Page 131 of Twisted Vows

My body moves before my mind does, delivering one clean punch to the wall. Plaster cracks, and blood splatters. Though the pain blooming in my fist has nothing on the raging ache in my skull.

I open my fist and stare at the two rings in my palm. I can’t lose control. Not now. Not when everything’s splintering apart and I’m the only thing holding the pieces together through my sheer stubborn refusal to break.

Still, the walls spin, and the city outside keeps buzzing with its usual indifference, millions of people living their lives while mine implodes. Sophia, Dante, Vincent… They’re all gone, each in a different way, each taking a piece of me I’ll never get back.

An ancient, primal rage bubbles up slowly and steadily, like lava rising. Vengeance claws to the surface, demanding blood. The Volkovs lit the fuse when they came after me in that parking garage. Izzy poured salt on the wound with her games and manipulations. But it’s Sophia’s face that scalds my eyelids. Betrayal or illusion, doesn’t matter anymore. The pain’s the same either way.

The phone vibrates again. Marco’s voice comes through, tight and clipped. “Gabi heard about our Volkov run-in. He wants us to stand down. No retaliation yet.”

I laugh once, bitter and biting. Like that’ll stop anything. Like I’ve ever followed orders with this kind of fury singing in my veins.

Outside, the city looks calm, almost peaceful in that way cities do before dawn. Neon seeps through the fog as people walk to work or home, living their clueless little lives.

I press my hand against my wound. Dark red, sticky fluid leaks between my fingers. The authenticity feels good. Better than the hollow ache where my heart used to be. “If you touch her, I destroy everything.” I’m threatening an empty room like a madman.

My pain and heartbreak don’t disappear. They mutate into a blade, sharp and holy in its violence. Sophia might’ve betrayed me, or maybe the world just lied too well. Either way, someone will bleed for this.

I can’t finish the thought because it’s too difficult to reconcile the woman who looked at me like I hung the stars with someone who’d destroy Dante. I’d believed my brother died because of her father’s testimony, not hers.

My chest aches, my eyes stinging as I grind the heels of my palms against them until I see spots.

The rage and grief tangle so tightly, I can’t tell which is which. I loved her. Even knowing what her family cost mine, I loved her. And now this.

She left…disappeared, and whether she turned on me or someone set her up doesn’t matter much. I’ve still lost her.

The rings catch the light again where they fell on the floor, glinting faintly in a pool of half-dried blood.

I pick them up and hold them tightly until the metal bites into my skin.

To hell with Gabi and his instructions. I’ve lost all reason for caution.

Tomorrow, the hunt for Sophia begins.

Chapter 27

Sophia

I sit still in the dull, colorless morning, staring at the dust filtering through the blinds and how light slices strips across the floor. I’ve returned to the apartment Enzo quietly kept for me, grateful he paid up for a year “just in case” even though I hated the implication at the time.

The air smells faintly of candle wax. I lit one to see last night. Half-open boxes lean against the walls, filled with the life I lost just a couple of months ago. Feels like decades now.

The phone sits face down beside me. Every few minutes, my fingers hover over his contact. Enzo. The name looks wrong now, out of place. Messages form and dissolve on the screen.

Where are you?

I didn’t mean to leave like that.

Please, tell me it’s not true.

I hit delete over and over again, each tap like pulling stitches apart.

The silence carries the weight of words unspoken, of things that should have been said but never were. Now it’s too late. The apartment feels smaller than it ever has, the walls pressing in like they’re trying to suffocate me, which is ironic, considering I came here to breathe.

The villa was a glass cage where at least I could see the bars. This is a coffin of memories that won’t let me forget, rest, or pretend I’m fine. The kind of restlessness that demands motion crawls under my skin. So, I start rearranging my stuff. I push the bookshelf about two inches to the left. Then scrape the table across the floor to exactly the right spot. A pointless ritual. The illusion of control. The rhythmic, mindless echo of wood against tile fills the silence.

A photograph catches the light. My class from Little Scholars. Twenty smiling faces stare back, paper crowns on their heads, crayon hearts floating behind them. That picture feels like a postcard from a life that belonged to someone else. The gentle version of Miss Martinelli. The woman who believed love could soften monsters.

“I’ll go back.” Back to teaching. Back to a clean life. But the declaration sounds thin, like a lie recited too often. After Enzo, after the graves and the guns, there’s no going back. There’s only after.