hangs crooked on its hinges.
I push it open and feel something inside me rip.
The bed is destroyed, mattress sliced open. The desk is splintered, books torn apart, pages ripped and scattered like confetti. The box where I kept her things—bracelets, photos, old ticket stubs—is smashed, contents gone or shredded beyond recognition.
Years of memories.
Gone.
I stagger forward, my knees giving out as I sink to the floor. My hands shake as I pick up a scrap of paper, a corner of a photograph I recognize by the edge of her smile.
“No,” I breathe. “No, no, no—”
Then I see it.
Spray-painted above the door, red and dripping like it was done in a hurry.
STOP LOOKING.
The letters are uneven, angry. A warning.
My chest caves in.
I scream.
The sound tears out of me, raw and ugly, and then I’m folding in on myself, arms over my head, rocking like that might make it all disappear.
I can’t breathe. I can’t think. The room spins, and then I’m falling, falling—
Someone catches me.
I flinch violently, a sob snagging in my throat, but strong arms wrap around me, pulling me close before I can bolt.
“Amber,” a voice says. Low. Familiar. “It’s okay.”
I know that voice.
Giovanni.
He cradles me against his chest, one hand firm at the back of my head, the other wrapped around my shoulders like he’s anchoring me to something solid.
“It’s okay, gemma mia,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you.”
The words undo me completely.
I clutch at his coat, fingers digging in like he might disappear if I don’t hold on hard enough. My body shakes with sobs I can’t control, my face pressed against him, breathing in leather and something dark and clean.
He doesn’t tell me to calm down, doesn’t tell me to breathe. He just holds me.
I don’t know how long it lasts. Minutes. Seconds. Forever. I can’t tell.
Eventually, the world starts to creep back into focus. The wreckage. The red letters. The echo of my scream ringing in my ears.
“They were here,” I choke. “They were here because of me.”
Giovanni’s jaw tightens. I feel it under my cheek.
“This isn’t your fault,” he says.
“They’re watching me,” I whisper. “I ruined everything.”
“No,” he says again, more forceful this time. “They made a mistake.”
I pull back just enough to look at him. His expression is carved from stone, eyes dark and burning with something dangerous.
“What mistake?” I ask.
“Touching you.”
The room suddenly feels very small.
Somewhere in the distance, sirens wail. Or maybe that’s just my blood rushing in my ears.
I cling to him anyway, because right now, he’s the only thing between me and the dark.