Page 57 of Borrowed Bride

“Was that you?”

My jaw tenses. “No.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Then why ask me?”

“Marco.” She turns to me, placing a weak hand on my cheek. “You know she wouldn’t want this.”

“I have no fucking clue what she would want because she’s not here, is she.”

“I know she wouldn’t want you to lose yourself to anger, to this terrible war. You know as well as I do that she would be horrified to learn how many people we’ve lost to this.”

“I care about none of them,” I say tightly, and the burn of alcohol in my throat thankfully keeps my emotions at bay. “Mom. You. Fawn. I couldn’t take another. I couldn’t. And now she’s gone, and I don’t have any more pieces to slot back into myself. So this is it. This is my final hurrah.”

“You talk like you are the one dying,” she says and her eyes sparkle with unshed tears. “I hate to see you in pain.”

“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” I lie. “I’m at peace with this choice.”

“You have never known peace.” Emilia shakes her head, and when she closes her eyes, tears leak down her cheeks.

She is all I have left. The only softness that survives this terrible life. I’m at the edge, my sanity teetering over an abyss as grief consumes me daily. And when Emilia takes her last breath, I know I will be right there with her.

Deep down, I’m tired.

I’m tired of losing the people I care about. Even Fawn—as much as I hate her guts now, herdeathwas very real to me as a teenager. I’m tired of fighting for survival. I’m tired of not being able to save my heart.

“Come on,” I say softly, wrapping one arm around Emilia’s frail shoulders. “Back to bed. I don’t want you catching a chill.”

“I told you,” Emilia sniffles. “I don’t feel the cold.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s a bad thing.” With her tucked under my arm, I slowly guide her back to her bedroom. Each step is slow, and with it my drunken thoughts stumble over oneanother. I drink so that I don’t drown over the countlesswhat-ifsthat swarm me each night, and so I don’t have to feel the pain each time my broken heart yearns for a woman who was ripped away from me.

Five years is a long time, and yet no time at all in my world.

Easing Emilia back into bed, I kiss her forehead and tuck her up as tightly as I can. “Do you need anything?”

“Just my brother back,” she says sadly, patting my cheek.

“When I have Leonardo and Fawn’s heads on a platter, I will be back.”

It’s not the most satisfying answer but it is the truth. Distantly, I hear a knock at the door and tension immediately tightens across my shoulders. Only a scarce few people know that we are here, so a visitor is never a good sign.

“Sleep,” I soothe Emilia. “You need to gather your strength.”

She rolls her eyes, but they close a moment later and she falls fast asleep within seconds. Such a short walk to the balcony really exhausted her. I kiss her forehead, then slip from the room and close the door quietly behind me just as my father passes me in the hall.

“Who was at the door?” I ask, noting that no one has joined us and he has nothing in his hands.

“What? Nothing. No one.” My father vanishes into the lounge, leaving me alone in the hallway and a spark of suspicion ignites in my mind. There’s no way it was no one. This building is thought to be abandoned so it wouldn’t have been a salesman or a neighbor. There’s only one reason we would get visitors, so why would my father act like it was nothing?

Is he trying to hide something about Leonardo from me?

Grumbling to myself, I storm into my own room and seek out my tablet. In a few taps, I pull up the security system and it only takes a few seconds for me to pull up the cameras on the exterior of the building.

My heart jumps into my throat as a familiar figure I haven’t seen in years flashes across the screen, hurrying across the street and into the night.

Tara.

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