Page 26 of Jude

What I craved was infinite love, with a woman I couldn’t quite see in my head.

Now Abby was back, beating down my door.

Yet hesitation kept me from responding.

The question remained: Was I worthy of her now that my face was plastered on billboards across Times Square?

Did her parents now think fondly of me because Six Sinners were racking up millions of digital streams and selling out arenas?

The sudden rush of attention from them felt transactional.

Now that the press was calling us a cultural phenomenon, I was, in Abby’s eyes, prime dating material.

My right hand lifted to my chest, my calloused fingers wrapping around the silver Aquila del Bonelli eagle pendant hanging from a leather cord on my neck.

I rubbed the silver orb as I wrestled with the direction of my life.

Was Abby part of that future?

‘You’re overthinking this again, Judah,’ I muttered to myself.

Was I really, though?

I didn’t want a trophy or a gold-digger leech who craved the spotlight.

I needed a real woman.

Someone solid enough to stand with me through my storms, someone who wanted me stripped bare, not the c-notes in my bank account.

With a grunt, I locked my phone screen and tossed the device onto the side table.

Pursing my lips, I picked up Grace, choosing the honest song of her strings over the pings of my ex’s texts.

Chapter 7

SOFIA, 18 years ago

Torrential rain pounded our corrugated tin roof for three straight days before the earth finally gave way.

I lay huddled under a woolen blanket with my parents as we woke to an almighty roar.

‘The ridge is shifting!’ my father roared over the deafening rattle of the downpour. ‘Get the girl, Elena! Move! We have to escape, now!’

Seconds later, a sickening, deep groan from the terrain turned the mountainside of the Aspromonte into a sliding wall of mud.

We plunged into a raging, turbulent current that swept us down the canyon like discarded twigs.

The roaring brown waters of the river burst through the valley, ripping our fragile home off its foundations in a matter of moments.

‘Hold on to me!’ my mother shrieked as the floorboards disintegrated beneath us.

The freezing water choked the breath out of my throat, dragging me under until my lungs burned.

‘I’ve got you, piccolina!’

My father’s strong hand shot through the foam, his fingers clamping onto my wrist with a desperate grip.

His knuckles turned white as he fought the debris, his shoulders straining against the pull of the river to keep my head above the surface.