Chapter 28
Sabine
I couldn't feel emotions anymore. The cold from the solarium tile had seeped through my clothes, numbing everything. My body had reached its limit. I needed to move.
My legs screamed as I pushed myself up. My right ankle throbbed with each heartbeat, and I wondered if it would ever fully heal. I steadied myself against the wall, waiting for the room to stop tilting.
The great room spread before me, bathed in moonlight. Ellie and Kara sat on the bench outside the solarium door, their silhouettes dark against the pale walls. They'd been watching me for hours. Guarding me. Waiting.
I walked past them, eyes fixed on some invisible point ahead. Kara shifted, leaning forward. Ellie's mouth opened.
"Sabine, we should talk about—"
Their words dissolved into meaningless sound. I kept moving, one foot in front of the other. Nothing they could say mattered now. Mark was dead. I had killed him with my article.
The stairs loomed ahead. Each step was a mountain to climb. My hand gripped the banister, knuckles white. Halfway up, my vision blurred. I paused, swallowed hard. Kept going.
The hallway stretched endlessly. My bedroom door seemed miles away. When I finally reached it, my fingers fumbled with the handle.
Inside, I didn't bother with lights or change clothes. I didn't even pull back the covers. I fell onto the bed, still wearing my shoes and stained with tears and grief. My body sank into the mattress like it would never rise again.
Sleep came like a thief, stealing away consciousness before I could fight it off.
I woke to sunlight stabbing through the window. For one blessed moment, I existed in the limbo between sleep and consciousness, free from memory. Then reality crashed back. Mark was dead.
The weight of it pinned me to the mattress. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe under the crushing pressure of what I'd done. My mouth felt like sandpaper, my head throbbed, and my stomach twisted with a hunger I had no intention of satisfying.
A soft knock broke the silence.
"Sabine? I brought breakfast." Ellie's voice was gentle, cautious. Like she was approaching a wounded animal. "I'm leaving it outside the door."
Her footsteps retreated down the hallway. I stared at the ceiling, counting the tiny imperfections in the paint. One crack. Two water stains. Three spidery lines where the plaster had separated slightly.
The sound of the tray touching the floor outside my door barely registered. I should have felt something—gratitude, annoyance, anything—but there was only emptiness where emotions should have been.
Minutes passed. Maybe hours. Time had lost all meaning.
Eventually, I dragged myself from the bed and opened the door. The tray sat there, mocking me with its normalcy. Scrambled eggs, still steaming. Toast with butter melting into the surface. Coffee in a blue ceramic mug, the one I'd used yesterday morning when the world made sense.
I closed the door without taking it and returned to bed.
The television flickered in my memory. Mark's face on the screen.
The news anchor's voice, clinical and detached: "Mr. Robeson's death marks the third killing potentially linked to Ms. Barrett's explosive exposé of the Bellante crime family.
" The camera panning over the crime scene. Alex’s voice. "They remove the right hand."
I pressed my palms against my eyes until stars exploded behind my eyelids. I had done this. My article. My investigation. My trust in Alex—in Dom. My fault. All of it, my fault.
I couldn't stay in the bedroom. Every corner was under the watchful eye of their cameras.
I was haunted by memories of the four of us tangled together, of the violation of my every move being watched.
I wandered down the hall until I found the library with its deep window seat and shelves of Isabella's books.
I picked up the thinnest volume, hoping the words might pull me away from myself. The pages fell open to something about birds and sky. I tried to focus, but the letters swam before my eyes, rearranging themselves into nonsense.
Heavy footsteps approached in the hallway. Cam. I recognized her walk now. She entered without knocking, a tray balanced in her large hands. She set it on the small table beside me without a word. Our eyes met briefly before I looked away. She left as silently as she'd arrived.
The tray held a sandwich cut into precise triangles, a bowl of tomato soup with a swirl of cream on top, and a tall glass of water with lemon.
Someone had taken care with it. I lifted half the sandwich and took a small bite.
The bread stuck in my throat. I couldn't swallow, couldn't eat. I wouldn't.
The afternoon sun shifted across the floor as I stared out at the swaying trees.
The world kept turning while Mark lay cold.
Birds flew. Clouds moved. And I sat trapped in this house with people who had watched me, lied to me.
I couldn't leave because of the Bellantes.
I couldn't stay because of the cameras, the lies.
The light faded from the library windows, but I didn't bother turning on the lamp. Darkness suited me better. The sandwich on my lunch tray had dried at the edges, the soup congealed into something unrecognizable. I traced patterns in the condensation on the untouched water glass.
A soft knock broke the silence. The door opened before I could pretend to be asleep.
Ellie stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the hall light, a new tray balanced in her hands. Her eyes fell to the untouched lunch, and her mouth tightened into a thin line.
"Sabine, you need to eat something." Her voice was gentle but firm.
