And Atlas—the strongest bastard I knew—was bleeding out beside him.
The world shifted.It darkened.It hardened.Losing the light it once knew.
I retrieved a blanket and pulled it over Alessio’s body, smoothing it once, even though he couldn’t feel a damn thing.My hands wouldn’t stop trembling.Shock, grief, adrenaline - I don’t know.Nothing mattered now that he was gone.
I turned back to Atlas.I dropped beside him, pressed my palm to his neck again, harder this time, terrified I imagined a pulse.It was faint, thready.But it was there.
“Hold on,” I breathed, the words scraping out of me.“For Alessio.For all of us.”
I pushed to my feet, but the room tilted with me.My eyes burned, vision blurring around the edges.My throat felt raw, like I swallowed glass.There was a pressure in my chest that almost knocked me back down.
My heart wasn’t just beating - it was cracking wide open.Splintering under the weight of everything we’d lost.Everything that was still on the line.And for the first time tonight, I wasn’t sure who I was trying to save anymore… Atlas, or what was left of myself.
41
Marcello
Gianni’s voice sounded all wrong when I answered his call.He hadn’t been tense or irritated.Just… empty.A hollowed-out version of the man I trusted with my life.
“Where are you?”he asked, the words tight enough to snap.
“With Maya,” I muttered, scrubbing lipstick off my cheek with the back of my hand.“Why?”
“You need to come to the penthouse.”
I scoffed.“Gianni, can it wait?I’m?—”
“No.”
One word.Flat.Cold.Absolute.No, it could not wait.
The silence that followed burned everything in its wake.Something ancient and primal went still in my chest.
“Atlas?”I forced out, already knowing I wouldn’t like the answer.
Another silence.Longer.Deeper.It slithered into my bones.
When Gianni finally spoke, his voice was a whisper, scraped raw as he tried to release it.
“Marcello… it’s Alessio.”
My pulse stopped.A full, dead halt.My hand lost feeling around the phone.
“What about Alessio?”
The words scraped out of me.Barely recognisable.Hardly sane.
Gianni exhaled, and it sounded like something that resembled darkness and ruin.Something in his voice was shaky, fractured.He wasn’t the type to break for anything, but he broke now.
“Come now,” he murmured.
The world lurched sideways.My vision tunneled.My knees buckled, and I drove a hand against the wall to stay upright.The hallway swam.My heartbeat was violent, stabbing up into my throat.
No.
No.
No.