Page 102 of Sin & Secrets

“You’re dead to me,” she repeats. Her words somehow cut even deeper than before.

I cling to her hand as I fall to my knees, not caring that I’m kneeling in a dead man’s blood. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

She pulls her arm from my grasp, and I fall onto my hands before her. It feels like my heart has been carved from my chest.

“Don’t try to find me.”

“Please,” I beg. The word spills out over and over again. The tightness in my chest suffocates me as I hyperventilate.

I can’t lose her. I can’t. How can I live with myself? How can I breath without her? I’d do anything. Anything. Please. Don’t go. Please.

But when I finally gather my courage to look up at her again, Cassandra Bellini is nowhere to be found.

26

CASSANDRA

Everything is numb.

Everything I’ve ever felt seems like something distant and intangible. Like I’m somehow suspended underwater while life continues above me, entirely unreachable.

All I can focus on is putting one foot in front of the other. The city streets are cast in gray light as the early hours of the morning creep in.

I’m freezing. I know this because everything is shaking. Because I’m still only wearing this stupid black dress, walking around in the cold.

But none of the bleary-eyed morning commuters seem to bat an eyelid. Nor do they seem to care about the blood splattered across my legs and arms.

Claudio’s blood.

It had been like unlocking a door to the darkest part of me. A part that I’d sealed shut my entire life for fear of what it might mean.

But knowing who my father was, what my family had been…

I am a daughter of the mafia. And in that moment, between aiming and pulling the trigger, I dug deep into that part ofmyself, barely flinching at the recoil as the bullet had found its home in Claudio’s chest.

I want to feel remorse for it. I want to feel anything at all for it. But from the moment I saw Claudio pulling a gun on Rocco, everything had shut down. It was as if my body instinctively knew it needed to put me in this numb, self-preservation mode.

Someone bumps into my shoulder as I navigate across the next block of unfamiliar houses. The jerk causes my ankle to flash in pain.

Where the hell even am I?

I’ve been on autopilot since Rocco got down on his knees and begged me to stay.

I slow at the next intersection to read the street sign. Brighton.

I’ve been here before—my second day in Brooklyn. It seems so long ago now, but I still remember the address.

It’s the same address I’ve been writing to these last few years, ever since she moved out of her parents’ place.

It takes me twenty minutes to orient myself and find it, counting the doors until I reach the small apartment complex.

“Mia? It’s me.” My voice is hoarse as I speak into the intercom.

I don’t even know if she’s here. But a second later, the front door buzzes open.

I step into the familiar foyer and make my way up to the second floor.

Mandy is already halfway down the corridor when I get there; her apartment door flung open further down the hall.

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