I kept my gaze fixed on the darkness beyond the window, where trees swayed as black shapes against a blacker sky. My stomach had stopped growling hours ago.
"Please. Just... something small."
The silence stretched between us like a living thing. I could feel her waiting, hoping for some response. I gave her nothing.
Finally, she sighed. She gathered the old tray, set down the new one, and left. The door clicked shut behind her.
I tried to stand, but the room tilted violently. My hands gripped the window seat, knuckles white, fingers trembling. My head pounded with each heartbeat. My body was screaming for food, for water, for mercy.
My mind didn't care.
I made it back to my bedroom somehow. The journey was a blur of hallway walls and careful steps. The dinner tray remained in the library, another monument to my refusal.
I collapsed onto the mattress, staring at the ceiling. Sleep wouldn't come, though exhaustion weighed on me like wet concrete.
Sleep claimed me at some point, and when I woke, grey dawn light filtered through the curtains. My mouth felt like I'd swallowed sand, my tongue thick and useless. The ceiling above me tilted slightly, though I hadn't moved.
I dragged myself from the bed, bracing against the wall when the room spun. The hallway stretched before me, impossibly long. I made it to the library on unsteady legs, collapsing into the window seat.
Kara appeared in the doorway, silent as always. She carried a tray with toast, scrambled eggs, and a glass of water with lemon. Her eyes met mine, unflinching. She set the tray down and left without a word.
The water called to me. My body screamed for it. I reached out, my hand trembling so badly I nearly knocked the glass over. The cool liquid hit my parched throat, and I drank half before setting it down. But the food remained untouched. I couldn't even think of food without feeling sick.
My vision blurred at the edges when I stood again. I gripped the bookshelf, waiting for the world to stop spinning. From somewhere downstairs, I heard their voices. Muffled conversations. The clink of dishes. Coffee brewing. Life continuing as if nothing had happened.
I moved through the house like a ghost, trailing my fingers along the wall for support. Bedroom to library to bedroom. Avoiding them all. My legs felt disconnected from my body, moving without instruction. My thoughts swam through molasses, slow and sticky with grief.
They lived and breathed and moved through their day. And I haunted the edges, fading with each passing hour.
Cam brought another tray in the afternoon. I watched her set it down and leave without a word. The sandwich looked like something from a magazine, perfectly cut triangles with crisp lettuce peeking out the sides. My stomach clenched, a traitor. I turned away.
The window seat had become my world. Beyond the glass, trees swayed in the breeze, their branches reaching toward an iron fence I couldn't see but knew was there. Prison walls never needed to be visible to do their job.
I pressed my forehead against the cool glass. When had I last eaten? Yesterday? The day before? Time blurred like watercolors left in the rain.
My body felt hollow, a paper lantern with the light going out. I knew I should eat. The logical part of my brain whispered that starvation wouldn't solve anything, wouldn't bring Mark back, wouldn't erase the betrayal. But logic had no place in grief.
Because eating meant accepting their care. Accepting their care meant forgiving their lies. I couldn't. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
I tried to stand, thinking I might return to my room, but the library tilted violently. I grabbed the bookshelf, knuckles white against mahogany. Black spots danced at the edges of my vision. I sank back into the window seat, breath coming in shallow gasps.
The house felt empty though I knew they were there. Shadows moving through rooms. Ghosts watching a ghost. Or maybe I was the only ghost, fading a little more with each refused meal.
My fingers trembled as I traced patterns on the glass. The trees outside blurred. I blinked, trying to clear my vision, but the darkness at the edges remained, creeping inward like spilled ink.
I knew what was happening. My body was shutting down while my mind waged war against itself. Eat and live. Refuse and... what? Prove a point no one would remember?
I closed my eyes. The room spun behind my eyelids.
Footsteps approached the library, different from before. Not the hesitant tread I'd grown accustomed to, but something purposeful, determined. The floor seemed to vibrate with each step.
Ellie stood in the doorway, her silhouette sharp against the hall light. Her eyes scanned me, taking in what I already knew: hollow eyes, trembling hands, the untouched tray standing by like archaeological evidence of my refusal.
Something shifted in her face. The gentle caretaker vanished, replaced by something harder, more clinical. Her shoulders squared.
"Sabine. Downstairs. Now."
Three words. No question mark. No room for negotiation.
I opened my mouth to refuse, but my mind felt wrapped in cotton. The words wouldn't form. My body had nothing left to fuel defiance.
I tried to stand. The room tilted violently, bookshelves sliding sideways in my vision. My knees buckled.
Ellie moved faster than I could track, her hand catching my elbow. I felt her strength through the grip, steady and unwavering. For the first time in days, something solid existed in my spinning world.
I should have pulled away. Should have shrugged off her touch, maintained the wall between us.
I didn't.
Her fingers remained on my arm as the room slowly righted itself. A tether to reality when everything else seemed determined to slip away.