The city is a river of lights below. I stare out, trying to find a piece of sky that isn’t already contaminated by the memory of her voice.
Lucy finds me there. I hear the soft pad of her bare feet before she even speaks. “She’s a hurricane,” she says, quietly, coming up behind me.
“She’s a Morrone,” I correct, but even I hear the pride in it.
She slips her arms around my waist, head resting between my shoulder blades. “Tell me what happened.”
I tell her everything. I describe Anton’s hand, the velvet booths, and Carina’s wild laughter. I admit how I wanted to punish her and hurt every man who saw her the way I did in that dress.
“She hates me,” I finish. “And she’s right to. But I’m trying to keep her alive.”
Lucy is silent for a moment, then she turns me around. Her eyes are blue, not like Carina’s, but icy, analytical. I can feel her reading the loopholes in my story, trying to untangle the knots I won’t admit.
“She doesn’t hate you,” Lucy says, brushing her thumb along my jaw. “She’s trying to break your curse.”
I laugh, bitter. “She can’t.”
“That’s why she’s trying.” Then softer, “You can’t protect everyone by cutting out their hearts before the world does.”
I look at her—really look at her. She’s so small, so impossibly tender, and yet when she looks at me, I feel sick and clean and wanted all at once.
“I don’t want her to die in some alley,” I say. “I don’t want to bury my daughter.”
Lucy nods. “Then show her why you fight so hard. Not just what you’re fighting against.”
I realize this is why the world feels empty, but this woman feels like home, beautiful even when things are hard.
I kiss her, and she gasps into my mouth.
We lose ourselves for a while, her hands at my collar, mine in her hair, until a crash from the other end of the apartment pulls us back. It’s Carina again. I hear glass breaking, then a string of loud curses.
“We should go,” Lucy says.
I want to say no, to keep her here and let the world burn around us, but I pull away. “I’m sorry,” I say. “For all of it.”
She shakes her head. “Never apologize for wanting to save your daughter.”
I nod, but the thought stays with me: I’m not sure what I want to save Carina from. The world? Myself? Or the fact that every man she meets will know how she acts when she’s desperate for love.
I find Carina in the kitchen, barefoot, hair wild, rage evaporating off her like mist. There’s a broken tumbler in the sink, whiskey pooling around the shards.
“You want something to drink?” she asks, not looking at me, fishing another glass from the cabinet.
“How long?” I ask.
She pours two fingers of bourbon and slams it back before answering. “Since November.”
“Does your mother know?”
She sets the empty glass down with a delicate little clink. “Does it matter?”
I sit beside her at the marble island, our knees nearly touching. “He’s no good for you.”
Carina looks at me, and in the flicker of her lashes, I see something like hope. “He treats me like I’m the one with all the power. I like that.”
I exhale, long and slow. “He’s using you.”
She shrugs. “He’s the only one not pretending otherwise.”