Page 123 of King Of Order

I’d been so blinded by my need to confess. I’d wanted to rage, to express my grief and why I’d targeted her family. I’d distanced myself from our recent love, acted like a bully, and stripped all humanity in my interaction with her.

Now, she’d shut down as a result.

I had no idea what to do. I was out of my depth for the first time in a long time.

The woman who always challenged, fought for, and blissed me out was gone, replaced by a face etched with an eerie stillness, this inanimate shell of a person.

Her hands lay limp in her lap, her legs still in the exact position.

When I spoke to and touched her, she did not react. It was as if she were unreachable in a world far from me.

But it was her eyes that haunted me.

Her amber eyes were looking dead ahead, lifeless, empty, unseeing.

It was enough to cut through to my soul.

After trying again to reach her, I rose to my feet and tracked to the sliding doors of Chiara’s living space.

I pushed them open and jogged to the guest quarters.

I burst into the room to see Mauri in the sitting room, eyes slicing away from the blaring TV where a basketball game was playing, to me.

‘I need you, brother.’

He knifed up and followed me back to the main house.

I ran to her side at full tilt, heart pounding.

I knelt beside her and tried once more to reach her.

I stroked her face and called her name several times.

Still, she gazed dazed straight ahead, her eyes hollow, her face slack.

Mauri thundered in behind me.

‘Fratello, I don’t know what to do,’ I whispered, my voice rough with guilt. ‘She’s not, she’s not here. It’s like she’s gone.’

Mauri placed a hand on my shoulder. ‘What the hell happened?’

I gave him a quick rundown.

He pursed his lips.

‘Is she shaking, in a fever?’

‘She’s not visibly sick. Perhaps exhausted?’

I shrugged, panic flooding my limbs, my heart and soul in chaos.

CHIARA

I couldn’t speak.

The words wouldn’t come.

Time passed—it could’ve been minutes or hours; I had no concept of time.

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